The Power of Connecting with Diverse Patients: Expanding Perspectives in Medicine

18 Feb 2024 · 1 min

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This content was created by Charles Cormier. This content was uploaded by Charles Cormier. This is a YouTube video titled "The Power of Connecting with Diverse Patients: Expanding Perspectives in Medicine" (created 2024-02-18). The excerpt is a first-person reflection/monologue from a speaker (a medical trainee) describing why they value working with patients—how interacting with a socioeconomically and demographically diverse patient population during a psychiatry clerkship at Johns Hopkins broadened their perspective beyond the tech bubble. The speaker contrasts typical tech-world demographics with patients such as an 80-year-old carpenter and a 24-year-old sleeping on the subway and addicted to fentanyl, and describes wanting to be a compassionate listener while they train to provide medical help.

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And my why is patience. I love interacting with patients. They are. It's so interesting to meet such a diverse group of people because being in the tech bubble, you can meet a lot of cool and interesting people, but generally they're all college educated. They're all making, you know, 50 to 250k, you know, give or take. So all higher socioeconomic status and, you know, generally are, you know, youngish, 20 to 40 year old, maybe 50. And so I was getting a little too comfortable, like my slice of society was getting too narrow. Whereas patients at Hopkins, you know, you can meet an 80 year old who's had a long life as a, as a carpenter, you know, 50 years, carpentry or whatever. One of my patients in my psychiatry clerkship literally slept on the subway, 24 years old, abandoned my family, addicted to fentanyl, you know, so, you know, I would never meet this person like that and let alone be able to help them, if at a minimum, as a kind pair of ears until I can get better trained to actually help them medically. So I think that was the main north star of it.