I read something that irritated me.
Actually I have read several things that irritated me this morning, but this one irritated me the most for some reason.
On ModernMedicine.com there was a story about a “a pediatrician in the ED, a hospital executive, and a consultant on organizational development” who complained about the service his child received in the ED.
We don’t know everything about the story, but he was out of town with his family, his son fell and had a laceration to the scalp, and they didn’t receive treatment for 3.5 hours.
Several times, he used his restraint to keep from telling the staff “I’m a doctor, too, dammit, now treat my kid better.” Finally, he couldn’t take it any more and revealed his professional status to a nurse who “looked bewildered.”
He complained about how the resident irrigated the wound. He complained about how the closure of the wound on his son’s head was “less than perfect.” Then he expressed his “fury” at the “ineptitude” of his “fellow professionals” and remarked how the whole hospital system had a “lack of discipline.”
He ended his article with the following:
“The problem here is the focus—or lack of focus—on the human side of the experience. It is beyond belief that our trip to the ED required a 4-hour wait for a 15-minute intervention, but more important is the lack of personal attention or connection associated with our experience. And that is a matter of choice, not cost.”
I just didn’t get a lot of things after reading his diatribe
- What did he expect to happen by “revealing his professional status”? A call overhead? “Stop the intubation. Stop examining the multivehicle car accident victims. Doctor’s kid with a bump on the head in Room 7.” The insinuation from his article was that he expected special treatment because he was once a doctor and was upset because he didn’t get it. To me, that’s bush league.
- He couldn’t have had much experience in the ED. Otherwise, he would know that a 3.5 hour wait for a 15 minute procedure isn’t so overwhelming in many places. In some larger hospitals, the average wait for care is 18-24 hours. Does he go to Disney World and complain, too? Last year, my kids and I waited 2.5 hours for a 4 minute ride on Space Mountain. No one talked to us in line, either. The a-go-ny.
- Most importantly, it is distressing to see that this administrator equates “better care” with an attention to the “human side of the experience” in the emergency department. Forget medical training. Medical decisionmaking flies out the window. We can apparently kill and maim people as long as we’re nice about it. We can give antibiotics for snot noses and, as a pediatrician, he may even let you slide for prescribing *gasp* children’s cold medications – so long as you meet those “human side” patient satisfaction scores.
It would be interesting to talk to the ED physicians and to critique the systems where he is an administrator and where he has “consulted” – just so we could see what “good” outcomes should look like.
I’m all for adding the human component of medical care, but from this doc’s little room, he had no idea what was going on in the general emergency department. Maybe they could have been better at communicating things to him and his family. To suggest that the care he received was inadequate because they didn’t communicate to him is silly.
Oh well, at least he didn’t call it the emergency “room” – that would really have pushed me over the edge.
Well, if he’s such a hot shot doctor, why didn’t he fix his kid’s laceration? Or maybe he’s been out of practice so long that he couldn’t remember what butterfly bandaids are for.
My sentiments exactly.
What he left out of his story was that he stamped his feet until they scanned the kid’s head “just in case” and then paged the plastic surgeon on call for the “HUGE” 0.5 cm scalp lac…
Umm- duh. Where the hell does he work? Fantasy land?
Severe Entitlement Syndrome indeed.
Oh, my…what arrogance. And I’m wondering what the heck he was doing taking the child to the ED in the first place for a 0.5 cm wound. I’m just a nurse and if it was my child, I would have just just taken care of it at home…
3 Hours ????
When I broke my hand the other year I was x-rayed, plastered up and chucked out in about 45 mins(major city hospital). I was really impressed by the whole setup.
Of course this isn’t America, and no-one was charging by the hour.
Reminds me of an instance when I was the surgical resident in the ED. I was paged several times to make sure that I looked after some staffer for our local Congress critter (nameless, but he’s still in DC, very senior, and as arrogant as a day is long). Said staffer had a big cut on his finger.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t fast enough. I had been wasting my time in the trauma bay with a 4 year old who had fallen out of a 3rd story window.
I got a nice chewing-out from the ED director, which made me feel even better as I watched the kid going off to the OR for his brainstem injury.
Come on. It’s a scalp laceration. Clean it, cover it, and comb over it.
