Keywords

I am the attending on a busy inpatient service with a team that is made up of three interns and two senior residents.

A few years ago one of the interns had been taking care of a patient for about 2 days. The intern had been working at the hospital for about 3 months and was gradually assimilating the culture. During his presentation to the team on this day, he seemed compelled to express his frustration regarding his interaction with his patient.

“I’m not sure what is going on but I find this patient very rude and I’m having a difficult time interacting with him.” He went on to explain that though he tries to interact with the patient, the patient ignores him and will not look in his direction. He seems not to know who he is or recognize him though he sees him several times a day. He went on to report that the patient would stare at him for minutes without speaking to him and would only talk to him when he, the resident, spoke first.

Usually the other residents would comment and give suggestions, but today there was silence in the room after this was divulged, and all the residents stared directly at me waiting for my comment. Later, I understood they had all had a similar experience.

I looked directly at the intern and said “You do know that the patient is blind.” You could have heard a pin drop.