I'm starting writing about my resident days, the story of about 30 years ago. I was being required to complete the progress summary of every inpatient in my charge just after their discharge. I found it too much trouble to organize them as I had to care for other new patients or being transferred to my office one after another.
The summary paper consisted of three sheets and when you write on the 1st sheet, your writing is duplicated on the 2nd and 3rd sheets. The 2nd sheet was supposed to be filed into the medical record in the term of the hospitalization and then it was to be archived. The 3rd one was inserted into the opd chart for following-up on the post-discharge patient. Then the 1st one was kept by a doctor in charge.
When I finished the resident term, the head doctor told me to privately keep the summaries from then on until when I'll stop working as a doctor never to lose my initial enthusiasm toward medicine by reading them from time to time. I've actually followed his words for more than 30 years. I recalled those days nostalgically and have often felt that the current medicine would have saved some of the departed.
I shredded a bunch of them today. I was able to remember some of them, but most of the patients had disappeared from my mind. The patients whose faces I remembered were mostly those who had passed away in my presence. All of them educated me as a clinician. I have no words to express my gratitude to them.
I'll start a new chapter of my life as an industrial physician in August. I don't know what I can do or can't do, but I can declare that I will do my best.
研修医時代、自分の受け持った患者の入院記録をまとめる義務があった。通常の仕事の傍ら、記録をまとめることは面倒な仕事だった。記録用紙は３枚綴りの複写式になっていて、二枚目を入院カルテに、三枚目を外来カルテに閉じ、一枚目は自分で保管することになっていた。
研修医生活を終えるとき、院長の挨拶があった。その中で、サマリーは医業を終えるまで保管し、初心を忘れぬよう、折々に読み返すよう勧められた。そして、実際にそうしていた。３０年前の病院の様子が懐かしく、また今ならこの患者を救うことが出来たのに、、、と残念に思うこともたびたびあった。そのサマリーを今日処分した。思い出せる患者もいたがほとんどは記憶にない。全てが医師としての自分を育ててくれた人たち。
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