Hello blog world! As I continued to recover from surgery, reapply to jobs, get hired, and work the last three months, I lost the thought entirely to continue to post on this blog. I hereby apologize and hopefully my small base of readers will remain loyal once this post reinvigorates interest.
I was trying to think of the best topic for this post. In January, I was rehired at the hospital I’ve worked at for the last nine years, and am thrilled to be back. Although my recovery and outcome from my most recent surgery haven’t been exactly what I’d hoped, I’m managing to get through life with more ease and slightly less back pain. But I think what I’d really like to cover is the experience of being a patient versus being a healthcare worker. It’s dichotomous but, at the same time, eerily similar. Perhaps my experience has been especially colored by having been both employed and treated at the exact same hospital, but it makes for excellent and insightful comparison.
There is an exceptional video put out by The Mayo Clinic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDDWvj_q-o8) which exemplifies what it’s like to be a patient, an employee, but most importantly, a human. If I’ve learned anything working in healthcare and receiving a lot of healthcare, it’s that the human condition is universal. No matter what walk of life you come from or who you are, the fear and relief that medical care creates is dramatic and real. I have worked with Urologic patients, Oncology patients, Dermatologic patients, Ophthalmology patients and post-Emergency Department patients. Vulnerability is equal across all patients in healthcare. The difficult to navigate world of healthcare in America is treacherous and overwhelming for patients and employees alike.
Having been a patient in so many different specialties I now have a precious set of tools to use in my everyday career. I know what it’s like to wait months to see a specialist. It’s astonishing what it’s like to be told that what you’re experiencing can wait since it’s not “medically urgent” yet as a patient, it affects your functionality every single day. I know what it’s like to come close to having to move surgery even further out because the insurance has not authorized it in time. I know what it’s like to see staff come and go from their shifts while you live and recover in the hospital round the clock. And I know what it’s like to wait an hour past your appointment time, be forced to see the nurse, resident, and fellow before the “actual” doctor, and leave knowing you have four more tests, two blood draws, and a follow-up appointment in order to get a full treatment plan in place. Being a patient sometimes makes you feel like you’re drowning; you’re unable to take in all the people who are asking your name and DOB 50 times over. Every time I’m positive I’ve asked the doctor all my questions, I walk out and immediately realize I had one more. The process to then get in touch with your doctor, especially at a major hospital, feels endless. Someone will get a message to someone who will get a message to someone who works with the doctor. I must be triaged by the nurse first, then wait for a reply from the physician, and hope it clears everything up. My questions feel urgent, to be prioritized above all others. After all, can’t the doctor just answer my question quickly? It’ll only take them a minute! If the doctor could please just call in my refill, I wouldn’t have to wait so long to get the medication. Even after working at the hospital for nearly a decade, I can find myself becoming an impatient patient. Somehow when you’re on the waiting end of things, you feel a sense of frustration and drive to get what you need or want. Patient concerns, from a refill request to an emergency symptom, are valid, always. But let me flip the coin and explain the experience from the other side…
Most days when I walk into work there are over 100 new faxes and over 40 new referrals that came in overnight needing to be scheduled. When a patient calls very upset that we haven’t read over their faxed records yet, it sometimes feels impossible to know how to proceed with the conversation. I usually empathize that their symptoms must be scary, tiring, etc, but that hundreds of other patients had their records sent who feel the same sense of immediacy about getting in for an appointment. Sometimes phrases like “we try our best to get to these within 72 hours” just aren’t helpful, and I can understand that, I really can. But it’s also a true statement. Our staff works tirelessly to get to everyone as fast as humanly possible without compromising care and integrity. Triaging isn’t just for the Emergency Room. Outpatient clinics from Orthopedics to Hematology to Urology must triage all of the records, calls, and requests as well. Unfortunately, if it’s not life, limb, or sight threatening, it’s simply going to take more time than your average patient expects. All the employees taking phone calls must also call the patients to schedule who have been referred-routine, urgent, and emergency. Clinical staff go through every medication request, every test result, and every new symptom after a surgery with meticulous care. I try every day to remind our staff that they can do what they can do. You give each patient the best attention possible, but you cannot feel personally responsible for the emotional reaction patients will likely have about a delay in care. If you do what’s right by the patient, you will make sure each one gets the right treatment and attention regardless of how upset the patient might be. I usually impress upon employees that integrity is doing what is right even when no one is watching. I learned many years ago that the upset patient on the phone or at the front desk isn’t out to get me, Candice, personally. They are out to get help and guidance during perhaps the most frightening, painful, exasperating, sad, and hopeful time in their life. I often remind employees, as well, that you must walk a mile in another person’s shoes, many times a day, to be able to get perspective while doing your job.
I have had patients accuse me of denying them care on purpose, get so close to my face I thought I might get hit, yell at me over the phone because I was the seventh person they were transferred to without getting help or even be informed they’d be transferred in the first place. I have had patients so lost in the hospital that I walked them 15 minutes out of my way to make sure they got to the right department, given patients my personal business card in case they ever needed help, even for something totally unrelated to my clinic, and helped patients who spoke no English to find peace and calm by getting to the right appointment on time, even if I had to go get them from the lobby outside myself. I have had patients who hugged me the first time we met simply for being so grateful for my help getting them an appointment or making sure their insurance coverage was good to go. I have had patients in good spirits who I spoke to on a Wednesday and died by Friday. I have had patients whose lives were saved because of transplants, research, trials, and just plain good doctoring. (Remember the nurse, resident, and fellow you “had to see first” before the “real” doctor?). It was during what the patient experienced as an “endless wait” when magic was taking place. All those minds together collaborated to create better treament. It’s just much easier to see it from the role of giving healthcare instead of receiving. And I have a handful of patients whom I’ll never forget and who have touched my life during their healthcare journey in the same way I hope I did for them. Last year, a patient for whom I’d taken notes during their appointment, sent me a personally written letter in the mail thanking me for helping them understand their treatment more clearly and ultimately feel less anxiety over what was going to happen.
I’m not a nurse, doctor, technician, or anything clinical. I work in admin and leadership and I’m proud to do so every single day. The human condition is what connects us all. Patients and non-patients alike are, in the end, all vital cogs in the machine that makes healthcare, science, and miracles go round. I know what it’s like to walk in to 282 unscheduled patients needing care. And I know what it’s like to be one of the 282 patients waiting on a call to get that care. I’ve seen a lot of things in 10 years. And I still see things every day that shock me and challenge me, both as a patient and a leader. As that touching Mayo Clinic video asks, “If you could stand in someone else’s shoes…hear what they hear…see what they see…feel what they feel…would you treat them differently?”.
-C
Not your mother's 30s 