Lessons from Dr. Ivan Lim

Everyone knows that being a doctor is hard work. Starting with the undergraduate years, you have to stay on track with a rigorous course load, which includes the infamous organic chemistry 1 and 2, all while juggling community service activities, clinical experiences, and sometimes even science internships. However, if you think that those 4 years are tough, you then have to get through medical school, internship, and residency before you can even be considered a real physician. You finally have an actual job however, life still does not get any harder because now you are faced with a difficult problem that you must face every single day for the rest of your professional career.

One of the main issues that doctors must deal with is the problem of communicating complicated medical jargon into layman’s terms. By now, you, as a doctor, are already dealing with patients who come from all different backgrounds and have no idea as to what conditions or problems they have. It is your job to find a way to explain to them exactly what they have in the simplest terms possible.

In order to learn more about this topic, I decided to conduct an interview with Dr. Ivan Lim, a rheumatologist (a doctor who specializes in conditions related to joints) at Kaiser Permenante. He was born and raised in the Philipines and attended the University of Santo Thomas down there. He then moved to the US where he did his post graduate studies at Wayne State University in Michigan then Boston University for his rheumatology studies. At first, my intentions were to interview a pediatrician in the area, however she never got back to me in time. I was telling my mother this and she said she would be willing to ask people she knew from work if they knew anyone who would be willing to help me out. Luckily, everything worked out, which just shows that networking is always really helpful.

Working in the DC, Metropolitian Area, he has to see many diverse people and so this issue of translating medical jargon can be extremely difficult. However after my interview with him, I believe that he has successfully worked around this problem. Because my issue dealt with communicating jargon into something more simple, I first question I asked him was how he handles the patients that are difficult to communicate with. This answer, though simple, was very meaningful, “just listen to who they are and find a way to relate to them.” Without being asked, he gave me an example involving osteoarthritis. This condition is the degeneration of the joints, which causes pain, stiffness, deformed joints and muscle weakness to name a few. Though this condition may seem simple to understand to a college educated person, this could be a new language to someone like a housekeeper. He could compare this disease to car tires: after a while, they wear down and can cause the whole system to fail. Simply yet effective.

As the interview went on, I noticed many nonverbal communications. For some of the questions, he took a lot of time trying to think of an answer while others, he chuckled and gave the answers right away. My interpretation on the analysis was that he was trying to think of good reasons and examples for me. Some of the situations may be difficult to think of while others may be really easy. For instance, he had a difficult time explaining to me what his different methods he employed when he gives patients good news verses bad news. He told me that you just have to show that you are sympathetic. He also mentioned some of the nonverbal communicating skills he does in order to make them feel better if there is bad news: hand gestures. Speaking of hand gestures, I noticed that he himself used a lot of them in order to complement what he was saying.

The most memorable thing he said to me was that “not only do patients learn from their doctors, but doctors also learn from their patients.” Doctors learn to be more specific when it comes to giving directions and gain more experience and methods in translating technical jargon. It just shows that a communication problem can be easily fixed with just a little practice!