Baby's Blood, Sweat and Tears

My 15 month old daughter required a visit to the emergency room last night. She attempted to leap 3 feet from a kitchen chair to the kitchen table. She missed. In the split second my wife and I took our eyes off her, she fell to the floor with a resounding THUMP! This was followed immediately by high-pitched wails of pain and gushing fountains of blood, flowing over her lips, onto her, and me. I live less than three blocks from a hospital which bills itself as "One of the Nation's Best." So, wrapping my daughter in a blanket, with my wife in tow, I sprinted to the emergency room.

I would like to say that Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, PA lives up to it's motto, but nothing could be further from the truth. As I entered the emergency room, bloody, with a bloody, swaddled baby in my arms I had to interrupt the person tasked with patient registration. A nurse directed me to the triage area, while my wife began the paperwork process. The triage nurse then took my daughter's pulse, while telling me, "She probably just bit her tongue. They tend to bleed a lot." I seethed. "Obviously she has a pulse. Check her out." After collecting the most perfunctory of information on her he sent me back to the waiting room. Ten to twelve agonizing, angst filled minutes later I approached the check-in desk. My bloody daughter and I once again interrupted a 'patient registration specialist,' this one reading a book, to question when my daughter would be seen. She visibly started at our appearance, and hastily retreated to find out her status. At this point I directed my attention to the other registration window where a uniformed security officer was surfing the web. Before I could utter a word he soundlessly slid the glass separating us closed, without once taking his eyes from the computer screen. Mercifully, for all involved, the door to the inner snactum opened and we were taken back to an exam room. You know the ones, hospital white walls, gurney, steel cabinet with medical supplies and the required "Biohazard" bin.

After some forty minutes of attempting to console a quietly sobbing, anxious baby, a nurse wandered by with two stickers, which she offered my daughter. At this point, nearly losing any semblance of composure, and with blood staining my shirt and hands, as well as boiling in my ears, I said, "I want a doctor in here now." She replied, "There aren't any available right now." Well, as I had just seen three MD emblazoned lab coats saunter by, I checked my Irish rage and said, "What about the three who just went to check their portfolios?" "Them. They're just interns." "Well Get One Of Them In Here To Do The Preliminary Exam. NOW." Seconds later a second nurse was plying my daughter with toys, and then, magically, an MD emblazoned lab coat materialized. She apologized for the absence of a "doctor" explaining that she was just a med student. She did, however, begin the first physical exam of my daughter some 80-90 minutes after I entered the hospital. Gritting my teeth I said, "Doc, I'm not upset with you per se, but this is unacceptable. I am furious that you would all leave a BABY to suffer. Unless there's a gunshot wound, or a heart attack there's no excuse for this delay, and there's no gunshot wound or heart attack. Since you are all educated people I know you can read. So my now bloody shirt probably hasn't escaped your notice." The shirt I was wearing was a, you guessed it, PENN medical tee. You see I am employed by the hospital system at another site.

Eventually, this well meaning intern, or med student, I do not remember which she identified herself as, got my daughter to suck on an ice-filled glove,while apologizing for the under staffing. Eventually, the attending did arrive, and after a slightly more than perfunctory exam she pronounced my daughter fit, albeit with a split tongue. Then, with no attempt to clean her off, we were told we could leave. A stop at the counter on the way out to ascertain the name of the offending security guard provided, no big surprise, responses of, "I don't know his name."

I should say that my calls to the hospital the next day were not all unpleasant. Three people, none of them doctors, were compassionate, empathetic and sincere in their apologies. From the medical staff I contacted, it was more of the same. Apathy and disdain apparently rule the day once you have gone to medical school. The mission statement of the executive director of the hospital, who was too busy to speak to me, states, "Another key area of focus is to ensure that all of our patients have a positive experience at our hospital." Well, those certainly are nice sentiments, but they are not backed up by practice. The next time I need a hospital, even though I work for the system, I will simply use the competition. After all, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital is only three blocks away.