Although the triage nurse was pleasant enough, the staff overall was aloof and spent more time interacting among themselves than with the patients. My son played with my phone, and the time passed easily for him; not so for my wife and me.
I wasn’t aware that making socialite rounds was part of my job. Maybe they should have set up a game of doubles cribbage vs. the husband and wife of the interactive and happy-appearing febrile x 1 hour 4 year old.
Wow, what a jerk. This guy should get a blog so I have someone new to rip on besides Happy.
Because this behavior involved patient care, the ER staff may further endear itself to the doctor by reporting him to his licensing board, for being a disruptive physician.
He even had to consult his son’s pediatrician at 10 PM to decide whether his 0.5 cm scalp lac needed treatment. Come on…
My fave quote from the article is the last sentence in this paragraph…..
But that was the thing that flipped the switch for my son. It was now close to 2 AM, and he just couldn’t hold it together anymore. The attending came in to close the wound with glue; the closure was less than perfect. We discussed removing the adhesive and repeating the closure; the discussion was couched in “if you want to, I will” language, which I have used myself.
So he’s basically saying “I’m as socially inept as the doc I am accusing of being socially (and professionally in this paragraph) inept”.
He’s one of those hypocrite people…..
1)If he’s a pediatrician, why did he call a pediatrician to advise him to go the the ED?
Lord save me from people like this. You think treating a doctor’s kid is hard, try royalty! When I was a med student and working with an Ophthamologist, a member of a royal family (won’t say which one, but they have more money than God AND His direct line) left her glasses on the airplane. She showed up at the clinic, expecting an exam and new glasses. The ophtho literally walked out of a surgery he was doing on a 80ish woman (who was under general anesthesia) to PERSONALLY perform her entire eye exam, write an Rx, and recommend frames, etc. On the way back to the OR, he showed me a watch that the family had purchased for him that easily was worth several hundred thousand dollars (it was platinum, had loose diamonds rolling around the face, etc). And then he proceeded to re-anesthetize the grandma to complete her procedure. He’d left her there for almost 2hrs. What an ASS! In the ER now (so sue me, I say ER), I treat everyone the same. If you spit at me and swear, you will still be treated. But if I start treating kids based on who they (or their parents) are, we might as well open two ERs: for those with money/power and those without. Free EMLA for all on one side, leather straps and billy clubs for the other!
And almost 4hrs for a 15min procedure? Welcome to the overcrowded and overburdened emergency system. Maybe he can keep his clinic open past 5pm so that his patients can be seen by HIM instead of an auto system recommending care “at your local emergency dept” while he’s relaxing with that scotch at home. Clueless…
I have taken to NEVER going to the ED unless I am unconscious in the back of an ambulance, taken against my will or on a life flight. And I have access to civilian and military medical facilities.
The people in the waiting room make me want to give them something to be there for.
Did he never have to do and ED rotation in what I assume would be a large teaching facility…thus extremely busy and overcrowded ED?
Do you think he really was a doctor?
HE writes just like the unaware patients.. and even tho common sense should tell them there are other emergencies and you certainly can’t go by what the waiting room seems like or if the inner ED *seems* quiet. There could be CPRs, traumas, etc. As a physician… I am astounded he wouldn’t know that.
I am not necessarily surprised that he was offended he didn’t get some professional courtesy attention once he announced his profession… because I have seen that happen. But gee..if it didn’t…THAT should have told him the staff was tied up.
I do think it is possible to appease people with a smile, sincere concern.. even when rushed and let them know you will be with them as soon as possible, but you do have an emergency that is a priority. I did that as ED receptionist when people started getting impatient. But then I wasn’t busy doing compressions on a patient either.
Still…a physician should’ve known better.
Classic example of why I feel like an actress at work.Smile,nod, say the right things…..while mentally screaming behind the placid facade.
If I were the ED doctor, I would have politely informed the “VIP” doctor that plastics should see an obvious facial wound. The extra-long wait would have served the guy right.
“Oh well, at least he didn’t call it the emergency “room” – that would really have pushed me over the edge.”
Whether it is a Room or a Department is irrelevant when there is no Emergency. (though we all know it’s an ER, not an ED.)
I hate administrators.
God what an ass. Sure, we’re not supposed to treat family, but it’s a PARENT’s job to pick their kid up, wash them down, put on a bandaid, and kiss it better. Yeesh.