There is nothing like getting a fresh perspective on the state of healthcare than a personal visit to the hospital via ambulance. My firsthand experience came after I exhibited a brief neurological malfunction that thankfully turned out to be a strange kind of migraine.
There was only one snag in the entire weeklong episode. When I got to the Emergency Department, they took some blood, checked my vitals, ran me through some nose touching exercises, and sent me to Radiology for a CAT Scan. When the doctor – young, blonde, pregnant and devoid of personality – informed us that the Cat Scan showed something but they weren’t sure what it was, i.e., calcium or blood, they recommended that I be admitted into the hospital.
The snag was ultimately leaving the ER against the advice of the physician. In hindsight my advice to all patients is do so at your own peril. Not once did anyone explain what would happen if we did stay, only that if I left I could die or, perhaps worse, have some sexual dysfunction. It was my wife who asked the doctor if there was a neurologist onsite. She said no. She never mentioned that there was one on–call 24/7 as my Neurologist later explained.
My wife then asked what we should do if we decided not to be admitted. The doctor responded that I should see a Neurologist and have an MRI done. We chose that option. Little did we know that that decision labeled us as uncooperative and unceremoniously pushed us out of the loop. It took a referral from my internist to get us back in.
The takeaway is consistent with what I find in my consultancy – healthcare is woefully short on explanations. Providers still expect patients to accept everything without question. But is that the Baby Boomer way? As a patient I am quite passive. I make few demands and I know I don’t ask as many questions as I should. But that doesn’t describe my wife or the many friends we talked to about this experience. If they had “read” us, they would have known that the “because I said so” approach wasn’t going to work.