Dr. Pauline Chen kicked-off The George Washington University Medical Center’s inaugural lecture series Frontiers in Medicine last night at GW's Jack Morton Auditorium. The new series features renowned medical experts who will help guide our understanding of the future of health care and medicine.

 

The New York Times bestselling author of the book titled Final Exam: A Surgeon’s Reflections on Mortality, presented her lecture titled “Profiles in Courage: Doctors and Patients in Turbulent Times,” about her efforts to refocus medical professionals, away from the turbulant times of today and back onto their greatest responsibility — saving lives. Dr. Chen discussed the impact revenue losses at hospitals and medical institutions has on doctors and patients. Many of these facilities, she told the audience, have to shift their focus from saving lives to saving money. She explained that these times have created much fodder for reflection and she wondered if those practicing medicine should really be swept up by the never-ending discussion of how to cut costs while still trying to practice medicine.

 

In her opening, Dr. Chen told a heart wrenching story about a two-year-old on whom she performed a liver transplant. She described what many of us would call a heroic feat of transplanting a liver into the miniature body and struggling to find a donor match. For Dr. Chen, however, what doctors do is not heroic, it’s the job that they do everyday. Its not about efficiency , she said, it’s about anti-heroic ideals that are easy to forget. 

 

Dr. Chen talked about a book she recently read by Dr. Arthur Kleinman titled What Really Matters: Living a Moral Life Amidst Uncertainty and Danger. The book focuses on regular people and what matters most to them and how the world around them challenges what is so dear to them. Dr. Chen equated the theme of this book to the everyday life of doctors and noted that the anti-heroic ideals are the ideals of medicine. She said, that “now, more than ever, those who practice medicine need to be ‘anti-heros’.”

 

Dr. Chen closed by describing what she learned from an attending doctor in the ICU who failed to follow hosptial protocol of leaving the room when his patient was dying. The doctor, instead, stayed with his patient's wife and comforted her while her husband passed away. Dr. Chen said that until that moment, she had always left the dying patient with their family members, and waited at the nurses station for the tell tale signs that the patient has died. The attending surgeon, however, demonstrated how as a doctor, showing compassion and warmth to families is the most effective care a physician can offer. It helped her realize that being doctor really is not just protocols and proceedures, instead the compassion shown by doctors to their patients is vital and meaningful for both the patient and the doctor.

 

The lecture series, GW Frontiers in Medicine offers faculty, staff, students, and friends of the University to hear from and discuss the key issues with some of the brightest minds in medicine today.The series will serve as an opportunity to hear from and discuss key issues with some of the brightest minds in medicine today. The next installment in the series will feature a lecture by Gary Simon, MD, Ph.D., director, GW Division of Infectious Diseases, titled “An H1N1 Influenza Update: What We Know and What We Don’t,” Nov. 4. For more information about the lecture series, please contact Theresa Kerrigan at 202.994.4695 or at mcdtak@gwumc.edu.