Recognition with Ben Lerman, MD
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How did Ben Lerman’s empathy change during his medical training?
At the Nocturinous, we are careful to ensure that all stories comply with healthcare privacy laws. Details may have been changed to ensure patient confidentiality. All views expressed are those of the person speaking and not their employer.
I'm Emily Silverman, and this is The Nocturnists stories about what it's like to work in medicine. Before we jump in, I just want to say how excited I am to be launching this show. A few years ago, when I was a resident in internal medicine, I was feeling Very tired and pretty burned out, and I realized that I didn't have time or space to process the events that were unfolding around me in the hospital. So I decided to create the Nocturnists, a live storytelling event where doctors and other healthcare professionals come together to share personal stories. We've received tremendous response to our project, which I'm so grateful for, and I'm so excited to be bringing these stories. To a broader audience.
Today's episode features Ben Lerman, an emergency medicine physician who also has an MFA in creative writing. In this story, Ben describes how his ability to empathize with patients deteriorated throughout his medical training, and how a chance meeting with a patient outside the hospital helped set him back on track. After the story, Ben and I chat about physician burnout, the power of the arts and humanities to educate audiences and how tough it is to measure that impact. All topics that are near and dear to my heart. I think you'll really enjoy it. And now I give you Ben Lerman.
So I believe that I started out with at least the usual allotment of empathy. Maybe even a little bit more. Um I was in a eleventh grade class where they were showing a Red Cross first aid movie. And I had to leave the room. And the people being you know, the injuries being depicted in the movie were being depicted on stick figures. Okay. So y I started out I think fairly sensitive, maybe overly so. Um and I was certainly still that way a few short years later when I was a young medical student at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. I have perversely chosen to go exactly against the grain, right? I should have been a radiologist. Or a pathologist. You know, I mean I practically fainted the first time I walked into an operating room, but no, I decided I have to go into emergency medicine.
So I'm Um you know, along the way I've learned to draw I draw blood and start I Vs and I've developed Some of the necessary distance that I think You have to have to take care of somebody, um, as a doctor. I mean I just think that you you need some emotional gap. And some of that's important. Um and is functional but I think Anybody who's been through residency knows that residency takes you beyond that point um in a lot of ways. Um you know, the the ridiculous hours, the fact that you're being asked to do things that you maybe don't really feel ready to do, responsibilities that you think, I'm I don't know how to do that. Yeah, sure you do. You go right ahead and do that. Um and especially the sleep deprivation.
Um so that I think those things all conspire to take you from or took me anyway, from a point of m useful emotional distance and beyond to I would say emotional numbness. So the
What early experiences shaped Ben’s initial sensitivity to patients?
You know, when I was on my surgical rotation, I remember looking really longingly at the person On the table in the operating room? And think I would trade places with you in a heartbeat. You can do whatever you want to me, just let me sleep. So Yeah, I think I had shed quite a bit of the empathy that I started with by the time that I met Linda. Linda was a twenty year old African American woman who had spent more time in that hospital at that point in her life than I had. She had a horrible disease, a disease that I hadn't yet learned to grant its due respect. A disease that would grab her by a limb and crush that limb flat. Till it died. Except that To a young physician, the limb looked totally normal.
But in her mind, which is where all pain is experienced. It was flat as a pancake and dead. So I have learned a lot since then about what the experience of patients with this disease sickle cell is like when they come to the hospital and the terror of wondering if that doctor that is going to be taking care of them that day is somebody who actually understands, wondering
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How did Ben Lerman’s empathy change during his medical training?
0:00–4:12
2
What early experiences shaped Ben’s initial sensitivity to patients?
4:12–7:57
3
How did residency and emergency medicine erode his emotional connection?
7:57–11:17
4
What was the turning point with patient Linda that sparked a shift?
11:17–14:40
5
How did a chance encounter outside the hospital restore his empathy?
14:40–17:56
6
What lessons about physician burnout and the arts emerged from the story?
17:56–21:49
7
How can medical training balance technical skill with human connection?
21:49–26:29
8
Why is measuring the impact of humanities in medicine so challenging?
26:29–29:23