It’s an EMERGENCY!
It’s 11:59pm, hot, and the mosquitoes are jamming to Les miserables in my ear. A good description of my mood at the time.
Once again I’m the only one on call and there are two hundred and eighty seven thousand drugs to push. “I hate this job.” I mutter to myself for maybe the millionth time.
Ma please it’s time for your ceftriaxone.
Oh oh oh! Why are you coming when they’ve already put my net? Tchewwww.
I’m silent. No strength. I just stare.
She grudgingly starts to wriggle out of her net.
Suddenly!
Doctor! Doctor! Please help me, help me!
The cries sound like a soul in anguish and I recognize it as the voice of my other patient. All the tiredness evaporates (albeit slowly like overcooked akanmu) and I shuffle towards the noise.
I go there expecting to find her in a) a pool of her own blood b) gasping and near complete respiratory shut down c) On the floor with multiple broken bones. But she’s looking up at me in a blue and yellow wrapper tied across her chest and blue chuku didi looking completely ALIVE!
Madam! What’s wrong?
My blood!
Your blood what?????
Gingerly points to her IV Line which has a little column of blood in it.
My blood is in the driiiippppppp.
I have always thought I possessed a reasonable amount of empathy. I am one of those people who tried to understand patients, put myself in their shoes and berated doctors for not being able to relate with a patient’s pain. But, like it or not, dealing with disease and death consistently can wear on your humanity and suddenly, your threshold to witness suffering is REALLY high.
One time in clinic someone was agitating to see a doctor quickly. She insisted “IT’S AN EMERGENCY!”. It was a busy horrid clinic and with deathly calm I said:
Then go to the emergency room. Clinic is not for emergencies.
She looked at me, shocked at my callousness and lack of sympathy. After all I was a doctor and I swore an oath to serve and protect my patients. She could not believe that I did not share in her panic or urgency.
Looking back at that day, I realized I could have been kinder. Yes it really wasn’t an emergency (I had made an objective assessment), but I dismissed her emotions and fear without a thought as to how what she was feeling was probably the scariest experience she had ever had. It made me sad to think how for a moment, I passed up the opportunity to be human to another human being.
I have a crazy job. And many times all I want to do is get to the end of the day. There are too many patients, too few health workers who are not well paid, poverty and a broken system. Still, humanity is important. I squeezed the hand of a patient going for a mastectomy (before COVID of course, motor will not jam us please) and allayed her fears, sat for a little longer to explain to a patient why we needed so many tests when they were worried about the cost, handed tissue to a relative who started crying in frustration. It was a good feeling in those moments to be not a doctor, but a person.
