No, I don't mean the patient vanishes as in an Agatha Christie-type novel, but something to do with technology and scanners we often encounter in our visits to a hospital. What is really the nurse-patient relationship if the nurse is gazing at a screen with an image of us, not the real us. Does this "disembodiment" keep the nurse away from the bedside where we might expect her to be, or the clinician? In other words does the hospital "vanish" us by its processes almost as if the building wants rid of us as an awkward impediment to its smooth running. Are patients a nuisance by being unwell and taking up space?
I realise that I have raised this problem before with technology in health care, but it puzzles me that sometimes the way we seem to be treated in hospitals is not as human beings but as images of the body not the actual body, to which the doctor can write out a prescription almost to a third party in order to treat the patient after a cursory examination.
What do you think? Ironically I can't see you but have to read your response, as a disembodied member of HU.
Written by
Cateran
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Sadly we live in a world dominated by information technology. Your life is encapsulated in a few data bits. It does bring a smile to my face when the nurse says " let's have a look at you" and then turns to the computer screen. Then says " you are doing well".
Good point Badbessie. They take it as a given that "you" is not you in the flesh but your data on screen. "You" have vanished onto the screen and live there not here right in front of them!
Teachers are fond of saying that a school would be a great place to work if it wasn’t for the pupils! Maybe hospital staff think the same.
I was sent for a liver ultrasound once after a ct scan showed an “indistinct area”. It was clear on the ultrasound. The radiologist said I was a vomint - a victim of medical intervention, they’ve got all these toys now and they love using them.
I agree in many ways, but one thing I noticed when my late father was in hospital in Wales , both he and our family, were talked to in a friendly way by staff. There was chatting and shared communication between us and other patients and visitors. I guess not everyone would be happy with that, but I was.
I saw a nurse spend time just sitting with a very poorly patient and holding her hand gently for quite a time. I won’t forget that.
I agree with every word you have written there Cateran, it applies to my GP surgery too, so I had a look at the screen as well. A lot of what was written was inaccurate and outdated, then I found it impossible to get anyone to correct it, they believed the screen could not be wrong !!..
Quite, zube-UK. You wonder if you are in Wonderland like Alice, with things not there like the Cheshire cat slowly fading until its smile is all that remains.
The action of using a screen does seem to distance people. I sometimes watch the "flash mob" concerts on you tube, some great fun, there is a different expression on the faces of people who are just watching and those who are filming on their mobile 'phones and watching through them.
You have given me something to think about Sorrel. I hadn't quite seen it the way you describe the flash mob distancing on film, which is a whole new thought for me. Thank you
After spending 2 weeks in hospital recently I was surprised at the lack of care from nurses my meds where missed so resorted to keeping a notepad and noting down when meds and any other treatment was given.I was of sound mind but what if I’d been older and not of sound mind doesn’t bear thinking about I overheard nurses in corridor talking about an elderly lady saying how messy and scruffy she was not nice.I think in today world patients aren’t seen as human beings and nursing isn’t a vocation like it used to be and be prepared to take notes when in hospital you might just save your life with them
Very sad episode which you describe Discouraged in your hospital episode. It sounds very much as a case of neglect of care, thankfully not too common in our hospitals, and very off-hand with your treatment. Patient focus and public involvement both fall down here, so you have to resort to making your own notes and record of your treatment. No wonder that you are "discouraged"by your experience. You sound though that you are on the ball and wont take things lying down. Good for you!
I am extremely glad that I’m my recent 17 days in ICU & HDU that the extremely caring and skilful nursing staff and doctors had a multitude of diagnostic equipment hooked up to me.
I fear that back in the good old days my condition and the sepsis would have finished me off.
Lol. You are correct! But! The administration of the hospital have a simpler, age old way to excommunicate nurses from patients etc.
SPREAD EACH NURSES PERSONAL PATIENT LIST, AROUND THE WARD!
notice if you are in the average ward,they are usually a 4 or 6 bed rooms mostly! Your nurse might say have a patient in room 1, her next patient will be in room 6, room 2 , then room 4! Possibly to be seen in that order as well, so, if the nurse spends too much time on the 1 patient, they get reported to management & accused of not doing the job.
I think it's more a time issue as the tech and data can often tell them more about you than looking at you e.g. Blood markers, X rays, CT scans.
If they had more time, when they weren't doing something else crucial, then they could sit more with patients. Think the blame lies with out politicians mainly and all these satisfaction forms that makes staff have to smile all the time. I've found the vast majority are caring, just the odd few that aren't, and at the end of a 10/12 hour shift day after day perhaps they are just exhausted and need to detach to care for themselves.
