ER: from a patient's point of view

Disclaimer: This story is entirely fictional. Any resemblance to anyone or any place you know is coincidental.

Imagine you are a 60 year old Chinese gentleman with a past hx of hypertension (sorry that was purely out of habit), you suddenly experienced a crushing sensation in your chest and you thought you might be having a heart attack so you called for the ambulance.

The ambulance arrived 10minutes later but you felt much better already so you waited for them downstairs, to see 3 guys in uniform and 1 young lady who looked rather excited and who was in formal attire and a pair of gloves. The scene suddenly reminded you of the CSI you saw last night, as the girl was dressed like the forensic pathologist in the show. You squelched down on a bout of fear with some saliva and allowed them to load you onto the ambulance. To your relief and confusion, the girl didn’t do much except to put an oxygen mask on your face.

You reached SGH (Singapore Great Hospital) and you’re pushed through the automatic doors into this area buzzing with activity. On one side of the room, 8 curtained areas lined 3 of the walls, on the other side seems to be the doctors’ counter and door which states ‘Critical Care Unit’. And right in the center is an open space holding many trolleys containing patients in various states of distress. The trolleys were packed so close together not even an ant can crawl between them, with one patient’s feet almost touching another patient’s head. Your trolley was pushed to join these, neatly making a rectangle of 4 by 3 trolleys. Immediately, you are approached by two guys in white T-shirts and pants that look like pajamas, they both wore masks and look young and rather punk-looking. They look at you with hunger in their eyes and asked in unison, “uncle, why did you come to the hospital?”

You tell them your sorry tale about the chest tightness and immediately you sense a subtle change in their attitude. You can’t really put your finger on the change but you notice that one of them had eyes that were glazed over and the other was scanning the room, as if looking for someone more important. If you could see the thought bubble floating above their heads, you would have seen the words “oh man, another angina. I need to find a peptic ulcer/fracture/ectopic pregnancy for my write-up”. Before you could even finish your story, they interrupted you with a “thank you uncle” and left. And you think, “huh? Siao eh! Boh chap me ah?!”

Suddenly the guy next to you started to twitch vehemently and you notice a strange smell emanating from him and saw that he wet his pants. Someone shouted, ”he’s fitting!” Nurses descended upon him and pulled his trolley from the rectangle, knocking into yours and giving you a shock from the jostle. They pushed him through the ‘Critical Care Unit’ doors which seem to open magically. And like ghosts popping out of a graveyard, many young punks in white T-shirts appeared out of nowhere and ran after the trolley like a pack of wolves.

After a long, long wait, finally someone pushed you into one of the curtained areas and left you there. After another 15min, an authoritative figure strode into the room and introduced herself as ‘dr wong’. She looked at me for a moment and left the room, I heard some shouting, “I want Lim Ah Gao, not Lim Ah Mao”. Somebody pulled you out of the room and with some maneuvering not unlike the magic square game we used to play when we were young, they managed to push Lim Ah Gao who was right in the middle of the rectangle into the examining room. And you were left to wait outside (again), this time next to a woman who was grimacing in pain. She had a female young punk bent over her hand saying “sorry auntie, your veins are very small.”

After a very very very long wait, you’re finally pushed into another examining room, the doctor spent some time talking to you while some nurses stuck circular round stickers on you. After about 5 minutes, the doctor said that you’re fine and sent you outside to collect some medicine to suck on the next time you get the pain. And you can’t help feeling abit disappointed that after half the day waiting you only got 15minutes of attention.



And that story is how I imagine most patients would feel in the ED. I wasn’t exaggerating one bit, that was really what I saw during my Emed posting. It’s really quite traumatic, no wonder some patients are so afraid of going to the hospital. But from a medical student’s point of view, I love it there! Even though I was under a certain doctor who expects us to do ABGs and catheterize patients like we’ve been doing that for years. (I only observed these procedures as I was too chicken to do them, but I got to do an IM though, through the deltoid, and contrary to popular opinion, I was NOT disappointed that it wasn’t a buttock jab.)

I’m having all these thoughts about viewing doctors and hospitals from a patient’s and relative’s point of view because someone I know is experiencing it right now.

I’m praying for you and I have faith that he will recover very soon.