Faculty of Medicine
Memorial University of Newfoundland
Now if there's one thing that everyone who knows me can all agree on, it's that I don't have the world's best memory. No, don't try to make me feel good by saying, "Well, it's not that bad, I've encountered worse," or any other similar placating phrase. I'm admitting it here in black and white: David Keegan has a pretty darn bad memory.
This has plagued me all my life. Not that I can remember having a bad memory that long ago, but that people have told me so. So, it was no great surprise to me (an others) that this feature of my own persona has carried into my medical life.
Certainly the "book" years of medical school were a constant classical battle of David versus Goliath's Textbook of Medicine. I tried everything from study cards to study groups to study coffee, all with mixed results at best.
More significant, though, has been the impact of this trait on my clinical years of medical training. I don't know if I have every, ever successfully remembered a patient's full name without consulting a slip of cheat notes religiously stapled to my palm each morning before rounds. I know for sure I never remembered to see my films down in radiology before it shut down over noon hour.
I doubt if I'll ever forget being at "piranha" rounds when I was doing an orthopedics rotation at St. Clare's. In discussing a patient, Dr. David Peddle said: "Well, as David helped out in the operating room yesterday, perhaps he could tell the group about what the operative findings were." To my horror, I realized I was the only David in the room and frantically tried to remember which joint we had operated on, let along the "operative findings."
The worst example, though, occurred while doing internal medicine at the same hospital. One evening I assessed a woman with unstable angina coupled with congestive heart failure. All told, from the time I first laid eyes on the women to the time when she was finally pain free and breathing okay, I must have spent about four hours with her (a typical "up with her all night" sort of sick patient). The next morning on rounds, as our team strolled around the Coronary Care Unit, we went into one room and chatted with one woman whose name seemed vaguely familiar. After the rest of the team had politely introduced themselves, I chimed in as well, saying "Please to meet you," after which the woman asked, "I thought you already did?"
Anyways, many residents and staff people have assured me over the years that, never fear, once a patient is under your own name you don't forget many details at all. Thankfully, I have discovered the truth in that statement. Currently completing a rural family medicine rotation in Twillingate, whenever I admit a patient I admit them to my own service, though back-up is always available.
The difference is unbelievable. Now I find I am remembering subtle details of my patients' past histories and course in hospital. In answer to a casual question from a colleague, I am able to extract old lab data from my brain about patients I saw a week before. And most astounding, I recently recognized a fellow by name in passing as a patient who had been under my care for a mere 24 hours three weeks earlier.
All of this has led me to demand of the contents of my skull: "All right! Whose brain are you, and what have you done with the David Keegan's real brain."
Last updated 18 Jun 1997 by 