On Learning How to Listen:
A Doctor’s Experience at the AIS-DSD Support Group Meeting by I.W. Gregorio Things they teach you in surgical residency: The best way to sew subcuticular stitches. How to place a central line. How to perform laparoscopic (keyhole) surgery. Things they don’t teach you, except by trial and error, in a sink or swim fashion: Empathy. How to talk to patients about difficult topics. How to connect them to people who understand what they’re going through. The first time I ever treated a woman with AIS, I’ll be honest: I was excited. So was my attending surgeon as he told me about the case while we scrubbed for the operating room. Typically, in residency, the senior doctor works the patient up–residents often don’t meet the actual patient until just before the surgery–so when I learned that my patient had AIS and was going to have a gonadectomy, I nodded my head. I blithely assumed that my attending had gone over the appropriate risks and benefits of the surgery. During medica