My 4 Takeways From My Hospital Stay

Shortly after I stopped yelling, swearing and cursing about my dislocated radius fracture (which took about 48 hours) I decided to get the best out of it: We don’t get many chances to get this change of perspective and see and feel how doctor’s work impacts the patient. So I decided to observe closely what I can learn from my colleagues and from the situation itself: The good, the bad an the ugly:

 
Introduce yourself all the time. I had seen the doctor who was doing rounds on me several times before. He had operated on me and introduced himself that day. Still I wasn’t sure whether he was a doc or what his name was (probably Midazolam side-effect. Awesome, though..)

But he was wearing the same cloth as a nurse, no name tag.
By the things he said to me I figured he was a doc, but the three other patients also where rounded by him and asked me afterwards: “You know when the docs are coming?”

Takeaway No. 1:

To every (conscious) patient I have treated less than a week I will introduce myself every time I see him.

(Up to this point I had only done this once.)

Next thing is that the patient has to know when he can expect to see a doctor again. You have influence on his future expectations and thus make disappointments on his part less likely by telling him what the round schedule looks like around here.

Tell him rounds is gonna be irregular because you are in the OR.
Tell him its gonna be between 8am -12 pm.
In case you are stuck in the OR you can call the ward to tell the nurses that you are late.
Or tell him what you expect. No doc should be upset if a patient isn’t in his room during rounds if he hasn’t explained him before.
A busy schedule should never be an excuse for bad organisation.

Takeaway No. 2:

I’ll explain patients who are admitted to our ward how things are handled and when rounds are usually done. 
I knew they had a tough job, but once again I saw, how many decisions nurses have to make on their own, when doctors are gone in the OR or elsewhere.

Takeaway No. 3:

In my orders I will start to consider to prescribe more and precise PRN medication (=Acute Medication. ‘To be taken as needed’), so the nurses have a good guide at hand when I’m unavailable.
 

In my room was an old patient who had chronic heart and lung disease and a broken hip.  Because of the pain he started hyperventilating, vomited and had high blood pressure (my point of view). Adaquate pain medication would have been the solution. But that’s a complex case and difficult for any nurse to analyse, who doesn’t know the patient’s history and clinical examination as well as you do.

 

Takeaway No. 4:

Whenever possible make yourself an own precise picture of any new situation, even if the nurse makes good suggestions on what to treat. 
 
 
What was your takeaway from your last Doctors visit? Please leave a comment!
Posted on
Category: Uncategorized