I have a cheering story to tell. Everyone knows that working in healthcare is not an especially happy profession, because you are looking at people in distress all day long.

Five years ago a patient of around forty came to me for fertility treatment. We planned an intrauterine insemination. Right through the diagnostic stage, the ultrasounds and the rest, every single time a vaginal examination was needed her face showed more discomfort than most patients’ would. I filed that away. Then, on the day of the insemination, she looked close to tears, so — being the nosy sort — I asked her: "Is something wrong? You can tell me, you know."

It was like opening a dam gate. Sobbing, she told me she was frightened of internal examinations, because of the doctor who had delivered her first baby: as she remembered it, he put a speculum in, walked out to take a phone call and left her lying in that position, with the instrument still in place, alone. She had been afraid of internal examinations ever since. She did not want another child — but her husband and her eldest said they wanted a little brother or sister, so she had made herself come for treatment.

During the fifteen minutes she lay resting after the insemination, I kept going in and out, putting my head round the door to ask whether she was all right, because I was worried she would feel bad about being left lying there alone. In the cycles that followed, she no longer seemed as frightened of the examinations as she had been.

In the end she did not get pregnant. She asked to stop treatment — and sent me a short letter.

The letter

Doctor, my family and I have decided not to continue with treatment. At my age the chance of success keeps getting smaller, and our family does not have much money set aside for this, so we do not dare gamble on a 20% chance.

But even though my infertility was never cured, I am so happy that I am no longer afraid of internal examinations, or of obstetricians. Your kindness that day made a deep impression on me. Another doctor would have let it pass, but you came back round to help — it was like being held by someone at the moment you are frightened. You could perfectly well have gone and sat waiting at your desk, and instead you came back into that examination room twice. Thank you so very much.

I wish you happiness and a brilliant mind — may your thinking and your judgement always come out right, so that you can lift the sorrow from the couples who sit waiting in those long queues every day, and let every family get what it hopes for. Thank you so much, doctor ^^

Reading it left me full to the brim. It may not look like a big thing, but I do think that sending a little positive energy someone’s way gave me a great deal more heart for the work.

The patient’s message is reproduced here with her permission.

With love — Dr. Patsama Vichinsartvichai

A heart-warming story, 1

The letter