Sometimes I really have to wonder what the hell it is people think happens in the employees-only area of an emergency clinic. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to explain that this is a medical facility, and that we cannot perform medical procedures with owners in the area; thus, owners are only allowed in the back in very extreme cases, and NEVER while we are working on an animal. I’m thinking it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of a million times.
Last night was the million and first. A couple brought in a little dog who appeared to be in hard-core respiratory distress, and we snatched him up and ran him back to the treatment area without getting any history on him. With the other four techs starting the little guy on oxygen and setting up for IV fluids, and the vet listening to his chest, I went up to talk to the owners. Usual procedure for this sort of situation is for us to explain that the animal will probably need a lot of work to get it stablized, and have the owners sign a critical care consent form, along with finding out what kind of code status they want. This saves us running back and forth to get permission for oxygen, and for fluids, and for bloodwork, and for radiographs, and to tell them the animal’s not breathing and what do they want us to do, and so on and so forth.
I’m trying to have this conversation with the couple, when the woman says “I want to go back there.”
I explain to her that owners are not allowed in the treatment area, but as soon as the dog is stablized, the doctor will be out to talk to them and then they can see the dog.
“No, you don’t understand. I’m insistent. I’d hate to have to scoop him and take him out of here.” Very snotty, very condescending, very nobody-ever-dares-tell-the-Queen-no tone of voice.
What I thought was: No, bitch, YOU don’t understand. It doesn’t matter a fart in a high wind how insistent you are, your ass ain’t coming through that door while the crash cart’s out. You can fucking threaten to deny your dog life-saving medical intervention to get what you want, but that shit ain’t gonna fly here. You can sit down and shut up and let us do the work you asked us to do, or I can go get you an AMA form so you can take your dog out of here and watch him die. Your choice, toots.
What I said was, “Well, that certainly wouldn’t be in your dog’s best interests. Right now he doesn’t look particularly stable, and we’re putting him on oxygen and probably starting him on fluids so that we can get him stable.”
“Well, I can pet him while you do that.”
“No, ma’am, you can’t. There are currently four technicians and a vet working on your dog, and there’s no room for non-medical personnel to be around him right now.”
“He needs me; he’ll be scared back there.”
“Ma’am, what your dog needs right now is for us to be able to work on him, and we cannot do that with you back there. When he’s stable enough for visitors, I will personally come out and get you.”
She finally mutters, “Okay, a few minutes.” But the whole time, she’s got this look on her face, a really ugly mixture of fury at being balked and disbelief that a lowly peon like myself would dare not give a customer what she wanted.
What are people like this thinking? When someone asks you to clarify code status for someone you’ve just brought into the ER, that generally indicates that things are pretty fucking grim, right? Or at least that the patient isn’t in any shape to be having visitors at the moment. Or is it only medical personnel who interpret such questions to mean that the patient seems likely to die? Am I really that out of touch with the non-medical world? Do people just not realize that an animal ER is first and foremost an ER, and making people happy has to take a backseat to doing what’s in the best interest of the animals?
I don’t care that the woman wanted to be with her dog; I’ve had a lot of distraught owners try to talk their way into the treatment area before, and many of those think that they’ll be able to comfort or restrain the animals better than we can. I’ve even had to take a few by the arm and lead them away from the door to the treatment area. Those people don’t bother me a bit; they’re distraught, after all, and they’re just trying to help. Once you inform them of the policy and tell them that this is what’s best for their pet, they bite the bullet and sit down to wait for an update.
This woman, though…she had a pretty crappy attitude about the whole thing, and that annoyed me. And the threat about taking her dog away and letting it die unless she got what she wanted, that just pissed me right the fuck off. I know what she thought would happen. She figured we’d give let her come back rather than let the dog go without treatment. She had no intention of actually refusing to let us treat him, she was just using it as an empty threat. But what kind of person uses their pet’s life as a bargaining chip? How twisted do you have to be for something like that to even occur to you?