Don't you love doctors when they act super infallible and like you're loco for mildly questioning a judgement, and then another doctor contradicts them... oh, the wizard battles of flashing eye-sparks! Unmanned!
Dear Dr. P... You're lovely, except when you suggest that tylenol is adequate pain relief for day one post abdominal surgery for a little kid, and for day 0 of giant catheterization / retraction trauma ... Nurse G said "Oh well Dr. P said he has to be called before any morphine... " and I whipped out my name book. "Dr. D. said he can have morphine every 2 hours as needed." (Silent battle of wills between three nurses occurs.) This, after the scene of them all up in Moomin's face trying to fix one IV, flush or fiddle with the other one, and aspirate urine fromt he foley catheter all at the same time while loudly talking to him and he was screaming with fear because he saw the big needly aspirator thing heading towards his crotch. So I was like "Everyone back off. One thing at a time. Give him a minute. How about giving him the morphine FIRST."
After the other 2 nurses left, nurse J got all deadly serious. "You're doing exactly right. Don't let anyone intimidate you. It's all politics. There's no way you can understand it. Just don't stop speaking up and stay on top of it." Then she shut up in a hurry and melted away.
Morphine followed.
It turns out that the anesthesia nurse from this morning's procedure... a super nice person... was the one to get pissy over the morphine. She came in just now and said, "You know... that was me with the morphine and I told Nurse G. not to listen to Dr. P and that it was pointless and she could just give it to him right away. And we were then all mad at Dr. P." I told her my thoughts on how I wanted to offer to hit his penis with a hammer and then offer him tylenol and we both cracked up in terrible hysterics. She said the whole nursing staff was laughing about him being so dumb about the pain meds. "If it was day 10 and he was whining for more meds every hour on the hour... but it's day 1, the first day after the surgery! and he's getting a very low dose... not very often..." It was some very cheering validation.
TJ's mom in the next bed said I was like a fierce tiger. She's way more on the ball than me, she's here from out of state froma hospital where they were trying to force some super drastic surgery on her kid. And it turns out the pulmonologists here think it would be exactly the wrong surgery, pointless and very dangerous and his lungs are damaged from this whole other thing. So just imagine her coming all the way here in the face of the doctors from Other State...
I remember also my sister-in-law's doctor, who was head of the department in X Hospital, suddenly flipping out and telling her she and her husband were "medicalizing" her son's life inappropriately (this, b/c they were pushing for a trach, for an infant who kept turning blue and having stenosis or whatever it's called when your sternum sucks backward into your rib cage with the effort to breathe, and who kept ending up in the ER to be intubated...) They cried for a day and then went to the other big hospital in town.
The moral of the story is that doctors can be huge assholes. I wish that when they get sick, no one gets to know they're doctors and they get no special treatment for it, b/c then they would find out what that's like. On the other hand, I use whatever privilege I've got, here.
It was a lot easier this afternoon with Minnie here helping! Whew!
I don't see why they can't be human beings... what kind of culture creates and promotes their enormous egos... they are given the upbringing of the finest torturers. It's a systemic evil that rewards inhumanity.
Of course I appreciate all the fabulous medical care and the ones who are human and nice and share info and don't act like I'm shitting on the dinner table when I write down events, names, meds, and times in my notebook.
Doctors are totally bombarded with sensory overload and sleep deprivation until they learn to turn off large parts of their psyches. Add to that the cult of the "professional" whose training and experience make him/her superior to everyone else, and you get some pretty wack behavior. Good for you for standing up for Milo! Every sick person needs an advocate! But I know it can be exhausting...
Posted by: Chula | July 11, 2006 at 06:30 PM
... what kind of culture creates and promotes their enormous egos...
the medical establishment. you know ,that one. nurse J is right: don't stand down, ever!
Posted by: e | July 11, 2006 at 07:21 PM
Fucking A for Asshat, Badger. This is insane. What if you didn't speak English/was low income/easily intimidated by the system? How fucked is that? And that's every day fuckness, all around te country.
I' frothing at the mouth. I'll shut up and just say howdy and send big love to the Family Badger...
Posted by: GraceD | July 11, 2006 at 09:13 PM
Don't.
Stop.
For a second.
that place can really suck, and they specialize in intimidation. luckily, you have not succumbed.
Posted by: gwendomama | July 11, 2006 at 11:21 PM
when did my EMT training years ago, the paramedic instructors basically instilled in us the idea that what was most important was covering your ass. the way the legal system worked, you couldn't really care about patients for all the time you spent making sure you just did the 'least risky' thing that was the most 'common' and 'agreed' upon and always keeping abreast of that. seemed like it was taken to a terrible extreme, and turned me off from the medical professions altogether. i figured the whole system had that feel now. can't really care, just do what will minimize potential lawsuits and keep your malpractice insurance rates down.
super glad to hear m. is doing ok now, poor guy. :( :(
Posted by: owlmonkey | July 12, 2006 at 08:25 AM
"I don't see why they can't be human beings... what kind of culture creates and promotes their enormous egos..."
Ours unfortunately. It's one of the things that turned me off to becoming a doctor.
Posted by: black_pearl | July 12, 2006 at 09:16 AM
Oh, sigh. I'm sorry; this all sucks.
It's not just enormous egos and the culture that promotes huge-ego doctors. It's the hierarchical system, where nurses are mistreated and disrespected as professionals, plus the systemic chaos in which there's very poor coordination of patient care, bad communications, lack of teamwork, etc.
Posted by: Lisa Hirsch | July 13, 2006 at 06:33 AM
It's the week for assholes. I posted in myLJ about our adventures with a GP earlier this week.
He was SUCH an ASSHOLE. He started with padlocking the doors and cabinets to keep my son from eating, and finished with walking out on me when I asked him to let me finish telling hom why I wasn't in before that day.
Oh, the letter to his bosses, she will be Epic.
Boy goes in tomorrow for day surgery. I am taking notes AND pictures.
Posted by: Lea | July 13, 2006 at 07:15 PM
Can I also suggest it is useful to record whatever you can? If you are asked not to record (and are NOT around sensitive medical equipment) take a large handbag and drop the recorder in.
A speech path with an Aspie child recommended this to me and the mums at a support meeting i was at earlier this year.
I haven't tried it yet as i'm no longer a case manager - my boy's mum is back in town -- so i'm still on notebooks - i take notebooks absolutely everywhere. I now have a PDA and write things into that (though I haven't got it recognising my writing as fast as i wanted to) as the pile of semi-legible notebooks has got too huge. looking forward to the technology that can read my writing, and comes with an endless battery.
Posted by: ses | July 13, 2006 at 09:51 PM
I almost took pictures of the Xtreme penis damage, but then didn't...
Posted by: badgerbag | July 13, 2006 at 10:25 PM
The Xtreme penis damage is part of what's giving me the wiggins. Baz has phimosis, the ped. says it's no big deal, but that could have been my little boy!
Catheters suck!
Posted by: wired | July 14, 2006 at 09:02 PM