A Day In The ER

Well, actually not really a day, but for a few hours I had stationed myself in the ER dept for another oncall. It was kinda interesting to observe and see how things operate here compared to most of the ERs back home. Endless endless patients pouring in through the door with various causes of emergency alarm, though interestingly enough most of the cases that I saw today was due to dysuria and and renal colic pain. Wonder what's up with that....

Anyways, as I was observing and helping out wherever I can in there, it suddenly struck me how disheartening it was to see some patients that came in from the countryside with poor hygiene and ragged clothings. Moreover, this one elderly guy came in to the ER from one of the surgical wards complaining of pain in the distal right leg (that suspiciously looked like superficial thrombophlebitis) and also on the left foot, and when he took off his shoes all of us were shocked to see that his toes were sooo dirty and muddy that when we asked him how it came to be (when he was just supposed to come from the surgical clinic which was only 2 blocks away) he only told us nonchalantly that his shoes had a hole in them where the seams had gave out, and that's why the mud from the streets could get in! And when they asked him why he didn't thought of getting new shoes, he just said, "What for?! I can still walk in this one, and I'd rather walk barefoot than starve to death..." Sigh....never before had the reality of life hit me so powerfully than what he had just said. And you wanna know what happened next? My supervisor, a resident doctor there, actually took out some cash from her wallet and gave it to him "for you to buy new shoes, ok sir".....

Then and there it hit me; the reality of what being a doctor entails. A doctor not only heals the body, but as a human being we could and also should help whenever and wherever it was needed. Although my supervisor were not obligated to help out that man financially, but the fact that she did, with no one's prompting and out of the goodness of her heart, made me realise that that is the kind of doctor that I want to be; empathic, kind, humane and ethical. Would I be that kind of doctor, could I? Would I still have the patience and remain calm and not explode due to tiredness even after 36-hours on the job? I wish I could say "Yes, I will!" for certain, but I am after all human. We make mistakes, that's undeniable. But as doctors we can't afford to make mistakes that could cause us lives. And as dilligent and careful we will try to be, there will still be the possibility that things can go wrong. So the only thing to do is do the best that we could do in that moment of time hoping and praying that it is enough, while not forgetting that life is fragile and we are but servants of God.

And above all else, I swear and abide by the Hippocratic Oath...