Physician as Patient: Lessons To Learn

I have been a practicing medical oncologist and hematologist for 20 years. Although I initially trained in academic bone marrow transplantation and cellular immunology, I decided against an academic life in favor of a purely clinical career because I was more of a clinician than an immunologist. On a personal level, I developed relapsing–remitting multiple sclerosis shortly after I moved into my community practice in oncology and hematology. Over these 20 years of practice, I have had 2 episodes of transverse myelitis, 1 episode of internuclear ophthalmoplegia, and 1 episode of left-sided apraxia. None of these events have incapacitated me or forced me to take time off from work until recently, when I experienced another relapse of my multiple sclerosis. I lost my vision when I awoke on the morning of the anniversary of my wife's death from disseminated breast cancer. As a patient, I am trying to grapple with this new turn of my illness from the perspective of someone who also happens to be a physician who cares for patients with life-threatening illnesses.

As a physician, I have rarely given much credence to “stress” as a factor in illness. In my line of work, it is difficult for me to believe that stress has anything to do with colon cancer or leukemia. I can neither measure nor image “stress,” yet how can I explain the coincidence of my multiple sclerosis reactivating on the anniversary of my wife's death? That morning, I had no nausea, no abdominal cramping, no pain of any kind, no palpitations or skin rashes. Aside from thinking of her …