Emergency Department: Filling in the Gaps

    Of the several activities I participated in the past, the Emergency Department at University Medical Center has been the place I've served the longest and made the most impact. When I was initially placed in the ED, my tasks were very simple. I mainly escorted the patient's family members to see them. However, each day I returned, there were more tasks assigned to me so that I was never sitting still for too long. If I wasn't already guiding people into rooms, I was calling nurses, technicians, and other hospital staff to relay messages about patients or finding medical equipment such as wheelchairs which seem to inexplicably disappear at a moment's notice. The task I found myself mired with the most was, however, simply talking to patients and assuring them everything was going to be alright.

    As it turns out, most of the patients that checked in at this location had very long average wait times before they can even be seen by a physician. Another job I was given was that I would periodically walk around the lobby with awaiting patients and family and take roll of which patients were present or have already left. After waiting 5, 10, or even 24 hours, they are justifiably irate. And this posed to be the biggest challenge during my time as the ED. Reassuring patients the wait will be worth it. Most people are convinced or at least grow less impatient after having someone such as myself hear out their complaints which is, in my opinion, a mission well accomplished for my position. But looking back at the time I spent at UMC ED, I was really just buying time for the medical staff to discharge patients and finally evaluate someone new. 

    The takeaway from this experience is that there are several holes in the medical system which would be a massive endeavor to fix as a society. While I could shoot off a couple "fixes" such as reccommending a patient to be evaluated by their primary care provider instead or upstaffing the ED, these ignore the glaring issues such as the socioeconomic status and access to adequate health care that patients experience. I cannot say that I've worked towards a solution to resolving these problems, but I'm happy to alleviate the stress on the local medical system by filling in the gaps.

    As for the class, I think it's been fairly challenging compared to my undergraduate experience. I definitely need to reevaluate my current studying strategies since I know I'm not doing the best I could be. So far I'll admit I'm only really recognizing the drugs rather than learning and committing them into memory. So there's still a lot of work to be done. Personally, I've been enjoying all of the Principles of Pharmacology classes since it continues off from what I already know and builds off that foundation to give me a slightly more nuanced understanding of the topics. 

I think what I would like to do next besides the in-class assignments is get involved in the research that has been presented to us during seminars and presentations. But I admit I wouldn't even know where to start or even if I have the adequate credentials, background, or qualifications to join any of the staff in their projects. The module on HIV one of the more interesting topics and I wouldn't mind learning more about current advances in that field. This is definitely something I should figure out before the seminar ends.

Last week, I volunteered at a hosiptal radiology department for 1 hour. It wasn't enough time helping out to really write about so I'll be coming back each week and blogging about it then.

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