Friday, January 30, 2009

Cold Medicine

I continue to be surprised (even though I shouldn't be) at how cold and indifferent mainstream medicine can be. You would think that at some point when someone is brought into the emergency room by ambulance with a head injury they would ask the patient how they feel. No, the questions were all strictly medical. For 3 hours no one, not doctor, nurse, PA, no one asked the patient how they felt or if there was anything they could do to make them more comfortable.

The patient had to ask for nausea medication before being discharged because sitting up from examination table to wheelchair was going to be extremely difficult. For the entire ordeal the hospital never offered so much as an ice pack or an aspirin.

Medical personnel are trained to not get involved with patients to protect themselves, but at what point do they pass basic human compassion? Treating patients as if they were an animal, a slab of meat without any feelings, may protect the staff but it has a direct and harmful impact on the patient.

It's been said many times that one of the major reasons so many Americans are turning to complementary and alternative medicine is the caring attention they receive from practitioners. Based on personal experience, I'd certainly have to agree.

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