Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Hospitals

Here's something you won't here your physician say everyday.....I hate hospitals!. I hate emergency rooms! I hate when my patients are sick enough to need emergency care. I hate when they get admitted.

Why...because hospitals are dangerous places where bad things can potentially happen and bad bugs hang out. It's a place for sick people...really sick people...deathly ill people. And I don't want to ever let my pateints get that way.

As I am fond of saying in my office...If you find yourself in a hospital you better be one of a few things....either really ill, visiting a friend, or at work. Because it's not the place for the kinda ill or sorta ill. Only bad things can happen to these people.

So if you call me in the middle of the night and expect that I'll tell you to go the the emergency room for your cold...you got another thing coming. Or if your an emergency room doctor and you want to admit my 50 year old patient with bronchitis....I'll probably give you a hard time.

It is my responsibility to protect my patients from the harms that they don't recognize. And let me repeat this to make it clear....the hospital is a great place if your on the cusp of dying.....but incredibly risky for everybody else.

1 comment:

tracy said...

Sooooo true... i was once forced to linger in an ICU for f o u r days...seriously. i was sooo bored, i was taking my IV pole for walks...very ill...? Even a little sick...? i think not. What a crazy, messed up (i am toning down my language!) situation!!!
PS The IV pole was Named "Baxter"...the brand...bored...? Oh, yeah. Not to mention taking up a bed a really sick person could have used.