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A utility vehicle hit my father the other day. The
errant driver brought him to the nearest government hospital for
head trauma and body injuries. We immediately had him transferred to
a private hospital—the newest and spankiest hospital in the
Ortigas area—for other tests to be conducted.
My family and I were in the
emergency room, waiting for the hospital staff to iron out various
inefficiencies while my father was in the trauma room. It was during
this wait that we witnessed a local version of the award-winning
medical drama television series Grey’s Anatomy being played out
right in front of us at the nurses’ station.
A young female resident assumed
the role of Meredith Grey. She was dressed in a bright green top and
tight pencil cut skirt with strappy black heels. She needed help
pushing one of the patients into another room and asked one of the
other young male residents (one of the more attractive ones, I must
say) to help her. What was amusing about her request was her way of
asking it. She shimmied up to the male resident, linked arms with
him and, in a singsong voice, ever so sweetly asked if he would help
her. She didn’t wait for his reply and proceeded to steer him away
in the direction of her patient, virtually leaving the nurses’
station unattended. My sister and I looked at each other with raised
eyebrows. The Meredith Grey wannabe went on to joke about the male
resident exchanging cell phone numbers with the patient, and
possibly ruining her shoes. There were a number of people in the
emergency room—all in various states of distress, in need of
attention—and here were these young residents flirting with one
another.
As it turns out, we weren’t the
only ones who noticed this display. When we went to get our things
in the waiting room, the other immediate family members also noticed
the show put on by Meredith Grey. Some were completely appalled;
others snickered at her callousness. Generally, they found it to be
unacceptable in an emergency-trauma room.
We are used to seeing these
things on TV and that’s where we expect them to stay—on
television—as figments of writers’ imagination for a
make-believe world.
In real life, we choose hospitals
based on their reputation in patient care and we expect our doctors
to be nothing but professional in their conduct. They represent for
us hope as they hold in their hands the well-being of people we
love. We look to them to tell us what’s wrong and how to make it
better. For this, we need doctors who are properly trained to be
credible and knowledgeable, not gushing singletons fluttering around
the emergency room as if it were a social hall. We need them to show
empathy and sensitivity.
We have seen and heard enough
stories about behavior unbecoming of doctors on recent YouTube
uploads, we don’t need to see other ‘milder’ versions of it
blatantly played out before our eyes while we anxiously wait for
test results and updates on the status of our loved ones.
We don’t need doctors to
entertain us, we need doctors who value the image they give other
doctors and the hospitals in which they serve and thus, be deserving
of the faith that we have in them, as we entrust them with the lives
of the ones who matter most to us.
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