Despite the reassurances of the chief resident and the critical care fellow, my intern was shaken and angry. Patients and their families also demand God from physicians. We don't want to disappoint them as well as ourselves. Selzer reminds us that we have to accept poor outcomes and that humility allows us to do so more easily. Also addressed in some of the medical humanities literature is the concept of prejudice.
People come from all sorts of socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds.
One poem described a physician's encounter with a patient who expressed strong antisemitic views without realizing that the physician, himself, was Jewish. The physician goes about his work and treats the man as if he were treating his own brother. As a victim of racism I know what anger is like. I even feel the pain when other people are discriminated against. Like the physician in the story, I give as much attention to my few patients who have voiced their views as the patient does in the poem.