Medical Fuck Ups

Being the recep­ta­cle of a fair num­ber of un-fried neu­rons and a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of prop­erly trained synap­tic path­ways, yours truly is rea­son­able capa­ble of fol­low­ing the descrip­tion of tests that a physi­cian would like to per­form on the bio­log­i­cal func­tion of the organs of the recep­ta­cle. So when I showed up for ordered test this morn­ing and the nurse gives me the instruc­tions and the instruc­tions did not sound like the tests the physi­cian explained to me, as is my ten­dency, I ques­tioned the instruc­tions. Of course, the nurse imme­di­ately assumed that I was either too dense to fol­low the instruc­tions, didn’t want to fol­low the instruc­tions or am just a pain in the ass (well she may be right about that point but that has noth­ing to do with the test). So she repeated the instruc­tions. She really got a lit­tle per­turbed when, once again, I told her that could not be right. That those instruc­tions were not rea­son­able for the tests the doc­tor ordered. Now, since I am a some­what shy, timid crea­ture, I really wanted to just do what she told me to do (yeah sure) but instead I pointed out that no, that was just not right. So she showed me the piece of paper that had the test orders. I remem­bered very clearly the tests the physi­cian told me he was order­ing. And I told her in very plain terms what that tests were, and that I did not care what it said on her piece of paper, that was not what the physi­cian ordered for me. I sug­gested she should go find the actual instruc­tions. Ten min­utes or so of this and the nurse finally fig­ured out that I was not going to cave and undergo the tests she just knew I was sup­posed to undergo. So we walk out of the lab and she got her super­vi­sor who actu­ally pulled up the real piece of paper that the physi­cian wrote down with his own lit­tle hand what he wanted done. And guess what! He had ordered the tests I had been telling her he had ordered for the last ten plus min­utes. By this time we had moved out into an area were Still Here Too could over­hear the con­ver­sa­tion. See says I was firm, but not nasty. She could tell I was start­ing to get angry. Believe me I was way beyond starting.

How often does this hap­pen? How few peo­ple push back when a nurse or tech­ni­cian gives them instruc­tions? How many patients have enough under­stand­ing to be in a posi­tion to ques­tion the tests that are being per­formed on them? How many time does this hap­pen when the test or pro­ce­dure is one that puts someone’s life at risk?

Given the num­ber of times I have per­son­ally expe­ri­enced an incor­rect test or pro­ce­dure, I sus­pect that it is way many more times than we can imagine.

By the way, they said they were sorry. Didn’t really make me feel that much bet­ter. Worse yet, didn’t make me feel that much more con­fi­dent in the med­ical care I am getting.

Is Still Here

So long as I am care­ful about the test they perform