design and diagnosis

Left the scrub life for design but the scrub life never left me.

When I closed the last chapter of my life and bid goodbye to clinical medicine a few years ago, I didn't know how much of my past life would come into play with UX today.

In my past life as medical scribe and patient advocate, a large part of my job was to gather the basic information (research phase) from the patient, such as: name, age, height, weight, blood pressure, and past medical history before diving into the reason for their visit. Know who your patient is before and after the problem — the person behind the illness.

While some patients know exactly what their problem was, others come in with a list. So, I would survey the patient by asking questions such as: “Where is the pain occurring?” “How frequent is the pain?” “What has worked and what didn’t?” and discover other factors that may influence it in order to help the healthcare provider pinpoint the chief complaint.

As a team, we would brainstorm solutions to the patient’s problem with their history in mind and give them the best course of treatment that would suit their needs. But the journey doesn’t just end after their treatment. We gather feedback on the patient’s aftercare. If they’re still not well, we evaluate and make changes to the new course of treatment.

As a UX designer, instead of swearing to the Hippocratic Oath, I swear to Oath for Designers, and vow to treat my clients the same way as I treated my patients: with care, diligence, empathy and above all else, never losing sight of what is most important: them.