Chapter 122 Practical Training
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
The seasons passed, and Haruto was now a fifth-year medical student.
His clinical training had started in his fourth year, and he and his classmates were busy every day.
※Clinical training means learning how to talk to patients and how to find and treat illnesses in real hospitals.
In his fifth year, he had to do hands-on training in every department at the Chiba University Hospital.
Each group had about three students.
They would rotate through all departments for one whole year.
It was tiring, because after going home each day, they had to write down everything they learned.
Today’s training was in internal medicine.
His group, picked by the school, was all boys.
What comes to your mind when you hear “internal medicine”?
From what Haruto knew in his past life, internal medicine was a place that did everything.
When you don’t know which department to visit for your symptoms, you usually just go to internal medicine.
That’s not wrong.
Doctors in internal medicine treat the organs inside the body, the blood, and the nerves.
They check and treat many different problems inside the body.
That’s why people, like Haruto, see it as the “all-around” department.
Haruto and his group stood behind the doctor and watched him see patients.
Of course, the patients said it was okay.
(Listening to the chest and touching the body… this is kind of cool. Especially with women.)
Haruto had these dumb thoughts sometimes.
But still, he seemed to be a good match for internal medicine.
He could understand illnesses just by touch.
But after finding the problem, he had to send the patient to a specialist.
So he couldn’t treat them all the way.
”Doctor, do I have something wrong with me?”
”No, your test results are normal. There’s nothing bad we found.”
”That can’t be right! I feel super tired!”
”Please stay calm. The tests show nothing’s wrong, but you still have symptoms. This is called a somatoform disorder.”
※Somatoform disorder means you feel sick, but there’s no clear cause in your body.
”Somatoform disorder? Is that the name of a disease?”
”No, not really. It’s a word for body symptoms with no clear cause.”
”Symptoms? So instead of saying ‘I feel tired today,’ I’m supposed to say, ‘I have somatoform disorder today’?
Doctor, don’t say something so confusing!”
This woman was upset.
Her body felt strange, but doctors couldn’t find out why.
Haruto watched her from behind and thought:
(I get how she feels…)
She came to the hospital because something in her body felt off.
She had tests done.
She still didn’t know the cause.
Now, she needed more blood tests.
It had probably taken over a month to get this far.
If someone spent a month scared they had something serious,
and then a doctor just said something strange like “somatoform disorder,”
anyone would get mad.
(This is just a difference in view…)
The woman thought:
”If I feel sick and go to the hospital, I’ll find out why.”
The doctor thought:
”I don’t know the cause, but I have to say something.”
Before entering medical school, Haruto thought just like the woman.
But after learning medical laws, he understood the doctor’s side too.
Doctors must follow laws.
They are not allowed to say no to a patient’s request to be checked or treated—unless they have a very good reason.
Also, if a patient asks for a note, the doctor has to write one.
In simple words:
If someone walks into a hospital, the doctor has to treat them or check them.
If the patient asks for a paper about it, the doctor must write it—
even if they don’t know the cause of the sickness.
So, even if the doctor didn’t know what was wrong,
he still had to write a note if the woman asked for it.
If the symptoms were strong, but there was no cause, the doctor would say honestly,
”We don’t know.”
But Haruto thought:
Maybe names like “somatoform disorder” and “irritable bowel syndrome” were made so doctors could write down something official.
※Irritable bowel syndrome means your stomach hurts or feels weird again and again, but tests show no problem in the stomach itself. You might have pain, diarrhea, or feel constipated.
From another view, the law made it hard for doctors to say,
”I don’t know.”
But this also made people like the woman believe:
”If I go to the hospital, I will get an answer.”
(People say stress can cause these unknown symptoms. So does that mean she should go to the mental health department? But if I say that, won’t she get mad at me?)*
Doctors aren’t superhuman.
There’s still so much about the body they don’t understand.
But even so, it’s still painful to be told,
”We don’t know what’s wrong with you.”
The woman wanted answers.
The doctor couldn’t say he didn’t know.
Haruto thought the problem in front of him came from this difference.
(Doctors and patients… It’s a hard job, isn’t it?)
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
Thanks for reading.
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