Not without a serious fight.

01Jul08

Beep…… Beep…..

Son-of-a-bit….

Stupid call light. Stupid patient. No it is not time for your demerol, and if you hadn’t just eaten an entire bucket of fried chicken you wouldn’t need the phenergan.

“did you need something Dr. Peel?”

“it is not time for your pain medicine yet, I’ve looked at your MAR and you have nothing else for nausea for another hour, would you like me to bring you a sprite or an ice pack?”

“Alright I will let your nurse know that you would like to see her”

effing drug seekers, I don’t want to hear another person complaining.

————————————————————————————

“I have a consult for OB/GYN on call, yes I will hold”

20 minutes later

“the patients name is “we didn’t know she was pregnant”, age is 23, room number is 555, consulting doc is general surgeon, and reason for consult, we didnt know she was pregnant, we caught it in the preop screening….”

“yes, I will hold”

“I’m sorry what did you need…… her method of payment…. where would I find that….. ok…. hold on…….. self pay….. what do you mean you aren’t on call…… really. fine, I will call the non-death-star group.”

————————————————————————————–

I felt ill.

“my spanish isn’t that good. I can’t tell this man he is dying and that you will not treat him because he doesn’t have a social security number”

find another interpreter.

————————————————————————————–

I hear screams down the hall. The anesthesiologist uses the call light to ask for help, she needs to be held down. He isn’t the gentlest, and it is apparent the lidocaine isn’t working, but she needs this central line and it is almost in.

I hold her arm down and coach her breathing. I ask her to tell me about her son, she disolves into more tears, she is hyperventilating.

Apparently she is missing a baseball game.

She has missed a lot of baseball games, mostly due to her paralysis and her repeated hospital visits.

I pray with her, she calms down, stops hyperventilating, the anesthesiologist thanks me for my help and I resume my place next to the monitors and the call light.

Beep….. Beep…….

I feel my face getting hot, my ears red, I wish this damn patient would leave the call light alone, I have a lot to do other than remind her it isn’t time for her damn medicine, this is a hospital not a damn hilton.

Beep…. Beep……..

“did you need something?”

A quiet voice from the other end says “would you come down and pray with me again before you leave”

Oh my god.

I’ve managed to forget the fact that Dr. Peel, who had been on the call light every 2 minutes for the last 3 days was a person. A person who was hurting. Who came to us, wanting us to do something about it.

She may be annoying. A pain in the ass.

————————————————————————————–

I refuse to allow this business to make me cynical.

I refuse to allow the pitfalls of wanting to help people to discourage me from going after what I want to do.

So, insurance companies, drug seekers, long hours and general abuse, eff you.

I refuse to let you keep me from helping people

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