I was called up from the Reserves to active duty to serve as a medical officer for Operation Desert Storm, during which I broke my back. I was transferred to Wilford Hall in San Antonio, TX and was placed at bed rest in a large 10- bed ward.
Every day, I waited for that moment or two when the surgical team would round on me. Afterward, the nurses would help wheel my bed down to the hallway where the pay phone was located.
Back then there were no cell phones, so I would pop in a bunch of quarters and call my wife. The first question out of her mouth was always this: “What did the doctor say?”
Notice it was always the doctor. Not the team of specialists. Not the Red team or Trauma team. Not the surrogate for the internist.
I realized how much it meant to me and my family to hear directly from my doctor; I needed that update from him every day.
I swore if I ever got back on my feet again after this back injury, I was going to round on my patients so that I would see them every single day they were in the hospital. I would also make it a point of stopping in to see them at dinner time when their families were most likely to be around so I could answer questions they might have.
After I got back on my feet, I kept my promise. I also encouraged someone in the family to always keep a notebook and to write down all the lab tests and studies that were being scheduled or performed so I could make sure to get the results for them.
It is too easy in this day and age to cut the patient up into pieces, both bureaucratically and by organ system. Nine times out of ten when I ask a patient on rounds who is his or her surgeon, they tell me they belong to the Blue team but don’t know any specific surgeon’s name!
So, it’s time to return to old-style medicine where the patient knows there is one doctor with whom the buck stops. One doctor who all the consults call.
I know we have all kinds of systems of intensivists and hospitalist, etc. But what’s the point if the patient thinks his medical care is in the hands of a hapless, faceless, nameless committee?
It’s time to make sure patients know who their doctor in the house is.
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