Book Review: The Use of Force

1 Book Review: The Use of Force We have all possibly grown up knowing that doctors are there to help and not harm because that is what the elderly taught us. However, a small fear normally engulfs us whenever we are taken to the doctor, always hoping that he or she will not do something to hurt us. Maybe this was because of our frightening first encounter or previous experience with the doctor.

Maybe it was our failure to understand that the doctor's acts are meant to protect us from diseases and not to harm us due to our tender age. Whatever the reason, people always tend to be anxious about the fact that doctors may actually cause harm to us while in the process of helping us. In The Use of Force, the young girl is afraid of the doctor due to the fact that Dr. Olson is a complete stranger to her, and she is anxious over what the doctor might do to her. How the doctor handles this lack of trust between him and the patient makes me believe that he does not care for the patient.

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2 As the story begins, we see the young girl's parents immediately placing a sense of trust in Dr. Olson. Despite not having any previous relationship with him, Mathilda's mother automatically accords the doctor all of her trust due to his field of study. She believes that Dr. Olson is there to do whatever is best for the well-being of her daughter. Nonetheless, Mathilda is not old enough to acknowledge that Dr. Olson has come to "help." The young girl cannot understand that her parents are paying the doctor to help relieve her pain. In her world, she is not ready to trust the doctor because this is the first time she is meeting him. The mother tries to ease her daughter's discomfort and distrust by reassuring her that a doctor is a nice man who has only come to help and not to harm her. Although the family has accepted the doctor into their home, Dr. Olson is still aware that Mathilda's parents do not really trust him. He says that "they are were all very nervous, eyeing me up and down distrustfully" (501).

True to their fear, the doctor chooses to utilize the wrong way of handling his patient.

When it comes to children, caring doctors begin by establishing or gaining the trust of the patient (Mărginean et al., 2017). That is not the case with Dr. Olson. He describes Matilda's behavior as very distrustful and claims that the patient was "eating me up with her cold, steady eyes, and no expression to face whatever" (501). The patient does not trust the doctor at all because she sees him as a total stranger. To show that he cares and make her trust him, the doctor could have tried a different method by being more soothing. Instead, he assumes a wrong approach by making it a doctor-patient relationship. Dr. Olson fails to acknowledge that Mathilda is too young to understand, and thus he continues with his actions. If he actually cared about the young patient, he could have first worked to establish a sense of the relationship between him and the young girl. He could have done this by giving her a piece of candy for saying her name. Similarly, the doctor could have explained to the young girl of his profession and make her know the purpose

3 of being in their house rather than instantly coming out and tell his already terrified patient to open her mouth.

Another approach that the doctor could have assumed would have been using the young girl's to demonstrate what he wanted to do with her. Doing so would have enabled the terrified young girl to see for herself that no harm will come to her if she agrees to be examined. The doctor fails to understand that he first needs to gain the girl's trust to carry out his activity with peace. His failure to handle the patient with the care she deserves results in a violent encounter that leads to the patient being hurt. Furthermore, the doctor also reacts angrily to the girl's behavior and even threatens her when he says, "Will you open it now by yourself or shall we have to open it for you" (502). Such words do not do any good other than placing more fear and distrust into the young, sick patient. Even after seeing the child's mouth bleeding due to her cut tongue, the doctor still goes ahead to force a heavy silver spoon back of the patient's teeth and down her throat.

The foregoing discussion has significantly elaborated that the doctor does not actually care about the patient. This lack of care is best demonstrated by the fact that the doctor fails to do enough to establish trust between him and the patient. Even after the encounter has turned into violence and harm to the patient, the doctor fails to change his approach and continues to cause more harm to the child, something that leaves her very furious.

4 References Mărginean, C. O., Meliţ, L. E., Chinceşan, M., Mureşan, S., Georgescu, A. M., Suciu, N., ... & Azamfirei, L. (2017). Communication skills in pediatrics–the relationship between pediatrician and child. Medicine, 96(43).

Williams, C, W. (1938). The Use of Force. The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction 8th Edition: W.W. Norton & Company. NYC, NY.