Student

With the "clinical years" underway, I was interested to see how long it would be before I was culturally tested. Much to my surprise, this time was much shorter than I had anticipated.

Looking back to the beginning of my Family Medicine clerkship here in Latrobe, I can see how naive I had been. Here I was, coming to a small town, one not too different from my own, thinking that I knew exactly how they were structured. This "knowledge" was completely wrong and I learned this my very first day.

As I knocked on the door, I looked down at the chart to see that the patient was a 45 year old man who was coming in for a physical. As we went through the normal motions, I thought I was doing just fine. After finishing up my physical, I asked the patient if he had any questions for me. He responded that he wished to have his STD status checked. After talking a little bit about his behaviors, we decided that it would be wise to have this done. I told him that I would go and talk with my attending and then we would be right back in.

After presenting to my attending, we talked about the STD check. I was asked the sexual orientation of the patient. I had assumed that my patient was heterosexual.

After returning back to the patient's room, my attending asked a few questions. Immediately the patient offered the information that he was indeed a homosexual man. I was shocked. I couldn't believe that I was so ignorant that I had assumed that he was heterosexual. This information changed how we proceeded with the visit. I felt embarrassed that I had assumed this information and also that it could have caused his care to be sub-par.

I feel that with this experience, as with many other eye-opening experiences, that I have learned to be more aware of the different cultures, no matter where I am located.