Glacially-Paced ERs Part 2
June 5, 2007 by Laura | Trackback URI
About a month ago, I wrote,
It would be nice if Emergency Room (or Urgent Care Center) staff could at least pretend that your situation is at least of interest to them. They don’t have to act like it’s an episode of ER, but to see them spend ten or fifteen minutes chatting about the soap opera which you are forced to endure in the waiting room, while your daughter is struggling to breathe, is annoying, to say the least. Sure, I know that this is their normal job - they see this stuff day in, day out, and no, The Daughter’s life was not in danger. But a little interest, compassion, and movement at something other than a glacial pace would have been very welcome. So that’s how I spent my afternoon yesterday.
Here’s the flip side of that complaint, with a h/t to medical instapundit Kevin, M.D.
It’s all about perception. What’s the solution? Acting classes for ER staff so they can appear a bit more concerned than they do now? They are doing their jobs, and for the most part I’m sure they do them very well. And it’s not that we (the public) want them to look panicked when we show up. On the contrary, we want them calm, orderly, efficient… reassuring. But also caring, or at least giving the appearance of it. It may be too much to ask. Do we want a Bill Clinton bite of the lip, or brutal efficiency? Can we have both?
Doubtless they’d have some requests for us. Probably starting with “Suck it up and make an appointment with your doctor instead of wasting our time - it’s not called the emergency room for nothing, you know!”
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