A Brief Note On Doctor Or Patient?

The Waiting Room incorporates the observational mode trait of long takes to illustrate the chaos that occurs in the waiting room and behind the scenes of the hospital. Moreover, the long takes in the film provide a glimpse of each patients’ background story and allows people to express their concerns instead of revealing character individuality, which may help the viewer infer why the health care system in America is failing. The long takes help decipher, “The body language, and eye contact, the intonation and tone of the voices, the pauses and “empty” time that gives the encounter the sense of concrete, lived reality” (Nicholas 176), that depicts each patients’ harsh reality of what it is like living with no health insurance. For example, there is a scene where a little girl and her mom follow a nurse into a room, the camera follows them and the viewer can see the

Prominently featured in the mission statements of virtually of every medical school and medical institution in the world is the call for empathetic doctors. These institutions wish to train medical professionals that possess qualities of sympathy and compassion, and hospitals wish to employ health professionals that showcase similar qualities. The reality, however, is starkly different, as physicians, jaded by what they have seen in the medical world, lose the qualities that drove them to medicine in the first place. In Frank Huyler’s “The Blood of Strangers,” a collection of short stories from his time as a physician in the emergency room, Huyler uses the literary techniques of irony and imagery to depict the reality of the world of a medical professional. While Huyler provides several examples of both techniques in his accounts, moments from “A Difference of Opinion” and “The Secret” in particular stand out. Huyler uses irony and imagery in these two pieces to describe how medical professionals have lost their sense of compassion and empathy due to being jaded and desensitized by the awful incidents they have witnessed during their careers.

After a week working in the hospital, I went on home visits with nurses, doctors, nutritionists, psychologists and a monk. The first patient lives in a shabby wooden house. A great contrast could be seen between the room that the patient lives in and the rest of the house. “The patient is diagnosed with prostate cancer with bone metastasis. The room is specially built for him by the hospital and his family. He won’t live long.” A nurse told me. On another visit, I met a man with esophagus cancer.

Within this case study I am going to use two of the Chapelhow et al. (2005) enablers to discuss and reflect on the care of a patient I have been involved with on placement over a period of 5 weeks. ‘Enablers are the essential and underpinning skills that come together to provide expert professional practice’ (Chapelhow, C et al. 2005, p.2). These include; assessment, communication, documentation, risk, professional decision making and managing uncertainty. The enablers work together to provide a holistic approach to the care of patients in health care settings. I am going to focus on and discuss two of the enablers, linking them both together, which will be assessment and communication as I believe these two enablers can be related most to my patient.

Working alongside physicians, I have seen over 5,000 patient cases and documented each individual history of present illness, review of systems, physical exam, medical decision making, and diagnoses. I have viewed hundreds of X-rays and EKGs and recorded physician interpretations. Observing and charting specifications of emergency room procedures provided a stimulating element-- from an application of a sugar tong splint on an athlete for an acute ulnar fracture, to a scalp laceration repair on an elderly patient after a fall. One of my most exhilarating cases is seeing a PA save the life of a COPD patient as he performs a chest-tube insertion for a pneumothorax. Furthermore, my predilection for the PA role is corroborated by the aspect that PAs get to spend more time with patients. In one particular scene, a compassionate PA offers a heartfelt consultation to a suicidal veteran with PTSD. These invaluable experiences have markedly expanded my medical knowledge base and further bolstered my interest in the role of a physician assistant.

As a volunteer in the emergency room, I was exposed to various medical procedures performed by the technicians, nurses, physician assistants and physicians. I was surprised to see how a place that seems to be constantly chaotic can still give every patient the care they need. It was not until I spent more time volunteering in the emergency room did I realize that although it seemed to be chaotic, the healthcare providers had a well established routine along with teamwork. I was shocked when I saw a physician assistant delivering lunch to a patient, as this is usually done by the nurses or technicians. It was through this that I understood how teamwork is essential to providing excellent care. The health care professionals in this emergency room never pulled rank or established clear cut responsibilities, everyone just did what they could and this was how simple their routine was. They didn’t let their pride prevent them from what needed to be done, after all every healthcare worker only has one responsibility; and that is to care for the patient to their fullest

