5 Truths Behind Those White Hospital Curtains

5 Truths Behind Those White Hospital Curtains

“Be kind to nurses. We choose your needle and catheter sizes”
. I saw this quote from a health care practitioner’s t-shirt during my vacation last week. I agree to that quote partially and I began to ponder what is more beyond this quote. By setting up an interview with medical practitioners (most of them nurses), shocking truths behind the white curtain was revealed to me. Let us have a walkthrough about these truths that I’m talking about.


1. Patient’s chart


An important factor in the medical field is the patient’s chart because it contains the initial impression of the patient, the progress, the management of his/her disease and prognosis. It is a confidential piece of stuff and you may think that whatever happens to you, you can retrieve the chart to know where the error did came from. Sad to say it does not work most of the time. Since these charts are confidential, healthcare practitioners have the ample time to repair, replace and iron their mistakes in the chart.

Example: A patient is for close monitoring due to hypertension. The doctor ordered a VSq30 mins or in lay man’s term, Take vital signs(BP, Cardiac rate, respiratory rate, temp, O2 sat and etc) every 30 mins. The healthcare practitioner forgot to monitor the patient and the patient’s BP increased to 220/120 leading the patient to stroke. Now, the actual chart’s VS monitoring sheet will look like this.

Date	Time	BP	Cardiac Rate	Respiratory Rate	Temperature	O2 Saturation
9-12-14	7am	190/120	65	19	36.9	95%

However, after the alteration of the chart, it will look like he/she monitored the patient and the chart’s VS monitoring sheet will look like this.

Date	Time	BP	Cardiac Rate	Respiratory Rate	Temperature	O2 Saturation
9-12-14	7am	190/120	65	19	36.9	95%
	7:30am	150/120	63	20	36	95%
	8am	190/100	65	19	36	96%
	8:30am	220/120	65	19	36.9

2. Placebo effect

There are tons of drugs that are ordered by physicians and a few of them are expensive and vital in the improvement of patient’s status. However, what if these drugs were spilled accidentally, mistakenly given to others or worst, taken by the staff? Most of the answer given to me frustrated me the most. Most of them replied “give sterile water or NSS and if it is an antibiotic, mix little antibiotics from other patient’s stock and mix it with sterile water to achieve the pale color of the supposed medicine.


3. Dealing with rude patients


We cannot deny that healthcare practitioners are also humans, they can be compassionate towards the patient however, rude patients are rampant thus triggering their tendencies to also fight back in their little ways. First, charge all the services, medicines and anything that can be charged. Even the smallest cotton ball to every gloves used, they charge it all and sometimes they are overcharging just to get even with your rudeness. Second, they intentionally fail a procedure or delay the medications for you to prolong your agony (i.e. IV insertion, phlebotomy and pain medications). In addition to that, they also confessed about not washing their hands after they deal with other client or change gloves.


4. Malpractices


These happen often inside the operating room. OR personnel are well trained and well versed in doing their job. However, people do commit mistake and some of these are fatal, so how did they manage to get away with it without getting caught. Well, it is a matter of making the team go with a consistent story or findings just to cover up the malpractice. They were the only ones who were present during that operation thus, by having a unanimous cover up story, they can get away with it easily.


5. Equality of care to all races, culture and religion.

The gist of the oath of a healthcare practitioner is to give utmost medical care to all regardless of color, culture, religion or origin. I am afraid that this not happening most of the time especially if you are a minority. There is an automatic switch that triggers racism if you are caring for a minority or people who were classified as weird due to their religion or culture.