Patience....

I was reading about asthma and thinking about how bad the control of asthma is amongst ladies in their 50s. (I am currently in the female medical ward in B.P. Hospital, oh and by the way, I have passed my End of Semester 9!! Another step closing to achieving a small part of my dream :) )

Anyways, patients can be amazing people. When being asked about usage of inhalers, patient says, " Ahhh, tak pandai guna lah, makan ubat sajalah..". When being asked why didn't the doctor taught her the method, she said it's just that she's unable to use it, not the doctors problem. This happened twice on my 2nd day in the female medical ward! :O. Sigh, I am wondering at this point of time, do we blame the patient for not taking the initiative to care for their own health? Would explaining the detrimental effects of poor asthma control enough to shake them out of their comfortable position now?

This thoughts went in circles and has extracted another incident I remembered from a year ago when I was following a doctor in the Orthopedic Clinic. We were looking at an MRI of a patient's thigh(Can't remember the exact location or which side now). There was a huge rhabdomyosarcoma(tumor) on the anterior aspect of the thigh. So huge that it was amazingly scary. We were all stunned and was waiting to meet this patient.

Patient, an Indian(not being racist, just trying to illustrate how the man looks like :) ), middle-aged man came barging in. Apparently he has been waiting a long, long long time. Probably 2 hours. (Then again, which patient doesn't wait?- patient who are dying in the next 5 minutes). Our doctor was not a very patient person as well, there was a bit of a dispute between both of them.

Anyway, the patient was partially calm from the waiting, and hence the diagnosis was revealed and he was told that he needs to go to KL for a biopsy for further aggressive treatment blah blah. Basically to make the long story short, he became angry again because he thinks that the doctor is pushing him around and trying to delay things. ( Defense mechanism probably)

Then....

the patient walked out.

The 5 medical students, the specialist, the nurse, all had opened mouth and was in shock. One of us tried to chase the patient back but he walked too fast.

Let's just see here what had the patient misunderstood

1. Patient was thinking that the doctor was doing the work slowly and hence he had to wait long. (by the way, there are a couple of people I know who are so impatient that they can't wait and they have this thinking that everyone is lazing around. The fact is, the doctor was examining the patients so fast that we all weren't even able to write down everything or remember anything. It was in blur)

2. Patient thought that the doctor was trying to push him around. The fact is, the specialist was already a very good surgeon, but he called his colleague whom he knows specialized in this type of surgery to free up his time so he can operate on this patient, and called another surgeon that is good to do the biopsy to prevent seedling of the tumor. All on his own phone! All these happened prior to the patient coming in. Which also resulted in the delay of seeing the patient.

Now, we have no idea of the whereabouts of the patient.

Who is at the losing end here?

The thing is, I know waiting for a long time is a pain. (I have waited almost 2 hours to see the skin doctor, and it's all because they couldn't find my appointment card). Even though it is irritating to see nurses and hospital staffs walking around relaxing and doing their work slowly, we need to understand that the work their doing cannot be rushed as mistakes can happen. Healthcare providers needs to pause and think too.

If giving the staff at the counter a hard time is not going to make a difference, why bother scolding and increasing our risk of getting a heart attack? Give people the benefit of the doubt. It can do you good :).