Transformation: From Medical Student to Patient

In August 2002, I left Boston in my small, tightly packed car for a weeklong cross-country trip. Through the side mirrors, I watched everything familiar disappear. Destination: Stanford Medical School, where I would train to be a physician. I had decided to leave the Northeast, my family, and most of my friends in pursuit of an adventure. Little did I know that this adventure would quickly become more than I ever could have imagined. Not only would I begin to study the art and science of medicine, but I would also learn perhaps the most difficult lesson of all: how to be a patient.

As part of orientation, I spent 4 days camping in the Sierra Nevadas with 6 of my new classmates and 2 upperclassmen leaders. Early in the fall, my camping group received an e-mail from Matt, one of our leaders: “I hope the first week of anatomy wasn't too painful. I had 2 subjects cancel on me for brain scanning tomorrow morning. Would any of you be interested in having your brain scanned (MRI, not X-ray) while doing a memory test?”

Without hesitation, I signed up.

At noon the next day, I reported to the campus imaging center. I glanced over and signed an informed consent, considering for only a moment and then summarily dismissing the possibility of an unexpected finding, then settled into the MRI machine. “You have a beautiful brain,” Matt related to me after the first of 4 scans. Of course I do, I thought.

After 90 minutes, Matt rescued me from my isolation. Though his barrage of questions from this point on was strange, I answered, unfazed. No, I had not had any headaches recently. No problem with eyesight, no other unusual symptoms. When I asked to see the scans, Matt quickly gathered …