{"id":2173,"date":"2022-11-29T18:54:49","date_gmt":"2022-11-29T18:54:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/?p=2173"},"modified":"2022-11-29T18:54:49","modified_gmt":"2022-11-29T18:54:49","slug":"doctor-prizes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/doctor-prizes\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctor Prizes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Siobhan Wilson, MD, PhD<\/em><br \/>\n<em>School of Medicine and Public Health<\/em><br \/>\n<em>2022<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Essay<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Talking to each other in the back room about our clinic days, we call them \u201cDoctor Prizes.\u201d\u00a0 They are the gifts our patients bring us to say, \u201cThank you.\u201d\u00a0 To say, \u201cI feel seen, and heard, and cared for.\u201d\u00a0 To say, \u201cI trust you.\u201d\u00a0 Most are of nominal cash value (and we cannot keep the ones that are anything but), but they mean so much to me.<\/p>\n<p>It is satisfying to help someone achieve better health.\u00a0 Those moments are enough.\u00a0 The doctor prizes are the unexpected, the cherry on top. \u00a0It doesn\u2019t take much to warm my heart, to inoculate me against the tougher parts of my work week.<\/p>\n<p>I have received homemade cookies, Concord grape jam, homegrown asparagus, crocheted blankets and sweaters for my baby, hand-beaded jewelry in my favorite colors, a carving of my boxer dog from scrap wood, greeting cards of Wisconsin scenes painted by a patient.\u00a0 I have received innumerable Thank You notes.\u00a0 One patient of mine, a fabric artist, decided that health care workers needed tangible awards for our extraordinary efforts in the pandemic.\u00a0 She embroidered a dazzling plate-sized medal to hang on my wall.\u00a0 I even had a patient bring me an apple from his family\u2019s farm.\u00a0 An apple.\u00a0 For a doctor he did not want to keep away.\u00a0 It was funny, and delicious.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t take much to sweeten my day.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes the prizes are intangible.\u00a0 These come in the form of updates on life events, invitations to ceremonies, proffered smartphone photos of a new grandbaby. \u00a0Though MyChart warns patients with dire language not to upload non-medical photos, one patient wrote, \u201cI don\u2019t care!\u00a0 Here\u2019s my grandson, the most beautiful baby in the world!\u201d\u00a0 Another patient, finding that she would be moving out of state, made an appointment to tidy up her medical chart before departing.\u00a0 At the end of our visit, she told me that she would miss my clinic team, she had never felt so safe in a medical office.\u00a0 She said she had a gift for me, and over telemedicine sang to me \u2013 \u201cJesus Loves Me.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0It doesn\u2019t take much to lighten my spirit.<\/p>\n<p>I keep them all.\u00a0 I have a folder in my filing cabinet labeled \u201cHappy Things,\u201d and a crowded shelf in my office.\u00a0 I go there when the days are tough.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t take much to get me through.\u00a0 My heart is full.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Siobhan Wilson, MD, PhD School of Medicine and Public Health 2022 Essay &nbsp; Talking to each other in the back room about our clinic days, we call them \u201cDoctor Prizes.\u201d\u00a0 They are the gifts our patients bring us to say, \u201cThank you.\u201d\u00a0 To say, \u201cI feel seen, and heard, and cared for.\u201d\u00a0 To say, \u201cI&hellip; <\/p>\n<div class=\"readmore-wrapper\"><a href=\"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/doctor-prizes\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read <\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,10],"tags":[27],"class_list":["post-2173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2022-issue","category-writing","tag-essay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2173"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2275,"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2173\/revisions\/2275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebling.library.wisc.edu\/corpus-callosum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}