In September 2015, I had an opportunity to join the team of volunteers of the Inspira Medical Center in Woodbury. I joined the Emergency Department. My shifts were once a week for three to six hours. I had a chance to interact with patients, mostly to help ease their anxiety and fear. This experience was valuable because it allowed me not just to observe, but also to look at healthcare from the perspective of a patient. I realized that I did not have to be a licensed practitioner to understand patients’ concerns and fears. I also realized that any effort on my part to help ease such worries would go a long way towards helping the patient feel more secure in themselves and their

That patient-centred focus was evident again when I shadowed a consultant urologist. Inspired by this, I work at integrating patience and compassion in my roles particularly in leading an SEN Scout group and also as a ward volunteer in King's. As a St John Ambulance cadet, I have developed experience in reacting calmly and showing appropriate concern in order to reduce panic in those needing medical

This Friday, September 15th, I had my clinical observation experience in the ED. I was there from 7:00 am till noon, viewing the flow and duties of the nursing staff on the unit, as well as practicing the skills I have thus learned in school. Throughout most of the morning, I followed Jessica, who had been a nurse in the ER for ten years. It was an insightful experience that broadened my previously limited knowledge of the roles and experience of an emergency nurse.

to be at right now? Well, he’d canceled it at 1:45. What about that email that he had

The schedule of the volunteers is the responsibility of the volunteer coordinator and while requests have been made to have the same volunteers this is not always possible. Some days there may be a single volunteer to manage the numerous responsibilities without any assistance and on occasion, particularly in the evening, there is no volunteer and the waiting room is left unattended. The waiting room is the first impression customers, patient and family, see when they arrive for surgery. Leaving the waiting room unattended is a poor reflection on the department and can be perceived as unwelcoming. “The perioperative environment is often seen as impersonal and unfriendly” (Stephens-Woods, 2008, p. 7). Without someone to receive patients and answer the phone, communication becomes fragmented and impersonal.

My supervisor, one of the head nurses, hurriedly pulled me to the corner of the bleach white hospital room and directed me to put on gloves, an eye mask, and a face mask. I felt as if I was preparing for war as I put on all of the required gear. The sound of expensive shoes click-clacked down the hallway indicating the arrival of two doctors who rushed into the room and shouted out orders to the staff while pulling the doors to the room shut along with the curtains. Two doctors, eight nurses, an intern, and a dying patient squeezed into the already claustrophobic ten by fifteen-foot room. The machine monitoring the patient’s vital signs continued to beep incessantly as my heart rate accelerated. Throughout my internship, I had never seen a patient in critical condition until that moment. I remembered my teacher’s advice if we were ever in a situation such as this: take a few deep breaths and sit down if you feel like you’re going to pass out. In that

Flashing red and blue lights accompanied by an alarming siren in the distance is signaled when the double doors of the emergency room burst open. Pushed by several nurses, doctors, and other medical staff, a lone hospital stretcher with a bloody, wounded patient flies through the medical center towards the doors to the operating room. This image is what generally comes to mind when you think about an emergency room. Many people believe that the hospital’s emergency room is a dark and scary place. While this is true, the common misconception is that the emergency room is a place clear of humor, when in reality humor is present, even necessary, for many reasons. Many television shows, like the show ER, are based in the setting of the

To explore my medical interests, I started volunteering at a local hospital where I worked in the West wing, which encompassed randomized patients, mostly of older age, but with a variety of differing complications. One Saturday, I was told to file and keep a close eye on a new patient, who had been located in the room closest to the front desk. A youthful

The flow of the medical community is dependent on every person employed there. The harmony it creates does not only come from the doctors or nurses, but the janitors, surgeons, receptionists, and even the pharmacists. Each job is necessary in order for the hospitals to function properly; for instance, the doctors diagnose the patient with their illness, prescribe them medication to cure it, and send them to the pharmacist, who then gives them their medication and sends them home. However, some jobs are overlooked more than others and do not receive the proper credit, like the pharmacist. Pharmacists are recognized for dispensing and sorting drugs, but their jobs help educate patients over their prescription and uphold the