Patient Care CEO 1.1: Approach the care of patients as a cooperative endeavor, integrating patients’ concerns and ensuring their health needs are addressed.
Treating patients as individuals is a worthy emphasis of todays medical education. I had 2 special instances which drove this point home in my heart.
During M2 year, I had the privilege of seeing a very special patient – one of the very last living Tuskegee Airmen. Featured in the recent movie, Red Tails, the Tuskegee Airmen comprises the first African-American fighter and bombardment groups in the US Air Force during WWII. As a URM student, one of my personal interests and commitments lies in reaching underserved populations. Even more, we were fortunate enough to consent this gentleman for pictures, which were featured in Alumni Update magazine. For the purposes of this portfolio, however, I have blurred his face.
The most moving experience with a patient occurred 3rd year on benign GYN. On rounds in the morning, we had a patient on post-op day 1 from a robotic hysterectomy with a very familiar last name. I walked into the room to a familiar face, sitting with her husband and child. I asked her, “Im sorry, but are you a teacher?”.
She looked hard at me, and immediately burst into tears. It was my kindergarten teacher. When I was her student, I was just 4 year old boy in an inner city school district. She remembered me, my sister, and both of my parents well. My team allowed me to stay and talk with her for a few minutes. We traded a warm embrace and contact information, but the most important exchange between us was my reminder that every patient has a story. Every patient is someones loved one, and you never know when you will run across a patient whose day you can change just by your comforting presence.
Understanding the logistics of the delivery of healthcare is also extremely important to the ability of the physician to relate to his or her patient and set real expectations. Never is this knowledge more important than when life-saving surgery is needed.
During my cardiothoracic surgery elective, I had the opportunity to participate in the entire process of a fly-out heart transplant. This occurrence affected 2 of our patients: one, the recipient, and two, the patient whose CABG x3 was delayed that day. We arrived at 0430 and were taken to the airport where we were flown by private jet down to the procurement. Below are a few pictures of our plane leaving from CMH.
Through a series of events, I was called up to run first assist for the procurement. By the end of the surgery, I was exhausted, but our job wasn’t done. We rushed back to Columbus and landed around 4pm. The recipient left the OR around 10pm, and then my surgeon, who had been with me since 430AM, called the CABG x3 down to the OR for a 2430 start, meaning he had been NPO for almost 24hrs. This experience showed me that no matter how efficient your care delivery attempts to be, setting expectations is key, and nothing trumps self-sacrifice and hard work on the part of the physician.