Time
Whether you consider time the fourth dimension or not, it clearly is important to all of us. We all have a finite amount of it in our lives (on this earth anyway). Time spent in a waiting room, whether one is in pain or simply having other appointments that must be kept, seems like wasted time. Time spent waiting always seems to pass much slower than time spent "doing something."
Once you finally make it back into the "treatment area" of the ER, you might think that time will go much faster. Think again. If there weren't already a lot of patients ahead of you, or at least one very sick patient that needed a lot of attention, you wouldn't have had to wait that long in the first place. Most ERs have several rooms, and you just entered the last one.
While I am able to decide in about half a second that your sore throat and stuffy nose is less critical than the other patient who is vomiting blood across the hall, I might not have time to explain that to you. Sorry. I can also determine that you are going to survive with or without treatment in about 10 seconds, and that you probably don't need antibiotics for your viral illness in less than a minute. It might take a bit longer to explain these things to you, so in order to save time, we both might just prefer to give you an antibiotic anyway. After all, you've waited a few hours to be seen, you don't want to leave empty-handed, do you? I didn't think so.
Oh, and after I've stabilized the person who is vomiting blood, sutured the little girl with the cut on her face (who required quite a bit of my time to comfort and prepare for her traumatic ordeal), medicated the guy screaming with his kidney stone who thought he was going to die but was afraid that he wouldn't, and quickly evaluated the three other people with chest pain to get their workups started (they have to wait a bit longer time for their tests to come back, so I can pop in and see you now) . . .
it really doesn't do either of us any good when the first thing I hear from you is a complaint about how long you had to wait. It might have been better use of our time if you had spent your time preparing a concise statement of the medical issues that caused you to seek attention at 2 am. And when I ask you "what seems to be the trouble?" answering "didn't you read the nurse's note?" or "you tell me" isn't helpful or funny. Just get to the point.
Every minute you spend complaining about something neither of us can do anything about is another minute I must either shortchange you of some of our time together, or another minute the person after you has to wait to be seen. You don't want me to rush you, do you? So don't expect me to rush the patients in front of you so I can see you a couple of minutes sooner. You'd still be upset anyway, so I'm not going to stress out, run around, cut corners, or compromise anyone's care so you can go feed the dog.
My time philosophy is this: I really don't care how long you have to wait to be seen. My first goal is to make sure that nobody dies on my watch. My second goal is to make sure that everybody that needs care urgently to prevent serious complications gets that care as soon as possible. My third goal is to relieve pain in those who truly need it. Acute pain is more important than chronic pain. If you don't fall into one of those categories, it really doesn't matter to me how long you have to wait, because even if it is several hours it is still much sooner than you could be seen anywhere else. Deal with it.
When I finally DO get around to see you, I'm not going to rush you. I've already made sure that the people who needed to be evaluated before you have been taken care of. At this point, you are the most urgent patient in my ER, and I will give you all the attention that you require. That's my job.
Oops.....excuse me, I have to answer a page.
Once you finally make it back into the "treatment area" of the ER, you might think that time will go much faster. Think again. If there weren't already a lot of patients ahead of you, or at least one very sick patient that needed a lot of attention, you wouldn't have had to wait that long in the first place. Most ERs have several rooms, and you just entered the last one.
While I am able to decide in about half a second that your sore throat and stuffy nose is less critical than the other patient who is vomiting blood across the hall, I might not have time to explain that to you. Sorry. I can also determine that you are going to survive with or without treatment in about 10 seconds, and that you probably don't need antibiotics for your viral illness in less than a minute. It might take a bit longer to explain these things to you, so in order to save time, we both might just prefer to give you an antibiotic anyway. After all, you've waited a few hours to be seen, you don't want to leave empty-handed, do you? I didn't think so.
Oh, and after I've stabilized the person who is vomiting blood, sutured the little girl with the cut on her face (who required quite a bit of my time to comfort and prepare for her traumatic ordeal), medicated the guy screaming with his kidney stone who thought he was going to die but was afraid that he wouldn't, and quickly evaluated the three other people with chest pain to get their workups started (they have to wait a bit longer time for their tests to come back, so I can pop in and see you now) . . .
it really doesn't do either of us any good when the first thing I hear from you is a complaint about how long you had to wait. It might have been better use of our time if you had spent your time preparing a concise statement of the medical issues that caused you to seek attention at 2 am. And when I ask you "what seems to be the trouble?" answering "didn't you read the nurse's note?" or "you tell me" isn't helpful or funny. Just get to the point.
Every minute you spend complaining about something neither of us can do anything about is another minute I must either shortchange you of some of our time together, or another minute the person after you has to wait to be seen. You don't want me to rush you, do you? So don't expect me to rush the patients in front of you so I can see you a couple of minutes sooner. You'd still be upset anyway, so I'm not going to stress out, run around, cut corners, or compromise anyone's care so you can go feed the dog.
My time philosophy is this: I really don't care how long you have to wait to be seen. My first goal is to make sure that nobody dies on my watch. My second goal is to make sure that everybody that needs care urgently to prevent serious complications gets that care as soon as possible. My third goal is to relieve pain in those who truly need it. Acute pain is more important than chronic pain. If you don't fall into one of those categories, it really doesn't matter to me how long you have to wait, because even if it is several hours it is still much sooner than you could be seen anywhere else. Deal with it.
When I finally DO get around to see you, I'm not going to rush you. I've already made sure that the people who needed to be evaluated before you have been taken care of. At this point, you are the most urgent patient in my ER, and I will give you all the attention that you require. That's my job.
Oops.....excuse me, I have to answer a page.
posted by scalpel at 11:35 AM
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