INSTANT RECALL

INSTANT RECALL

With the bulk of patients I see, I often find myself wondering which patient has this and which patient has that especially when I meet them in Malls or streets. Nowadays, I do not encounter people seeking consultation in the streets unlike few years back. It is probably because people have learned that it is dangerous to consult a doctor in the middle of the aisles of groceries and Malls; between the cans of sardines and tissue paper ( you know, the mind set of the doctor is the name  of the corned beef he is about to purchase and so, he might unintentionally prescribe it).
The bigger problem I have is to recall what I did for this patient or that patient a few years ago. People recall incidents if they are traumatic, exciting, romantic and money making. Otherwise, you forget about it in sixty seconds flat. We doctors remember all the things we did on a patient but forget his name. We can recall what part of the hospital you were admitted; what particular bed; what medicines; but not your face. Much more the relatives. People expect us to remember the cousins, the nephews, the neighbor, the kumpadre.

I had the unfortunate experience of forgetting the wife of my anesthesiologist.  But that was forgivable because though I see him  almost everyday in the operating room, I have not seen the wife  for many years. But forgetting one’s patient is sometimes a dilemma. Do you feign surprise or forgetful? It takes a few seconds ( long after the person is gone) before I could connect the present to the past. I often joke to my friends that if someone would sell my brain it would be cheap and bargain because it is over used.

But the findings of Science now is that the more you use your brain, the more it builds synapses (connections) and axons ( branches). Thinkers brains have known to be packed and condensed compared to people who do not think.

What we lack is focus. Since our brains are constantly working and building terminals, focus is indirectly inhibited by some parts of the brain. What  should take nanoseconds to process, the brain takes seconds . Thus, the “hah?” in your doctor’s conversation is just a delaying tactic for him to reprocess the input.

It is not only doctors who have this dilemma. Busy people and those who are always under stress have this. Especially soldiers who are constantly on the alert for 24 hours will have severe difficulty focusing.

Vitamins and medicines do not help. Yoga and meditation do. If you allow your brains to rest as in sleeping, appreciating the beauty of nature ( not in night clubs, of course) or just stop thinking for a while, the brain will have the time to recuperate.

In the advent of stem cell research, we will understand how the brain works in the future. Today, they can view the activity of the brain by scanning. In a short while, we could identify the thought process itself.

In the meantime, I have to do with social tactics and antics in entertaining my previous patients in order to swim thru forgetfulness.