I must admit I feel a bit of a twinge when I see some of the talk about therapists and doctors in here, and I almost feel guilty coming here. It makes me glad that I am still a student because in a way I feel somewhat off the hook... but... seeing how much trust and at the same time how little trust people have in what I chose to be always makes me nervous and question whether or not I will ever become one of those "bad" doctors. When someone opens up to me in the clinic, I am on the one hand honored that they felt they could do so... but on the other terrified that because I don't know them and because I lack experience I might say something that will hurt someone. I know that sometimes the sore throat is not the true reason someone is miserable when they come into the office or ER.

Thankfully, my school seems to teach mostly the right things and not the old schools of thought... we focus on patient directed care and Indiana is big on doing this "competency curriculum" where we're actually rated on how respectful we are behind the scenes.

Anyway, just to be clear, I am here as a sufferer, not a defender of the medical profession (in fact I agree with most things I've seen said).

But if any of you have any advice for me (I'm sure most of you have had way more experience being a patient than I've had caring for patients) I would love to hear it. Anything I can learn from real people that isn't in a textbook... those are the things I tend to value most.