‘It was Mother’s Day, and my youngest daughter had fallen ill. At first it just seemed like a bad cold, but as the week progressed, she got steadily worse: a little girl not yet three years old, with a high fever, a cough and even shortness of breath. By Friday night she was in such a terrible state that I called my colleagues at A & E. She turned out to have acute pneumonia, there was pus in her lungs, even her blood pressure was abnormal – a pattern of symptoms that I should have recognised but had overlooked in my own child. I’m well-trained and had never missed a diagnosis – until then. Had it been anybody else’s child, I would have gone searching for other symptoms to confirm my suspicions. But as a father, all I wanted was reassurance.
She was admitted to my own ward in paediatric intensive care. Suddenly I was no longer a doctor but a father. My perspective was literally turned around: instead of standing at the foot of the bed, I was now sitting beside it. The about-face taught me a lot. Doctors tend to take the disease itself as the starting point for their thoughts and communication: we establish the problem, formulate a prognosis and decide on how to fix it. Our goal is to provide as much information as possible. But the concerns of parents are entirely different. They’re afraid, and they’re wondering: will my child be alright? Will there be any lasting damage? Did I miss any signs? The best conversations I had as a father were with the doctors and nurses who not only gave me the right information but who also tested the emotional waters to see how I was feeling.
The experience left a major impact on me. I now take an entirely different approach when talking to parents. I know that my medical logic is often worlds away from what they are going through personally, a lesson that no book could ever have taught me. I take the time to get to know parents, speak to them about work, their hobbies, about family life. And I give them the opportunity to express their fears. That way we build up a relationship of trust, which opens the doors to more effective communication. Everything I say gets through much more easily after that.
My daughter had surgery several times. I was familiar with the condition and knew that it almost always worked out fine. That knowledge was what I was clinging to. But one week later, a serious complication arose: scans revealed a new infection between her lungs and her heart. That was the first time I saw true fear in the eyes of my colleagues. It lasted a day – a day when all of us were deathly afraid.
She made it in the end, but I have relived that fear dozens of times since then. In my mind, the room where my daughter had lain became inextricably linked to the drama of that one day: even after plenty of other children had come and gone, and I was back to being the ordinary paediatrician, that dread returned every time I entered the room.
When a child recovers from a serious illness, we generally respond with euphoria and tend to forget about the parents’ gruelling emotions. Everyone feels relieved, the danger is averted, we’re in the clear. Only now do I realise how long the sense of desperation can linger. The fear of losing a child, the sleepless nights, the hassles at home, the stress that parents all respond to in their own way … all of that can leave long-lasting after-effects. I now bring it up when I talk to parents: Things will be difficult for a while, I say, so take the time to process it all properly. My daughter’s illness has enlightened me on the struggles of parents and made me a better doctor.’