In this business of medicine we are typically hurried along in our patient care duties by unseen forces, such as adminstrators, who enforce expectations of speed. The underlying impetus for this is institutional income, of course. It's not an intransparent truth. When, at your annual check up, your doc or PA seems to be speaking in half sentences and glancing at the door, it's likely because this professional is under pressure to see more patients per hour.
However, in a location where I work currently, there is no money to be made per patient. It's just the way the money flows from one hand to the other within the government. So the need for speed is due to patient flow, not administrative hand wringing over a keyboard. We still go fast. But it's because the patients show up fast.
Yesterday, for instance, I was asked to go quickly by a patient with multiple problems because, she explained, her sheep were being stalked by a coyote lately. She could only be here a little while.
Intrigued by this sincere concern, I asked why this was a problem now. I guess that's the ER person in me; the question of immediacy is ingrained. She informed me that her best sheep dog has gotten too old to take good care of the herd, and the three new puppies aren't trained well enough to the task. Plus, her mother is too old to shoot the shotgun straight anymore. So, would I please hurry. She can't afford to lose any more lambs.
Accordingly, I hustled with a quick step that no email from a hospital CFO had ever put in my Nikes before. I imagined the coyote checking the dirt trail for her old pick up, then peering at the lambs, then back at the trail.....
And before long I had her exam done, her meds refilled, and our requisite chat about the exam, plan, and medications completed. I watched her perfect black braid trail down her back as she left the room, and I wished her lambs well in my mind.
However, in a location where I work currently, there is no money to be made per patient. It's just the way the money flows from one hand to the other within the government. So the need for speed is due to patient flow, not administrative hand wringing over a keyboard. We still go fast. But it's because the patients show up fast.
Yesterday, for instance, I was asked to go quickly by a patient with multiple problems because, she explained, her sheep were being stalked by a coyote lately. She could only be here a little while.
Intrigued by this sincere concern, I asked why this was a problem now. I guess that's the ER person in me; the question of immediacy is ingrained. She informed me that her best sheep dog has gotten too old to take good care of the herd, and the three new puppies aren't trained well enough to the task. Plus, her mother is too old to shoot the shotgun straight anymore. So, would I please hurry. She can't afford to lose any more lambs.
Accordingly, I hustled with a quick step that no email from a hospital CFO had ever put in my Nikes before. I imagined the coyote checking the dirt trail for her old pick up, then peering at the lambs, then back at the trail.....
And before long I had her exam done, her meds refilled, and our requisite chat about the exam, plan, and medications completed. I watched her perfect black braid trail down her back as she left the room, and I wished her lambs well in my mind.
This is rich, Pam. I was telling this to my boss,Ann, and she knew exactly why the lady was so distressed.(Ann raises llamas, and suggests that a llama would guard her sheep very well.) She knows of the value of the wool, used to make the rugs that are their livlihood.
ReplyDeleteI've seem llamas in NC, but always in herds (?)...not guarding sheep. Good idea, if they would graze on the flora here. A burro can be a good shepherd too, and they eat what the high desert offers! Coyotes are a terror...the Navajo say that if one crosses in their path they must take a different route; the way some feel about a black cat. I hear the coyotes at night, yipping and howling like roving puppies when they stray up to the back yards and find fences in their way.
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