I can be hypercritical. Don’t be so surprised. Just watch me in a room with a speaker and see the things I write down. Watch me write down things after I’ve given a lecture. This is what I do. It is something I am good at. Watching, questioning, making improvements, making cuts.
I am not here to do those things. This is not a job I was brought into. No one is asking me to make cuts or suggestions. But my brain does not stop. Ticka-ticka-ticka-ticka all day long. I write things down. I think, “Why? There must be a reason they are doing it this way, but right now it doesn’t make sense to me.“ I go home and separate each question onto its own sheet of paper. And then every day, I watch, I listen, I ask questions. Some things make sense after just a little while. Some things take longer to sort out. Some things are not important at all, just puzzling to me. Other things are more critical.
I had a job once where they trained me to paper clip two items together, file them in a stackable file system and then literally step three feet to the right, un-paperclip the items and put them in a different filing system. I asked, “Would it be all right if I just put this second file stack right next to the inbox?” And they looked at me amazed. Really. It isn’t rocket science.
But again, I know that is not why I am here. Still, there are some things that stop me cold. Not just puzzles, but walls I smack right into.
If the hypercriticalness is not a surprise, perhaps the fact that I feel very passionate about some things is. I know. It’s hard to imagine me feeling strongly about anything, especially my work. But here it is. And this must come first: it is a person in that bed. Someone whose dignity is in my hands. It is not ok for me to look at it any other way. Age doesn’t matter. Mental capacity doesn’t matter. Consciousness does not matter. It is a person. Someone’s child. Someone’s friend. And God help me if I treat them as if they do not count. As if they cannot hear me. This is why it is called healthcare.
And I know the system is broken. It is broken from bottom to top and every level in between. It is easy to say there isn’t enough money, there is no perfect solution, it doesn’t matter because we have the best healthcare in the world just the way things are now. Well, that is a lie. Look at outcomes. Look at quality of life. Look at rising costs and rising rates of illness. Look at infant mortality. We are not the best. Not by a long shot.
The fix will not be easy, but I can tell you – even if no one will listen to me yet because I am still just that little girl from the billing department – this must come first. And if this piece is in place…respect and true compassion for every patient from every member of that healthcare team from the information desk to the physician to the person who empties the garbage cans… If employees are held to that high standard, they will rise to it. The industry would lose fewer workers who simply cannot bear to work alongside people who consistently are disinterested in reaching that mark. And then…I can only imagine what our system would look like then.
Today was a good reminder. I do not want to forget why I do what I do. And why I believe it can get better.
