The Empathy Exams Read Online Free PDF Page A

time I met with Dr. M., she began our encounters with a few perfunctory questions about my life— What are you working on these days? —and when she left the room to let me dress, I could hear her voice speaking into a tape recorder in the hallway: Patient is a graduate student in English at Yale. Patient is writing a dissertation on addiction. Patient spent two years living in Iowa. Patient is working on a collection of essays. And then, without fail, at the next appointment, fresh from listening to her old tape, she bullet-pointed a few questions: How were those two years in Iowa? How’s that collection of essays?
    It was a strange intimacy, almost embarrassing, to feel the mechanics of her method so palpable between us: engage the patient, record the details, repeat. I was sketched into CliffsNotes. I hated seeing the puppet strings; they felt unseemly—and without kindness in her voice, the mechanics meant nothing. They pretended we knew each other rather than acknowledging that we didn’t. It’s a tension intrinsic to the surgeon-patient relationship: it’s more invasive than anything but not intimate at all.
    Now I can imagine another kind of tape—a more naked, stuttering tape; a tape that keeps correcting itself, that messes up its dance steps:
    Patient is here for an abortion for a surgery to burn the bad parts of her heart for a medication to fix her heart because the surgery failed. Patient is staying in the hospital for one night three nights five nights until we get this medication right. Patient wonders if people can bring her booze in the hospital likes to eat graham crackers from the nurses’ station. Patient cannot be released until she runs on a treadmill and her heart prints a clean rhythm. Patient recently got an abortion but we don’t understand why she wanted us to know that. Patient didn’t think she hurt at first but then she did. Patient failed to use protection and failed to provide an adequate account of why she didn’t use protection. Patient had a lot of feelings. Partner of patient had the feeling she was making up a lot of feelings. Partner of patient is supportive. Partner of patient is spotted in patient’s hospital bed, repeatedly. Partner of patient is caught kissing patient. Partner of patient is charming.
    Patient is angry disappointed angry her procedure failed. Patient does not want to be on medication. Patient wants to know if she can drink alcohol on this medication. She wants to know how much. She wants to know if two bottles of wine a night is too much if she can get away with a couple of glasses. Patient does not want to get another procedure if it means risking a pacemaker. Patient wants everyone to understand that this surgery is isn’t a big deal; wants everyone to understand she is stupid for crying when everyone else on the ward is sicker than she is; wants everyone to understand her abortion is also about definitely not about the children her ex-boyfriends have had since she broke up with them. Patient wants everyone to understand it wasn’t a choice it would have been easier if it hadn’t been a choice. Patient understands it was her choice to drink while she was pregnant. She understands it was her choice to go to a bar with a little plastic box hanging from her neck, and get so drunk she messed up her heart graph. Patient is patients, plural, meaning she is multiple—mostly grateful but sometimes surly, sometimes full of self-pity. Patient already understands is trying hard to understand she needs to listen up if she wants to hear how everyone is caring for her.
    Three men waited for me in the hospital during my surgery: my brother and my father and Dave. They sat in the lounge making awkward conversation, and then in the cafeteria making awkward conversation, and then—I’m not sure where they sat, actually, or in what order, because I wasn’t there. But I do know that while they were sitting in the cafeteria a doctor came to find them and told them that