The medical field is changing. I know that the doctors are not same and the patients are not the same . Patients go to a particular doctor not because they want to go and like him , but their insurance tells them to go to a doctors who are on their insurance plans. There are exception to the rule.I have many patients who would 'change' the plan if they can not come to me . But even today's doctors are different. When I talk to some new doctors, they would prefer to work 8 to 5 type of job.It is difficult to say the least. The medical life is different .When someone in non medical life spends too much time in his or her business, then we criticise him. We say that he is too much after money or he does not care about own family.But when a physician does this to take care of a patient, we say that he is 'caring'. We praise his behaviour and say that" he is so good that he does not care about his own family when it comes to his family."This is the medical paradox that I was telling. But this is not limited to the doctors only . Even the nurses and other medical support staff does this all the time . Today I am going to mention two such short stories.
I was invited for a 'surprise '50th birthday of a nurse that I knew .I was told to come to the house and park the car 2 blocks away. She was working 12 hours shift ,7 to pm . So she was not likely to come home before 7-pm.So I decided to go around after 7-30 pm.I went in the house and there were about 20 other people . The nurse did not show up.So we contacted one of the nurses who was also working with the nurse.She was to call us when this nurse would leave the hospital. We waited till 9 pm before we got the call and then the birthday girl arrived . There was a sick patient , who needed to be transferred to the ICU and she worked on him till he got the transferred.
The second story is that of a respiratory therapist.I was seeing a patient who had respiratory failure. The patient was doing well and appeared to be ready for extubation, to take patient off the respirator.So I was sitting at the desk and told the respiratory therapist to do the test to see if he was ready . (they do blood oxygen ,carbon dioxide and check 'mechaniques'--to check the strength of the respiratory muscles.)The therapist went to do it I could see him from where I was sitting . He went in the room . I saw him stumbling and falling down . I ran to to the room .The other nurse came in too. We got him out of the room and put him in a chair. He was sweating and was cold and clammy. The nurse was putting a blood pressure cuff. I told her to grab 50%glucose . I got IV line and pushed the glucose while the nurse checked the blood glucose.I was not surprised when she told me that the glucose was 53 very low. The therapist woke up .I gave him couple of orange juices. I did not know he was diabetic and was taking insulin.He was so busy that he did not have time to eat the lunch.So his sugar dropped and he almost lost the consciousness. Like the other nurse who had birthday , he also did not care for his own health.
I was invited for a 'surprise '50th birthday of a nurse that I knew .I was told to come to the house and park the car 2 blocks away. She was working 12 hours shift ,7 to pm . So she was not likely to come home before 7-pm.So I decided to go around after 7-30 pm.I went in the house and there were about 20 other people . The nurse did not show up.So we contacted one of the nurses who was also working with the nurse.She was to call us when this nurse would leave the hospital. We waited till 9 pm before we got the call and then the birthday girl arrived . There was a sick patient , who needed to be transferred to the ICU and she worked on him till he got the transferred.
The second story is that of a respiratory therapist.I was seeing a patient who had respiratory failure. The patient was doing well and appeared to be ready for extubation, to take patient off the respirator.So I was sitting at the desk and told the respiratory therapist to do the test to see if he was ready . (they do blood oxygen ,carbon dioxide and check 'mechaniques'--to check the strength of the respiratory muscles.)The therapist went to do it I could see him from where I was sitting . He went in the room . I saw him stumbling and falling down . I ran to to the room .The other nurse came in too. We got him out of the room and put him in a chair. He was sweating and was cold and clammy. The nurse was putting a blood pressure cuff. I told her to grab 50%glucose . I got IV line and pushed the glucose while the nurse checked the blood glucose.I was not surprised when she told me that the glucose was 53 very low. The therapist woke up .I gave him couple of orange juices. I did not know he was diabetic and was taking insulin.He was so busy that he did not have time to eat the lunch.So his sugar dropped and he almost lost the consciousness. Like the other nurse who had birthday , he also did not care for his own health.
No comments:
Post a Comment