Time for empathy.
Time for empathy?
Collect a complete psychiatric history.
Plus, medical history with dates of diagnosis and current medications.
Don’t forget an assessment of both social and family history.
Also, be sure to access cognition and mental status.
With a focused physical examination.
Build rapport, too.
And, please, all within 15 minutes.
Time constraints.
Diagnostic criteria.
Medical training and practice.
Real patients with real lives and real problems.
We must make time for empathy.
But, do we have time?
Poetry Thursdays is an initiative that highlights poems by medical students and physicians. If you are interested in contributing or would like to learn more, please contact our editors.
Contributing Writer
Michigan State University College of Human Medicine
Maseray Kamara is a 2018 MD candidate at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. She is very active on campus and was appointed to the Admissions Committee by the Dean for Admissions and elected to the Student Council by her peers. Additionally, she tutored first year students in anatomy and biochemistry and spearheaded the fundraiser ‘48 for Flint,’ a student initiated response to the Flint Water Crises. In 2016, she received the Society of Thoracic Surgeons Looking to the Future Scholarship and the AMA Foundation Minority Scholars Award. Maseray is committed to serving underserved and underinsured populations and aspires to be physician who contributes to the medical field through clinical practice, medical journalism, and public health advocacy. Follow her journey in medicine on Instagram @drkamara.
