The hopeless case

It was our first chance to interview patients in hospital, and we were understandably excited. Medicine is still shiny and new for us, and the hospital holds a greater allure with its array of sophisticated equipment and diseases. Our group had been assigned to the haematology day treatment clinic. The registrar had arranged for us to talk to a man who was waiting while he received a blood transfusion. The clinic seems pretty nice. Most of the patients are able to sit in comfortable chairs while they read, or chat to a friend, and the atmosphere was very relaxed, the nurses calm and cheerful.

Nothing prepares you for seeing a human being look the way he did; especially in such an innocuous environment. It all looks so pleasant; you don’t expect to see this degree of illness. You are shocked by the wasted limbs, the distended, ungainly belly, the hairless scalp and the yellowed skin stretched across the frame that contains a human being. The apparent fragility is terrifying; what the illness has done to the person seems such a violence. We shuffle about, trying to recruit chairs and not knock the drip poles or the patients. I feel this is such a hideous intrusion, but he says he doesn’t mind. With five of us now perched around him, the interview is supposed to begin. I feel like we are vultures, waiting to gorge ourselves on the history.



Bit by bit we gather his story, and then the true horror of disease emerges. The person inside the frame; the person he was has slowly been disassembled piece by piece. We have forms to fill and questions about his “concerns” and “expectations” to ask. How do you do that? Tentatively I ask if he knows what treatment is planned next, even though I know he’s surviving with twice-weekly transfusions, and waiting for the end. But that is the giant elephant in the room. “I’m not sure”, he says.

We thank him and leave.



This is one of my examples for my essay. Whaddya think? Too melodramatic? Too anything? Just not good enough? Feedback mucho appreciated.