An
excerpt from “How to sell yourself”
“If
surgery is scheduled for that afternoon, I do everything I can to put the
patient at her ease and to make sure she is relaxed. Thant includes having her
family on hand if possible, and it certainly includes letting her husband be
very near the operating room.
In
the operating room itself I do something that very few doctors do. I stay with
the patient in the operating room before and after. Before surgery, I hold her
hand while she is being put to sleep. The patient gets an additional sense of
security out of that, knowing that you are right there. You know, many patients
have a fear, a real anxiety that someone else is going to do the surgery. But
if you are there, reassuring them, they relax and go to sleep easily and
without any difficulty with anaesthetic. All those little things really help me
sell myself to them.
“Then,
post-operatively, I see the patient at least a couple a couple of times a
day-morning and afternoon- even on my so-called days off. I come in a cheerful
‘good morning’ singing and whistling, and with a line that works for me, such
as ‘rise and shine, Buttercup, here comes sunshine himself’”......
PS: As I read through these lines, I was reflecting
how many of us are like him, tries to like him.
