Who Are They?

"They are not diabetics," my instructor said firmly.  "They are people -- patients -- who happen to have diabetes." 

I nodded my head.  I was a second year medical student and it made absolute sense to me that we should treat patients as people first and focus on their diseases secondarily.

Over time since then, I have come to realize that for some people, their disease becomes who they are.  No longer are they a person with lupus, they are a "Lupus Sufferer" -- and don't you forget it!

Everything else in their life ceases to be, except in relation to this disease state that now is who they are.

This saddens me when I see it, for suddenly, all of the complexities of what make a person a human are erased.  For, we are all many people.  I am a doctor, but more than that, I am a husband, a father, a brother, a friend, a teller of jokes, a giver of hugs and a hundred other things.

It seems to me that my instructor was right.  People are people, whatever they are battling and it is crucial that their health care providers never forget that fact.  But is even more important that my patients never forget it either, or they will themselves be lost in that black hole called disease.