When my mother told me that a family relative was sick with food poisoning, I decided to visit her for Christmas. I had to take a bus to Baltimore, Maryland then take a cab to the hospital where she and other family members were. The doctor told we shouldn't worry as my cousin is expected to make a full recovery after a week. She was only in the hospital resting and regaining strength to continue daily life. This was one of the most pleasant times I've ever had at the hospital, everyone was smiling and pretty much in a good mood. Even my cousin seemed to be content, though she was sleeping most of the time.
My cousin soon recovered and left the hospital the next day, she was granted sick leave from work soon after. Since she didn't really have a serious ailment she was pretty cheerful. She basically acted normal, moved around, talked with the family, and she even played Nintendo Wii with me. One thing she didn't want was everyone particularly her mother Marsha to treat her as a sick patient. She didn't want to be "babied" or given special treatment from anyone, she basically wanted us to treat her as if nothing had happened. One hardship that my cousin did experience however, was that she couldn't eat or drink anything except for water. That is actually much more difficult than it sounds. There were however, many times about 4-5 where I did catch her sneak and eat macaroni and cheese, fried chicken, and Jello. Of course I didn't say anything to anyone. Marsha insisted that my cousin stay in bed and try not to be active around the house basically interpreting what the doctor originally which was "give her a week or so and she'll be fine" to " she won't be fine until the end of the week".
Doctors and nurses in the hospital that my cousin was in were extremely nice and helpful. I'm sure they were also relieved they were able to care for a patient who wasn't terminally ill. Their was air-conditioning, an HD Flat screen t.v., and a bed that looked comfortable with many pillows. I thought because my cousins condition wasn't that bad the doctors had a easier time treating my cousin as a human being and not a patient. Since she wasn't terribly ill or suffering to bad the doctors were able to see her as one of them a human being. I always though part of the reason doctors and nurses treated people as if they were only patients and not human beings is because they can't really relate to a ill/sick person lying in front of them, they just simply don't want to get attached to their patient in case they die, or they just may want to do their job and get paid to make a living, The whole situation seemed similar to Mountains Beyond Mountains, because the medical staff seemed to have many of the qualities of the medical staff and even Paul Farmer from the book. They were very kind and considerate to my cousin and even us the family members who weren't ill/sick. It made me very happy to be treated this way from doctors despite all that I've recently been learning in class, about doctors treating patients rather terribly.
My favorite aspect about this post was how you were able to draw so many insights from a time that you visited the hospital where the patient's life was not exactly at risk. You were able to look at an experience that many people did not choose that is, in a way, more challenging, and still observe many things. For instance, you said, "She didn't want to be "babied" or given special treatment from anyone, she basically wanted us to treat her as if nothing had happened." Even though she was going to be fine, you were still able to observe changes in behavior.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment first of all I appreciate, the time you took out of your day to do this. I was mainly able to observe these behavioral changes because, I wanted to include it specifically for this assignment.
ReplyDeleteStephenD(Abdul's younger friend): Your best part about your paper was that you were able to make many observations while at the hospital. You were in a scary place and you were able to focus alot and pay attention to Marsha's behavor. You said " It made me very happy to be treated this way from doctors despite all that I've recently been learning in class, about doctors treating patients rather terribly". You were really paying attention to the nurses to make sure they would nice to your cousin good job.
ReplyDeleteI think the best part of this HW was that you showed the actions of someone receiving sufficient medical care, which is a situation we hardly dealt with in this unit. It was interesting how you talked about people reactions to her even after she was out of the hospital and how she reacted to that. The lack of knowing how to act around the ill or recovering is still awkward regardless of the medical treatment they receive. Good job at focusing on a topic we went into little depth about. Maybe there is some relation between the patients behavior and their health for example if your cousin was still sick would they like to be babied or not, how would their wants change depending on their situation.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that your cousin made a full recovery and that she was surrounded by you and other relatives as she did. I agree with Omar that it's commendable that you focused on an instance of doctors providing good care if that issue has 'hardly been dealt with' in your class. Many doctors are compassionate and it's valuable that you brought that up since it's always more interesting to look at an issue like healthcare from various angles.
ReplyDeleteI was very interested by your theory about why your cousin received good care: "I thought because my cousins condition wasn't that bad the doctors had a easier time treating my cousin as a human being and not a patient." You mentioned that doctors may not want to get attached to very sick patients, and you are probably right. As you say, it might be easier for doctors to relate to another relatively healthy person, or at least to feel less life-or-death pressure. On the other hand some people go into the practice of medicine in order to deal with the very sick and may give more care and attention to very ill patients. For example I have a friend who works with HIV patients, and she generally spends more time and gives more thought to those who have AIDS and are dying than those who are simply HIV positive and come to the hospital for check ups and such. I imagine that how sick a patient is does impact how certain doctors treat him or her as you said; however, I think that while some doctors may treat healthier patients better, others may reserve their compassion for the sickest of all. It would be interesting if someone did a study on this!
In some ways I can connect your theory to teaching. There's a saying that teachers teach best the students who learn as they did when they were students. I'm not sure whether that's true, but it is true that some teachers have more success and more enjoyment teaching students who grasp the material easily, and other teachers prefer working with students who really struggle. I wonder if the doctors who prefer working with very sick patients are ones who have experienced illness themselves, just as oftentimes SETSS teachers and those who enjoy working with struggling students overcame such learning issues themselves...