Doctor,I have booked tickets for the next show!
Once we start donning white apron and stethoscope as young doctors one of the things we take pride in is our ‘emergency” duty as a part of the roster.That’s the place where we hone the skill of swift response and timely intervention.
Generally, it is the young blood who manage the emergency care across all the branches of medicine. However, in the independent practice of an expert consultant radiologist one ends up attending to emergencies during weekend and nights yielding to the expectations of the patients and fellow doctors.It may sound counterintuitive to opine that managing emergency care is an easier task for young professionals. First reason, it is their ‘routine’ task and secondly, it needs relatively less expertise.
In Indian scenario, it is also interesting to note that many of these ‘emergency’ scenarios are not true ‘medical emergencies’ but ‘perceived emergencies’ due to inability to visit the healthcare establishments during routine hours. These consultations actually affect the emergency care of more critical scenarios such as heart attack, brain attack, road traffic accidents, obstructed intestines, internal bleeding as the healthcare system works with limited resources during night hours and weekends.
When I return to work on Monday morning more ‘emergency’ cases would have piled up. A young unfortunate victim of a brain tumour has undergone an MRI scan on Saturday evening after office hours. Relatives are racing against the time to meet the cancer specialist at the earliest possible appointment in the morning.
At the same time, I have a senior govt official who is waiting for an ‘emergency’ opinion on a chest x-ray of his mother who has a discomfort of running nose for the past 2 days. However busy son must prepare notes for the cabinet meeting at 12 noon and I would oblige.
Meanwhile, a young mother on her way to drop her kids to school is not happy to wait for a few more minutes till her urinary bladder gets distended optimally so that I can reach a more accurate diagnosis.During lunch hours it is quite common to get requests for quicker and shorter MRI scans and ‘2-minute noodles’ report as they are hungry.
Our Friday second half gets funnier as well. Recently I saw our consumer-friendly managers practically making nurses, technicians, maintenance staff and other support staff to work at top gear. Keeping this 'parallel' emergency in the mind, I hurriedly reported the other emergency heart angiogram and rushed to the workstation and enquired about the nature of the emergency. Patient’s relatives told ‘Doctor, I have booked tickets for the next show in the multiplex next to hospital! I started looking for the patient to help them to meet their ‘emergency’ care, to my surprise patient had left for the multiplex and only relatives were waiting for the ‘emergency’ report!!
Speed kills, at least in 2 places; roads and hospitals!
One needs time for good ‘results’! May it be a financial investment or a medical investigation!