Knowing

Abstract

The author, a third-year medical school student, talks about her mother's treatment for cancer. As her mother moved through the phases of her treatment, she struggled to reconcile what she should know as a family member with what she needed to know as a medical student. She was far enough along in her training to be familiar with all the heavy, often daunting, details of diseases and their treatments but not far enough along to know how to handle the weight of this knowledge. The author had already known the importance of understanding the chief complaint and the history of present illness. Through her mother's cancer journey, however, she has seen how much more there is to a patient's story. As she prepares for her third-year clinical rotations, her mother's cancer journey and its lessons for her have come just in time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).