During our Sem 9 surgical posting in HTJ Seremban, there was a patient wrote to the star newspaper, filing his complain named "Why rob patients of their sleep and rest?"
http://www.thestar.com.my/Opinion/Letters/2015/01/19/Why-rob-patients-of-their-sleep-and-rest/
The patient complaint that the patients were waken up as early as 4.30 - 5am by the doctors for history taking and physical examination, robbing the time for their sleep and rest. However, I noticed some of the housemen nowadays are actually copying the files from the previous entry, some even just sit at the counter and copy the files without even talk to the patient or examine the patient. Hence, if the doctor is waking the patient up to talk to them and examine them, at least we know the houseman are really doing their job. However, from patient's point of view, it is true that they do need rest. As consultant round starts at 7.30am, so the MO round usually starts around 6am+, it is understandable the houseman have to start reviewing the patients as early as 5am since they have about 6 to 9 patients to cover.
Is the houseman wrong for waking the patient up early in the morning to take history & examine patients? I don't think there's right or wrong here. Perhaps it's just different point of view.
- l.a.u -
I was hospitalized once before, and honestly, I was really annoyed being waken up around 4-5am in the morning and the next thing I know, I would've to stay awake throughout the daylight because there'll be rounds, visitors and noises around. And I do think healing takes place when you rest. I don't know how this should be done but I guess it can be improvised somehow. I do agree with you that house officers do not review all patients as I've come across an incident few weeks ago whereby the patient became unconscious without anyone knowing as the houseman did not review the patient and it was documented the same as the night before as what others may have routinely done 'patient is alert and conscious with no active complaints'.
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree with you that healing occurs with rest and during sleep. Which is why we reduce the number of visitors to very ill patients. Somewhere along the way, the practice of medicine has become so fragmented that we do see the main purpose of the things we do. Everyone agrees that the broad purpose of medical practice is to heal the patient (body and mind) but this becomes lost when different doctors go about fulfilling their own needs first.........
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