As this blog is getting started, I have dozens of topics in mind jostling to be next. But something happened a few days ago that I want to share because it illustrates just why we need to take the time to focus on what it is we do, or what we are SUPPOSED to do -- care for our patients.
An elderly woman was admitted on day shift, around 1000. The shift was hectic and staffing was somewhat tight, although not ridiculously so. I won't go into the patient's diagnosis or history because there is only one detail relevant to this story -- the patient was NOT NPO.
Around 2000, the night shift nurse greeted the patient on her first round. This little old lady, an alert and oriented octogenarian, had a distressing question for her new nurse. "Do you have any ice and water here?"
Naturally, it was all the nurse could do to hide her awe and disgust that this little grandma had sat in that room for ten hours without a water pitcher. She may have been placed on an air mattress to prevent skin breakdown. She probably had all of her labs drawn. She may have even been assisted to the bathroom once or twice. But no one had taken the time or given thought to providing her most basic human need.
In the immortal words of Forrest Gump, "That's all I have to say about that."
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