PS - the staff have been bashed so much by the press and government over the past decade, no wonder some eventually detach/give up caring - a bit like when kids have constantly critical parents.
I think it depends on where you go in the hospital. In the clinics alot of the nurses are standing around chatting and shuffling paper. On some of the critical wards the poor nurses are run ragged. The problem with computers its so open to human error and you need to look at a person to see how poorly they are. Perhaps if politicians stopped interferring with the running of hospitals and putting in too many managers, it may work better.
Yes, you are correct Izby1. T here is very much a difference between clinics and critical wards and politicians interfere too much and make things worse. Nursing care is digitalized and thus high-profile, with no hiding place for the best and worse examples in the profession. I return to my original point about invisible patients who are effectively "vanished" by computers and screens to the point that the truth within our hospitals and within primary care is frequently glossed over and distorted for political reasons, none of them encouraging to the public.
Yes I agree there are huge differences between areas. When my son was in ICU a couple of years ago I was so impressed. Brain haemorrhage, major surgery and a nurse stood at the end of his bed 24 hours a day (not the same one obviously). First nurse told me they move round, like musical chairs, within the ward each shift so they don’t become complacent or careless because they think they know a particular patient. However as he (thankfully) moved from ICU to high dependency to ? then an ordinary ward (4 moves in all I think) and towards the door out, the standard of care dropped. Obviously the intensity of the care should drop but not the standard. Meds missed, buzzers not answered, cleanliness iffy.
It was an illuminating experience moving as a visitor through all levels of a hospital. One I hope not to repeat. Overall I was very happy with his care, the NHS is very efficient at the big stuff.
Tech can be very useful in hospitals if used appropriately but numbers on a screen don’t tell the whole story.
Some Nurses it would appear, lack the ability to actually see what is happening to the patient. One time when I was in hosp oxygen levels looked fine, nurse went, couple of minutes later another nurse came in had a mass panic as I was going very blue.
It’s my own very personal opinion that the training of nurses is not a degree course and more hands on training is needed.
There’s a very good poem written by an elderly lady in hosp she couldn’t speak after her death a poem was found, she had been seen writing. Well worth a read.
I am inclined to agree with you rattleben. It is double-edged but we can't function without it in health care, whatever the impact in primary and secondary care. It s in medical research that devices are so important and fundamental in helping science.
It's all a bit surreal but the overall process is more efficient. Yes you as a person sort of get ignored but what they talk is hospital talk which you are supposed to keep up with. If not sak them directly what the hell are they talking about.
In Thailand the personal care touch is solved by the practice of allowing a family member to stay in the hospital room/ward throughout. Sofa beds (or something more rudimentary in larger multi-bed wards) are provided and it's the norm for everyone to have a family member taking care for the duration.
It does of course have its downsides of potentially spreading bacterial and viral infection and it does turn larger public wards into a bit of a human zoo.
All we are now are customers the word patient has gone, hospitals are a business not to treat patients, but to get customers , because they get paid from the government per customer that is why you are sent out has soon as possible even after a very serious PROCEDURE /OPERATION which is what it was called in the past , so that things go wrong, you have to then go back in has another customer and they get paid a fee again . The thing that really gets up my back is that we/ you have put the tories back in again for another 5 years of this how stupid is that. Hospitals are dangerous places ,when a nurse tells me that after 3 years as a nurse she is leaving because her words 'They Kill People In Here I am off and her message to me was if you come in here again you bring a note pad and a pen and when they give you anything ASK WHAT IS IT THE NAME WHAT IS IT FOR WRITE IT DOWN and when your visitors come ask them to google what they have given you, then you realize there is something wrong. But its our fault we do not believe it can happen oh yes it can and it is doing, its all about money money money making the rich the richer.
You have gone straight to the heart of the problem in the NHS . Market forces and the lackey press of the finance interests gloss over the problems. The British populist ethos unfortunately hypes the failings of the health care system in order to divide and sow confusion and misinformation. Despite crocodile tears and propaganda to the contrary Government from Whitehall is set upon selling off to the biggest transatlantic conglomerates a major portion of UK healthcare system. Our press is mostly biased in favour of this strategy, as well as mainstream media and its right-wing outlets.
So the vanishing nurse problem is part of the deskilling of the workforce and the wider use of robot machinery and expensive pharmacy in our NHS. Not a good prognosis for 2020.
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