The kind of emergency where people survive for 6 hours without dying, thats what kind makes you wait.
Emergency departments are not 5 star hotels with staff eager to cater to your hearts desire. People die on them, every day, what you see as uncaring piss poor service is the emotional armor that allows them to go on working without curling up into a little ball and crying in a corner at the sheer horror, hate, and pain they see in any given day.
Some good people stay in emergency work but not every doctor/nurse/tech is cut out for it. The ones who are are not always nice touchy feely, can I fluff your pillow types. I have seen people ranting about how long its taking with ambulance crews piled up to the door with seriously injured people dribbling blood all over the floor 20 fet away. Do they care…no its all about ME ME ME ME ME ME ME…
I have met hundreds of EMS and ER personell, most of them are damn good at what they do, and they are not fuckups. IF they fuck up, people die. Next time you feel like bitching about ER speed of service, be thankful that you are not a priority. Tomorrow it might be you being pried out of your car rolling into the first available trauma room and screwing up the patient queue. When you need it most, they will be there for you.
Want to make a difference in the world and get a hell of a perspective on life, take an EMT class and do it part time for a little while.
drachillix, no one is asking them to be “touchy, feely, fluff my pillow,please” people. What we refer to is being treated like lumps of meat whose pain means absoutely nothing. There is a difference between being clinincal and being cold and you can bet we know the difference. As to that, I have been in ERs a few times and they weren’t even in a hurry the time I took my 1 1/2 yr old son in for Tylenol ingestion. All they had to do at first was get him some charcoal in chocolate milk. It took damn near an hour–beyond which time, according to them, it would not be very effective–to get it. No, the ER wasn’t busy at all.
The time I was pregnant and had severe pain and some spotting, I went to the ER closest to me, though it wasn’t the hospital where I was planning to have the baby. They let me in, but told me that because I was pregnant I couldn’t have anything for the pain and that because their OB was not MY OB he would not examine me. SO it was off to my hospital (an hour’s drive–but I had had trouble with the local hospital before, hence the choice of the other), where a few hours later, I underwent surgery to remove a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. The worst thing was that the nurses at the local hospital thought that I was just panicking over a little pain and spotting. This attitude was a recurring one from anecdotal evidence. The ER doc at my hospital was very kind, even if he didn’t offer to fluff my pillow. He simply understood that I was a person in pain.
Moral: You don’t have to be Florence Nightingale–just don’t be an asshole.
I went in knowing that there was going to be a wait. I also went in assuming that I would recieve competent care. I was wrong.
Dear asshole, an attending SURGEON started a procedure without waiting for the pain medication she ordered to be administered. Or is asking for pain medication before being cut too much to ask? I mean, asking the SURGEON to do her fucking job right would be too much, wouldn’t it?
drachillix I am glad you are an ex-EMT because your attitude is exactly what is wrong with the ER system.