For those of you who haven't heard of this publication, let us tell you a little bit about it. PULSE voices from the heart of medicine was started by a physician who is now Editor in Chief of this publication, his name is Paul Gross. He wanted to know what it would be like to have a publication that told stories of the way medicine really was not the way it is in controlled studies. The stories that have been published thus far from have captured hearts and minds, especially Friday's release.
Babel: The Voices of Medical Trauma is written by a friend and a colleague of MITSS, Tricia Pill, who is a pedetrician who experienced the "real side of medicine", but don't think she got what she expected or wanted.
What do you think of the current state of affairs? Can healthcare do a better job? How? Can we help doctors, nurses, pca's, etc who are both young and old to leave their assumptions at the door with every patient? Can we teach folks to trust that patients and their family members have valuable information about themselves or loved ones? Would love to know how you think we can change things.
You can get your free subscripiton to the magazine by signing up for it on their site.
Warm regards,
Linda Kenney
Feel free to contact me directly at lkenney@mitss.org, if you'd like to discuss off line.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
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I think it is easy for health care professionals to become desensitized to the fact they are dealing with human beings. Often it is necessary to be objective, otherwise you wouldn't be able to provide good care. But this shouldn't mean losing all your capacity to be kind to someone else. I wish there was some way of better identifying people who are perhaps burned out or who have walled off their feelings, and help them understand they aren't doing their patients, or themselves, any favors.
The other thing that strikes me about Dr. Pil's story is the complete and utter lack of credence the hospital gave to her version of events. It was as if they refused, or were incapable of, believing that a mere patient could possibly know what she was talking about.
Patients are usually painted as the villain if they seek out a lawyer, but what else are you supposed to do if hospitals and physicians won't allow you to have due process? I've been there and done that, and believe me, one of the hardest things about it was the hospital's dismissal of everything I had to say - even in the face of enormous discrepancies between the medical record and what I and a family member witnessed and remembered.
In theory, most health care professionals will insist they want patients and families to be their "partners in care." How this translates into actual practice is often a whole 'nother story, especially if something goes wrong.
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