Is everyone here who needs to be here?
There are these rooms at the county hospital that I work for that frighten, intimidate, and bewilder any soul that enters, whether it be a patient on a stretcher or a healthcare worker on their own two feet. They are large, loud and bland. Tile and linoleum frame the rectangular room that is divided into two by a drape that falls from the ceiling to the floor. Sinks on either side rest beneath the x-ray viewing light and in-between the massive double doors that divide the room into two. One patient on the left, one on the right.
Placed center stage on each side of the room are the beds. Beds that are cold and uncomfortable. Beds that serve more the purpose of lifting the patient waist-high so the MDs can better examine the specimen in front of them. Beds that allow them to not have to bend over when they cut open your chest and massage your heart. These beds aren't for resting.
Monitors beep. Blood pressure cuffs dangle from the half wall that holds the oxygen outlets. A desk is tucked into the wall next to the patient where the nurses slouch as they write as furiously as they can while we spout out geysers of relevant information. A large cabinet sits ominously behind the head of the bed. In it, are plastic contraptions that bring out thoughts of uncomfortable ease to the non-medically inclined. Tubes, syringes, laces, metal laryngoscope blades all sit on white, sterile beds of cotton waiting to be used.
Above is a round, white, metal case with handles that hold inside it the power of the sun. A light on an extended arm that, like a robot, can articulate into any position around the patient, shining it's beam of white light directly into the area of MD concentration. And like another drone in this world of fear and unknowing, is a little yellow machine with a computer-imaging screen placed precariously on top. It floats from room to room and is used by the MDs to look through you. Its attached arm, wrapped in clear wrap, is normally coated in cold, blue gel. Then, it is pushed uncomfortably into your belly or chest as it searches for causes of what might be wrong so it can then illuminate it's vision on the green and black screen of the monitor. Like an evil leer from an angry family member, it sits in the corner always awaiting its turn.
The patient is rushed from the ambulance bay directly into one of these rooms. The ceiling tiles with fluorescent lights transition into a bland white ceiling 15 feet high. From our bed to this one, the patient is then invited into a world of chaos.
Immediately, people begin grabbing your arms, poking your hands, feeling your neck, squeezing your chest, jabbing your stomach, removing your clothes, talking to you, asking your name, asking what happened, asking where you hurt, asking your social security, shining lights into your eyes, and violating the most private of all areas. There's one at your head, sometimes two. Four or five on your left, five or six at your feet, and five or six on your right. As well as EMT students, paramedic students, MD interns, surgery interns, registration, nursing students, security, supervisors, social services, priests, and police.
Although the shades are drawn, all privacy is gone. And even though all those people are cramped in that once large room, someone always quietly kneels next to the patient and whispers in their ear. "Everything is going to be alright".
It's this room that intimidates me. And I'm sure it intimidates the person on that thinly mattressed examination bed. In the end, regardless of the reasons why we are intimidated, it’s the same feeling of fear and unknown. It’s the cold nudge of mortality that scents the room with it's presence. In this room, you either live or die. It’s in this room everyones will is tested.
People that enter these rooms are life-threatening sick. They know they are sick, as well as does everyone else working furiously and simultaneously to help them. This, more often than not, is that last bed the patient will ever sleep in; the last room the patient will enter, and is the final battleground for sustaining life. From here you walk away after a hard battle won, or you never leave.
As much as I enjoy these rooms, as much as I hope that I get that call that will cause me to walk through those double doors, I hate them equally as much. When someone that I brought lies unconscious, or altered, or bleeding, on that uncomfortable bed they are fighting the fight of all fights.
What will they choose? Life? Or death?
Placed center stage on each side of the room are the beds. Beds that are cold and uncomfortable. Beds that serve more the purpose of lifting the patient waist-high so the MDs can better examine the specimen in front of them. Beds that allow them to not have to bend over when they cut open your chest and massage your heart. These beds aren't for resting.
Monitors beep. Blood pressure cuffs dangle from the half wall that holds the oxygen outlets. A desk is tucked into the wall next to the patient where the nurses slouch as they write as furiously as they can while we spout out geysers of relevant information. A large cabinet sits ominously behind the head of the bed. In it, are plastic contraptions that bring out thoughts of uncomfortable ease to the non-medically inclined. Tubes, syringes, laces, metal laryngoscope blades all sit on white, sterile beds of cotton waiting to be used.
Above is a round, white, metal case with handles that hold inside it the power of the sun. A light on an extended arm that, like a robot, can articulate into any position around the patient, shining it's beam of white light directly into the area of MD concentration. And like another drone in this world of fear and unknowing, is a little yellow machine with a computer-imaging screen placed precariously on top. It floats from room to room and is used by the MDs to look through you. Its attached arm, wrapped in clear wrap, is normally coated in cold, blue gel. Then, it is pushed uncomfortably into your belly or chest as it searches for causes of what might be wrong so it can then illuminate it's vision on the green and black screen of the monitor. Like an evil leer from an angry family member, it sits in the corner always awaiting its turn.
The patient is rushed from the ambulance bay directly into one of these rooms. The ceiling tiles with fluorescent lights transition into a bland white ceiling 15 feet high. From our bed to this one, the patient is then invited into a world of chaos.
Immediately, people begin grabbing your arms, poking your hands, feeling your neck, squeezing your chest, jabbing your stomach, removing your clothes, talking to you, asking your name, asking what happened, asking where you hurt, asking your social security, shining lights into your eyes, and violating the most private of all areas. There's one at your head, sometimes two. Four or five on your left, five or six at your feet, and five or six on your right. As well as EMT students, paramedic students, MD interns, surgery interns, registration, nursing students, security, supervisors, social services, priests, and police.
Although the shades are drawn, all privacy is gone. And even though all those people are cramped in that once large room, someone always quietly kneels next to the patient and whispers in their ear. "Everything is going to be alright".
It's this room that intimidates me. And I'm sure it intimidates the person on that thinly mattressed examination bed. In the end, regardless of the reasons why we are intimidated, it’s the same feeling of fear and unknown. It’s the cold nudge of mortality that scents the room with it's presence. In this room, you either live or die. It’s in this room everyones will is tested.
People that enter these rooms are life-threatening sick. They know they are sick, as well as does everyone else working furiously and simultaneously to help them. This, more often than not, is that last bed the patient will ever sleep in; the last room the patient will enter, and is the final battleground for sustaining life. From here you walk away after a hard battle won, or you never leave.
As much as I enjoy these rooms, as much as I hope that I get that call that will cause me to walk through those double doors, I hate them equally as much. When someone that I brought lies unconscious, or altered, or bleeding, on that uncomfortable bed they are fighting the fight of all fights.
What will they choose? Life? Or death?
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