Truman Customer Story Column
Why I keep talking before surgery
When a patient comes into the operating room, you see his tension in his shoulders before you see it in his face.
So while the preparations are underway I deliberately make conversation. The weather, how he got here today, what he feels like eating afterwards. It is small talk, but over those few minutes the stiffness in his shoulders eases a little.
He remembered that time too
The man who left this review wrote about that conversation.
"Before the surgery the doctor kept talking to me about all sorts of things to help me relax."
Surgery is a familiar process for me, but for the patient it is an unfamiliar first. Reviews like this confirm that closing that gap does not require anything grand.
The pain he expected, and the pain he felt
He came in expecting it to hurt a great deal. And after the surgery he wrote this.
"I expected it to hurt a lot, but going through it, it wasn't that painful."
Pain imagined in advance is often larger than the real thing. Still, the degree of pain and the speed of recovery differ from person to person, so I cannot say his case will be the same for everyone. What we can do is explain the expected course in advance and reduce discomfort through post-operative care.
The impression the explanations left
For his impression of the clinic, he named kindness and the quality of the explanations.
Gynecomastia surgery raises a lot of questions on the way to a decision. How it is done, where the scar will be, when normal life resumes. I believe the role of a consultation is to explain until no questions are left.
The next goal is bulking up
For what he most wanted to do after surgery, he wrote that he wanted to work out and build up his body.
A man who used to avoid exercise because of his chest is now planning workouts to build that chest. The same part of the body turning from something to hide into something to build. I think that shift in direction is close to the essence of what this surgery changes.
On walking with your shoulders back
For what he would say to men with the same concern, he wrote this.
"Don't agonize over it — have the surgery and walk with your shoulders back."
This came out of his own experience, and whether to have surgery is something to decide after confirming your own condition through an examination. But the part about walking with your shoulders back is something I want to pass on exactly as he wrote it. He closed his review with a word of thanks, but for going along with the conversation on an unfamiliar operating table and then writing all of this, I return the same thanks to him.
- Dr. Kim Sang-kyu, TRUEMAN Incheon -
