Some interesting advice on “visiting hours”…
The New York Times blog vignette read: “For 15 years Anna was a solitary figure sitting at the far end of our waiting room for her annual checkups, having shaved a half-hour off her workday so she could hustle over before we locked our doors.”
“One of them would sleep in Anna’s hospital room at night and another would come by in the morning. At lunchtime more would wander in, and by the middle of the afternoon it was standing room only in Anna’s half of the semiprivate accommodations on 10A. When she was moved to the I.C.U. the whole mass of them decamped into the waiting room down the hall, a tide of Anna-focused humanity surging in and out with the day. Somebody, usually one of her daughters, was deputized to sit by the bed, waiting outside the cubicle when the nurses had work to do, then coming right back in.”
“It could have been worse, I suppose, but it could have been much better. In the best of hindsight-enabled worlds, we would have had the sense (or, possibly, the correct phrase would be ‘the power’) to ease that mass of loving family away from the bed and have a long, frank talk with Anna, then a long, sad discussion with a single selected spokesman (that selection alone has been known to fracture families into irreparable shards). We would have curtailed all the extra treatments we piled on. She would have died weeks sooner and far more peacefully than she did.”
Click here to read the full New York Times article “Too Much Family Love” by Abigal Zuger.
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Doctor, Did You Wash Your Hands? ™ provides information to consumers on understanding, managing and navigating health care options.
Jonathan M. Metsch, Dr.P.H., is Clinical Professor, Preventive Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; and Adjunct Professor, Baruch College ( C.U.N.Y.), Rutgers School of Public Health, and Rutgers School of Public Affairs and Administration.
This blog shares general information about understanding and navigating the health care system. For specific medical advice about your own problems, issues and options talk to your personal physician.