Looking up from the stretcher

There is a reason that health care workers are bad patients, we know too much.

I got the pleasure of looking up at my co-workers last Thur night for the first time in 4 years. As I lay on the stretcher in the ER, with such back pain that I wanted someone to knock me out...I thought, "damn, maybe it's an aneurysm." Fair well knowing all my symptoms were pointing to kidney infection or stones.

One of my favorite ER docs walks into my room and did the whole "what the heck are you doing?!" thing, because again, its odd when you see someone you are not just working with in different situations. We start doing the symptom run down, how long, how much pain, if I do this...does it hurt? Etc. Somewhere in there, I got a shot of dilaudid in the ass and that began the downhill spiral of haziness to occur.

When your doc is on such a good level with you that she says "well, you look like ass" my only reply was, "I feel like ass." So, this got me thinking a few days later...this is not a normal doctor patient interaction. Yes, we work together, we have saved lives, caught mistakes, been unable to save a life and done it all with a smile. Would she act any less kind or personable to another patient, NO. I've watched her over and over again, and she's always the same, but, in this case, its different. Did I receive better care because I was an employee? Some may argue yes, but I still hold to no. They did everything for me they would have done for any other patient with my symptoms...the difference? I know how to act and how to treat the people taking care of me.

The things that families and patients don't realize sometimes is, you get what you give. Our attitudes directly reflect how you treat us. The prime example? while I was laying there in a very nice diluadid/toradol coma, the patient across the room from me started throwing a fit. Why? Best guess from what I remember was attention. The reason I know it wasn't real...is how the husband acted. He sat there calm and cool, if in fact, there had been something wrong...he would have reacted. His reaction tells me, she does this a lot. The way she acted got a semi negative response from the health care worker seeing her. Justified? Yep.

No one wants to be sick, no one wants to be on that side of the stretcher...but take the time to think about those taking care of you, because in the end, they will give you what you give them.