Louis Gonzales: Medicine, Final Week

This week was a really fun and great way to end my internship at UCNW! After four weeks in Bellingham I was able to see a lot of the same patients two or three times, and it was amazing to finally start recognizing people and seeing  their improvements. It was especially fun to entertain the idea that maybe we had actually helped them feel better! But seeing these people again really drove home the sense of pride and community in being a family doctor.

At first, I could only see the friendliness between Dr. Brunk and his patients. This week I truly felt what it was like to be a part of someone’s well being, and care that I could help them feel better. There was no better reward than when we would come into the room of a follow up patient and hear anything along the lines of “this is working, thank you Dr. Brunk.” Two patients stand out to me most clearly, and their stories will be at the bottom of this blog.

Altogether this has been an absolutely amazing and eye-opening experience for me. I’ve lived in the same small town my entire life, and I’ve had a very good and relatively sheltered life. This internship allowed me to meet good people from many different cultures and backgrounds, and see people during some of their hardest times. I’ve seen patients crying in pain, laughing in spite of it, hating because of it, and loving through it. And I’ve also seen the strength from a team of genuine, caring healthcare providers that are committed to helping their patients in any way possible, even if it’s just lending a sympathetic ear.

I honestly believe that every kid should have the opportunity to experience this, and if anyone is reading this and cares, I encourage you to go out and pursue your passions: take an interest in the well-being of your fellow humans, ask to be a shadow at your local doctor’s office, volunteer. I understand that not everyone can have a glamorous trip like this, and I count myself extraordinarily lucky to have gotten this chance, but the perspective you can gain from the real world is life changing. And if anyone is reading this and does have the opportunity for an internship like this, APPLY!

And if any of my co-workers are reading this, Simone, Lynn, Josh, Natalie, and of course Dr. Brunk, it has been a pleasure and an honor to learn alongside you and observe your work! Thank you for being so kind and helpful and encouraging, and thank you for putting up with some random kid that got in the way of hallways and rooms that were already small to begin with.

There’s nothing I can do to fully express my gratitude for this experience, except keep it in my heart and make sure that it never goes to waste or gets forgotten. And thank you to anyone that actually reads these blog posts, it means a lot.

For the last time, goodbye from Bellingham!

P.S. Patient Stories:

(I apologize, but in order to best protect any sensitive patient information, I refer to any patient with the pronoun “they.” The two patients I will be talking about are separate cases, so when I say “they/them/their” I am only referring to one of them at a time. Hopefully this doesn’t confuse anyone.)

[In my second week at UCNW, I met a patient that came in for back pain and that was feeling a bit depressed. Dr. Brunk dealt with the pain in the usual way: he diagnosed it, showed the patient exercises they could do to increase their muscle health and eventually get rid of/reduce the pain, and prescribed the necessary painkillers so that the patient could function normally. However when the patient described their depression, not everything added up. The patient said that they had trouble focusing and relating to others, and felt like an outsider in the world. They spoke quickly and excitedly, what’s known as “pressured speech,” Dr. Brunk told me, and by asking the correct questions Dr. Brunk found out that they had always felt like an outsider and that they were often fidgety and never sat still in class. Based on this history and Dr. Brunk’s personal experience, he diagnosed the patient with Attention Deficit Disorder and gave them medication and advice to see if they could manage it.

We saw this patient again this week, and they were very pleased with the results. They said they no longer felt depressed, and with the mental organization techniques Dr. Brunk had talked to them about they were better at managing their thoughts. The patient spoke about their improvements in a way that suggested they had gained better personal understanding and contentment, and they planned to refer a friend to Dr. Brunk that they suspected was also ADD. This patient was very kind and friendly and it was great to see them again.]

 

[During my first week shadowing Dr. Brunk, we walked into a patient’s room and found them curled up in their chair, nearly crying. They had a history of depression and drug abuse and were working to cope with it, but that day they had come in and said they were done. The patient told us that they had gone out and purchased $200 worth of meth, and they felt so guilty that they were ready to end their life and had a plan in place. They also said they had plans to harm/kill the meth dealer. Needless to say this was a frightening situation, but we knew because they had come to the clinic and cooperated with us, they were not as ready to commit suicide as they claimed. We knew we could still help them, however this wasn’t Dr. Brunk’s area of expertise, so we called in our Behavioral Health Specialist Josh to consult with the patient. Josh spoke with them, arranged for a friend to remove the firearm from the patient’s home for safekeeping, and arranged the patient to be admitted to a mental health facility. Just to be clear, to my knowledge this patient was an otherwise completely functional person. They were not currently addicted to methamphetamine, and they were taking medication to manage their depression, but something, internal or external, had caused this person to lose control of themself.

This week I saw that patient again and I would not have recognized them. They looked like a glowing picture of health: fit, friendly, and apologetic. They were held in detox at the mental health facility until the meth cleared out of their system, then they were released to our behavioral health team for follow up appointments. Our team got him back on track to managing his depression once again, and though this patient may continue to struggle, the amazing providers at UCNW will always be there when people hit their darkest moments, to try and help them back up.]