Thursday, November 30, 2006
A popular magazine used to run a feature called “You Be the Judge,” which highlighted sticky situations and how they were resolved. The magazine asked the reader to render a decision, which he or she could then compare with the actual judgment and course of action.
I propose to do something like that here, in my blog.
As those of us diagnosed with breast cancer know, not all of the many health professionals we end up seeing are going to be personable. We as patients just get on with things, especially if we are unlikely to encounter the situation or person again. But there is a line that, when crossed, begs for response, though it’s unclear precisely where that line is.
Here are three scenarios, based on my experiences or those of the many breast cancer survivors I know around the country. Most of our complaints have remained “just between us,” but not all of them. I’ve made a few changes to protect everyone’s privacy, but the facts of each case are intact.
Case 1: The Lost Mammograms.
Say you are scheduled for your first lumpectomy, a biopsy to find out if your lump is cancerous.
Yikes.
In the morning, you go to the mammogram center to get fresh mammograms for the afternoon’s surgery. You have not been warned that a wire is also going to be inserted to mark the tumor. Already frightened, you become upset by this unexpected invasive procedure, especially when the wire is marked for what you are sure is the wrong place. Your surgeon is called, who cancels the wire, saying that the new extensive mammograms should be enough.
An hour later a friend joins you, and the two of you deliver the packet of both old and fresh mammograms to the nurse in the hospital pre-op. She starts an IV, stabbing and restabbing your arm and hand to find a vein, refusing to use the good vein you point out inside your elbow, deeply bruising most of your forearm.
When the surgeon arrives to take you to the operating room, he can’t find your mammograms. The hospital staff accuses you of losing them, but your friend (always take a friend) witnessed the nurse taking them and putting them in a holder by the door. A ten-minute staff scramble ensues but no one can find the mammograms you’d spent the morning having done.
Your surgeon manages the surgery without them. After your surgery, the mammograms are found but a nurse refuses to say where. Your surgeon later tells you they’d been taken into surgery with the previous patient. He also confirms your worst fear—that you have breast cancer—and schedules you to return to the same surgical ward for a re-lumpectomy and sentinel node dissection. Should you make a hospital complaint?
Case 2: The Gratuitous Gesture.
Your relationship with a certain health professional has been unusually combative, but he has tried hard to deal with your many questions developed through your extensive research. One day, he strides into a room where you are on your back on an elevated table and spot-lit naked from the waist up with your arms over your head. He does not greet you but takes a position looking down at your chest, snapping directions at several techs.
I propose to do something like that here, in my blog.
As those of us diagnosed with breast cancer know, not all of the many health professionals we end up seeing are going to be personable. We as patients just get on with things, especially if we are unlikely to encounter the situation or person again. But there is a line that, when crossed, begs for response, though it’s unclear precisely where that line is.
Here are three scenarios, based on my experiences or those of the many breast cancer survivors I know around the country. Most of our complaints have remained “just between us,” but not all of them. I’ve made a few changes to protect everyone’s privacy, but the facts of each case are intact.
Case 1: The Lost Mammograms.
Say you are scheduled for your first lumpectomy, a biopsy to find out if your lump is cancerous.
Yikes.
In the morning, you go to the mammogram center to get fresh mammograms for the afternoon’s surgery. You have not been warned that a wire is also going to be inserted to mark the tumor. Already frightened, you become upset by this unexpected invasive procedure, especially when the wire is marked for what you are sure is the wrong place. Your surgeon is called, who cancels the wire, saying that the new extensive mammograms should be enough.
An hour later a friend joins you, and the two of you deliver the packet of both old and fresh mammograms to the nurse in the hospital pre-op. She starts an IV, stabbing and restabbing your arm and hand to find a vein, refusing to use the good vein you point out inside your elbow, deeply bruising most of your forearm.
When the surgeon arrives to take you to the operating room, he can’t find your mammograms. The hospital staff accuses you of losing them, but your friend (always take a friend) witnessed the nurse taking them and putting them in a holder by the door. A ten-minute staff scramble ensues but no one can find the mammograms you’d spent the morning having done.
Your surgeon manages the surgery without them. After your surgery, the mammograms are found but a nurse refuses to say where. Your surgeon later tells you they’d been taken into surgery with the previous patient. He also confirms your worst fear—that you have breast cancer—and schedules you to return to the same surgical ward for a re-lumpectomy and sentinel node dissection. Should you make a hospital complaint?
Case 2: The Gratuitous Gesture.
Your relationship with a certain health professional has been unusually combative, but he has tried hard to deal with your many questions developed through your extensive research. One day, he strides into a room where you are on your back on an elevated table and spot-lit naked from the waist up with your arms over your head. He does not greet you but takes a position looking down at your chest, snapping directions at several techs.
