When the Doctor Becomes the Patient

I’ve always empathised deeply with my patients, yet I knew there was a limit. I could never truly feel what a patient feels. I couldn’t imagine what it’s really like to be a patient until I became one. When doctors say for instance, “It’s normal to have that pain for a few more weeks,” I used to assume those words were reassuring. But lying in a hospital bed after surgery, hearing something similar, I realised how differently those words sound when you’re the one in pain. Even if the doctor is right, the body doesn’t always listen to reason. The reassurance feels distant more statistical than human.

I didn’t need data; I needed someone who had felt the same pain. It reminded me of a wise patient once telling me during a ward round, “You, doctor, give me level 1 and 2 in Maslow’s hierarchy, physiological support and safety. But other patients give me belonging, a connection that only shared experience can provide.” As doctors, we live in a world of knowledge and control. We study diseases, manage emergencies, guide others through uncertainty. But when illness happens to us, that knowledge becomes a double-edged sword. On one side, it gives clarity. You understand what’s happening, why it hurts, and how it might get better. On the other, it magnifies every adverse possibility your mind can imagine. You know too much. You can’t unsee the scans, the risks, the statistics. I remember seeing a photo of the metal retractor sunk into my own muscle and I actually flinched. It’s strange; I use that same instrument on others every day, but it felt completely different when it was me.

When I was told I had a large aneurysm, I knew exactly what that meant. I understood the steps, the graft, the risks. I signed the consent form with my eyes closed, feeling stoic and pragmatic. But before when they told me the operation would be in two days, something in me protested: How can you tell me I have something that could kill or disable me and then ask me to wait two days? Of course, I knew the medical reasoning: “If it ruptures, then it becomes an emergency.” I’ve said those same words before myself. But as the patient, I wanted to scream How could you let me go through this? It’s the eternal risk balance: the doctor is comfortable with the risk when it belongs to someone else. Being a doctor doesn’t protect you from fear; it just gives it better vocabulary. How you handle that fear depends on your personality more than your profession.

During recovery, the hardest thing was surrendering control. Doctors are trained to act, decide, fix. As a patient, you must wait, rest, and trust. That surrender felt unnatural yet it taught me something profound: healing isn’t only about what doctors do to you, it’s also about what you allow yourself to feel and let time repair. I was amused at how keen my colleagues and the nurses were to offer morphine substitutes. As a doctor, I know they’re a necessary evil, but I wanted to avoid them. Some even joked, saying it was “halal” to take morphine. It wasn’t about belief just a personal need to stay alert, to remain me. This experience made me rethink the doctor–patient relationship. We often talk about bridging the “communication gap,” but there’s also an empathy gap, one you can only cross after standing on both sides.

Being unwell humbled me. It slowed me down. It reminded me that every wound whether on the body or in the mind needs patience, not just precision. Medicine, at its best, is not about curing alone, but about accompanying people through the unknown.

Being a doctor taught me how to treat patients. Being a patient taught me how to care for them.