Posted by: Ashley McKimm (Editor) in violence on
Mar 05, 2008
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But no longer. We’re doing pretty well in the health stakes these days - the city boys are outdrinking us and we’re less likely to take our own lives than housewives.
In fact, if you ignore the mess the Department of Health has made with our careers, we’ve never had it better - expect in one area - more patients are fighting back at us.
In our main news story we report on a BMA poll that showed almost a third of doctors had been a victim of a physical or verbal attack in the last year.
This continued abuse of other patients and staff is tolerated because ‘it has always happened’ and the expectation that drunk and disorderly patients deserve treatment whatever the situation.
Patients often think they are entitled to treatment despite their attacks. They’re not. When one in ten doctors have been physically attacked in the last year it’s a situation that has become untenable.
We will always have patients who are physically or verbally abusive secondary to their physical or mental health - it comes with the job. However we need the resources to deal with them. Currently only one in ten doctors has access to a secure facility to treat these difficult patients.
As doctors we make a commitment to treat patients with respect - they must do also or should be refused access.
cath lab with some angioplasties and stents. I've finally become good enough for my boss to leave me to get on with it. He's still on the end of a phone somewhere in the building but I rarely have to call him and he never checks up on me anymore.
I spend the afternoon reviewing ward patients with my house officer - I still refuse to call him an FY1. Nobody's sick at the moment which is good as, with the SHO on nights, we're relatively thin on the ground. I catch up with some paperwork before heading home for an early dinner at six.
surgeons who I respect a lot.
He finishes examining the abdomen and turns to me. He tells me that he's taking him to theatre and then takes me aside. "You should have been on the ball with this one. It shouldn't have been your house officer who had to call the alarm." He leaves and I feel humiliated, much more so because Dominic is such a nice guy
Before I leave work I head up the ICU to check in on Mr Singer. He's not there and a nurse tells me that he died on the table. I feel sick again and rush to the toilet. It could be Norwalk but I haven't had any diahorrea. As I leave, the nurse jokes that I could be pregnant. I stop dead in the middle of ICU. I need to find a chemist, fast.
to cry. I soften a little and end by telling them my philosophy of life at medical school. Have fun, drink a lot, dance a lot and make sure you have a lot of good relations with your fellow medics. One of them asks what I think about problem based learning.
Posted by: Michelle Connolly in PhD on
Dec 06, 2007
Typical. (That always irritated me how doctors would wear their steths in the canteen, the bell dragging across the skin on custard).
So I stand, glass of wine and mince pie in hand, until someone's interest in hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction was piqued enough to come and ask me some questions.
I reel off my spiel and deftly answer his questions, thinking smugly "he's gotta give me a prize", especially after some of the other presenters were already three parts cut on the complimentary wine. I didn't win. Then after berating myself for even showing up ("I could have done an extra day's experiments!") I slug home, thinking, "you gotta be in it to win it after all".
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