The Doctor and the Disease
This week on White Coat, Black Art: the long and personal journey of Dr. Phil Hebert from family physician to patient with Parkinson's disease. He tells why he kept the diagnosis a secret for so long and what finally convinced him he had to quit practising medicine....
This week on White Coat, Black Art: the long and personal journey of Dr. Phil Hebert from family physician to patient with Parkinson's disease. He tells why he kept the diagnosis a secret for so long and what finally convinced him he had to quit practising medicine.
You don't have to be famous like Robin Williams -- who took his life in August -- to delay telling others that you have Parkinson's disease. I suspect many of the one hundred thousand Canadians with this disease are just as reluctant.
They fear not being able to work. Then there are the visible signs of Parkinson's: involuntary tremors and a mask-like face - one that can't make those expressions that connect us to one another -- a face that stigmatizes people.
Hard to disclose when you're a patient, also hard when you're a doctor like Phil Hebert: distinguished family physician, bioethicist and for most of the last quarter century, a guy with Parkinson's. Hebert lived with the symptoms for more than ten years before getting diagnosed.
It took many more years until Hebert told his colleagues and his patients. Looking back, he wonders if his secrecy violated the very doctor ethics he has taught for more than a quarter of a century.
Then, we fast forward a few years and find out how a cutting edge treatment called deep brain stimulation is giving Hebert a new lease on life and a new take on what makes a good MD, one that calls into question some fundamental notions about our profession.
All that plus your reaction to our series ' After The Error.'