All Healthcare, All The Time

First off, I absolutely did not tell her that her parathyroid glands contain all the calcium in her body. I mean, I’m still 12 weeks out from the doctor thing, but I seem to recall there being at least a little calcium in bones.

If you’re lucky, you’ll never have to present to your local emergency department (or accident and emergency, as you may know it). But sometimes, you have to. Here’s your handy guide to being a patient in ED.

Before seeing a doctor

When you first enter the emergency department, you will be directed to the triage nurse. The role of the triage nurse is to assess you briefly, and determine how quickly you need to see a doctor. He or she will ask you a number of questions, take your ‘vital’ signs, and key it into the computer. Their job is to assign you a triage category, and will call you into the department as soon as they can.

Sometimes, you have to wait a long time. Sometimes, patients who came into the department after you will be seen before you. And we know that this is really frustrating. These patients come in more quickly than you not because they are ‘more’ sick, but because their symptoms are more concerning. For these patients, delaying treatment may have fatal consequences. And, at the same time, we have ambulances bringing patients to us at another entrance, and often these patients need to be seen urgently. We will do our best to see you in a timely manner. We don’t want to keep you waiting. But sometimes delays are inevitable, and we’re really sorry about that.

Please be patient with us. We will do our best to keep your wait as short as possible, and inform you when we are falling (even more) behind schedule.

When your name is called

When your name is called, someone (normally a nurse or a doctor) will escort you to one of the cubicles. There are lots of gadgets on the walls in these cubicles. Please don’t pay with them. Instead, you can plug your phone into the wall and play with that.

You will be asked to undress and hop into a fashionable hospital gown. The nurse will take your vital signs again, ask you what brings you into emergency, and examine you. They may also take an ECG (which measures the electrical impulses of your heart) and take blood, depending on your symptoms. When this is done, a doctor will come into review you.

With the doctor

The doctor will ask you your ‘history of presenting complaint’. This may involve many questions you’ve already been asked, and we understand that this can be frustrating. The reason we do this is to make sure that nothing gets missed. We are not trying to annoy your or accuse you of lying, promise. We simply need to make sure that we have the most accurate picture of your illness. We will also examine you to try and work out what is happening.

Sometimes, we can work out what’s happening here. We may be able to reassure you that you have a virus or give you treatment without doing further tests. This may be frustrating if you’ve come in expecting a certain treatment, but this doesn’t mean that we are not taking you seriously. I can guarantee that we take every patient and symptom seriously. We don’t think your illness is unimportant, but sometimes, recovery is better at home than at hospital or with medications that have more risks than benefits.

If you are discharged at this point, remember to see your family doctor in three to seven days to check in. If your symptoms worsen or you are concerned, see your family doctor sooner or come back to emergency.

In other cases, we need more information before we can treat your illness. In this case, we may send your blood to the lab, take a urine sample, and order x-rays and other scans. If you are worried, tell us. We will gladly explain our thought process to you. If you are in pain, tell us. We can help with that too. These tests may take a long time. Trust me, I’m annoyed, too. I sit in the doctor’s office refreshing the computer every five minutes to check on your results. But you can (politely) ask me for an update. You can ask for pain relief or a cup of tea. I’m an expert at making tea.

In some cases, we can’t give you food or drink. This is because we think you may possibly need surgery. Keeping you fasted means that if you need an operation, we can do this as safely as possible.

When we have the results

Soon, we have all the information back. Sometimes, everything will be normal and we can send you home. This doesn’t mean there’s nothing wrong, it simply means that we have ruled out life-threatening emergencies, and think you will recuperate better at home than in the hospital. At home, you can sleep in your own bed, eat your favourite foods, and not pick up hospital-acquired infections.

But, in other cases, we may think you need to stay in hospital. We will call our specialist doctors and ask them to come and pay you a visit. We ask them to review you ASAP, but sometimes they are delayed with other patients, or they may be operating. But rest assured, they are not procrastinating or having a long lunch break.

When the specialist doctor sees you, they will ask similar questions to what we have. That’s not because we haven’t told them your story, but because they want to make sure you get the best care. These doctors will decide if you stay in hospital, or if you need surgery, or if you can go home and see a specialist doctor as an outpatient.

If you need to stay, we can tell your loved ones. We will organize a bed for you on the ward and look after you.

The patient was super impressed and spent the rest of the appointment talking about how pap smears always took her OB/GYN forever, even when she wasn’t pregnant, gosh that was the fastest, most comfortable pap smear she’s ever had.

It might be useful for all of u!!!

Let’s tag your friends….

Model of the knee joint function

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4 human hearts with 4 different problems occurring.