"‘Did he need an interpreter?" I asked. "No, he speaks good English," replied the resident.
We were on consultation-liaison rounds and I had just heard report on Mr. Hussein, a Pakistani man who was admitted in hypertensive crisis. He had reported feeling depressed for the last 6 months so his primary team had requested a psychiatric consult." These are the reflections of Dr. Shaili Jain regarding her treatment of Mr. Hussein in CMAJ.
Doctor Shaili Jain and Mr. Hussein come from two cultures which had known bloodshed but these differences melt away in a wonderfully Canadian story and Mr. Hussein comes to trust the doctor and forges a relationship "despite the fact that my clinic is far from his home and has stairs unfriendly for an elderly man who walks with a cane. It seems that my self-disclosures, though clumsy, may have also given rise to a transparency that, ultimately, worked in our favour as doctor and patient." How to show the past but also the present? The 'stick' or cane became the symbol: it hints at the violent past, but is transformed with the doctor's gentle gesture as she removes the stick or past from his hand. acrylic on prepared paper
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