Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Not Today

Surgery is "scheduled" for some time tomorrow. Never saw an attending today, and I'm hearing flat-out lies from residents. Seems I have a reputation with the team, and they are avoiding coming to talk to me. You don't have to like me. But you better take care of my kid. I'm pretty sure that the attending isn't actually avoiding me, but quite sure the others are. Guess the attending is just too important for a silly g-tube case today.

I think that's all I'll say because I'm probably not going to be very nice if I go on. I'm going home in a little bit (SuperDad is supposed to be here in 45 seconds - and don't think I'm not counting!) and coming back early in the morning. Becca's doing fine and had a great morning (which I'm hoping to post more about later). I'm sure she'd like to go home and see her puppies and her pretty new room, but she's feeling good (except for the puking again this morning, which the doctors won't talk to me about) and, for the most part, having a good time, at least when we aren't poking her, pinning her down, taping things to her face or otherwise fiddling with her person.

Okay, I will say one more thing: I don't think my daughter is more special than the other kids here. (Okay, I think she is, but I know that other people probably don't think so, and she's certainly not any more special simply because they have highlighted her story.) BUT - if you are going to take a patient's story public and put her on the cover of the magazine and the front page of the website, do you think that maybe, just maybe, you should make sure she is treated well and her parents are treated with respect? Maybe?

And that is all.

UPDATE: The fellow and the attending just came by. The attending had clinic in the morning, but apparently none of the residents or the fellows thought to communicate that either to me or to the nurse, instead preferring to say not particularly nice or helpful things to/about me. The attending did agree that we should see an attending every day. I'm perfectly happy if that's in the morning or in the afternoon, as long as I know when it is (generally - I'm not looking for a scheduled slot), so I can plan accordingly. When you have been in the hospital for 10 days, you generally can't just sit in the room and twiddle little toddler thumbs until a doctor shows up at 3:30. If I had known there were coming in the afternoon, I might have (gasp!) taken a shower or actually gotten lunch (instead of eating Becca's leftovers, which, unfortunately comprised a small meal) in the 10.5 "free" hours I had before they arrived. All I needed was one sentence: "Dr. Gillis is in clinic this morning, but she will round this afternoon." Communication, people. Communication.


2 comments:

  1. I always think that business management and customer service should be required courses in med school.

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  2. If Grey's Anatomy tells us anything, all the residents and everyone else were too busy having sex in the on-call room to actually tend to patients. And while they were in there talking about Becca, it was really a thinly veiled metaphor about their own vapid, narcissistic lives.

    Either that or they're just not as attentive as they need to be. But I'm going to assume the former because it's more fun ;)

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