Professional. What exactly makes one a “professional”? For a doctor, it may be that crisp license hanging on the wall after years of medical school. Or the distinguished white coat that says “I’ve been taught everything I need to know to do this job”. Now that I’ve been through the eerie, sterile, beeping, hell that is the NICU, I’ve learned that there is one thing they just can’t teach in medical school: bedside manners.
As a medical professional who has worked in many areas of medicine in the last 15 years, I have seen my fair share of patient/doctor interaction. In my opinion, compassion and the ability to comfort people in confusing and scary times is possibly the most important quality a doctor can have. Unfortunately, many doctors just don’t have it and don’t even try to fake it. It wasn’t until my babies were in the NICU that I experienced it first-hand.
I wasn’t the typical first-time mom. Most moms I know already had interviewed multiple pediatricians before the “positive” line had even dried on the stick. I’m sure you know THOSE moms; the ones who interview, request credentials, and perform a background check with blood/urine analysis. Okay, probably not the last part… but it wouldn’t surprise me!
I’m more of an “I have plenty of time!” type of mom. Choices of doctors for me were slim since I had to find ones that accepted my health insurance AND who were credentialed at a hospital that also accepted my insurance. Choices (and time!) were all but gone once I found out at 19 weeks that my one baby was actually three. At that point, the choice was made for me: NICU staff, it is! Luckily, at that time, the NICU in my city was #6 in the country for outstanding neonatal care… so I trusted my babies would get the best medical professionals around.
28 people filled my operating room. Each baby had a team of specialty doctors who each had his/her role in keeping the babies alive in those first crucial minutes. The babies were quickly ushered into their rooms to settle and, for the first time, I felt that gut-wrenching feeling of watching strangers roll my fragile babies out of my sight and all I could do was trust them.
Maybe it was the number of doctors I was now consulting, but this is when I really experienced bad bedside manners almost hourly. At a time when I was emotionally, mentally, and physically fragile, this is when I need caring doctors the most. Instead, doctor after doctor came into our room and spewed off statistics, chances of this, and chances of that. I went blank. I remember staring at my finger thinking how large it looked in James’ hand.
In the first few hours after delivery, my husband and I sat white-faced, listening to one doctor after another telling us about things like “cerebral palsy”, “brain bleeds”, “underdeveloped lungs”, “life-long complications”, “surgeries”… “death”. They gave us enough to plant seeds of fear in our minds but offered no solutions. It was a parade of terrifying possibilities coming from stone-faced men and women in white coats. I don’t mean to sound like a crazy ex-girlfriend, but it wasn’t what they were saying, exactly, but the way they were saying it. It was like they had given that same spiel so many times and they were just going through the motions. It was like they were talking to us about the weather, not the lives of our three babies.
I understand it is the doctor’s job to tell us everything we need to know to be able to make informed decisions… and I wanted to hear it! I wanted to know as much as possible about what was going on with my babies. But, their education felt more like getting hit by a truck….over, and over, and over again. And that was just the start. My trio spent 2, 2.5, and 4.5 months in the NICU so that parade was long and brutal.
Over the next few months, my husband and I continued to be shocked by the nonchalant attitude the doctors had as they wheeled their computers from one room the next, never looking at the babies, and never addressing the parents. Shocked that, even months into our stay, they referred to our babies as “Espino Girl 1, Espino Boy 1, and Espino Boy 2” and never “Natalie, Oliver, and James”.
Mainly, we were shocked by the lack of compassion. Human to human compassion. Why do so many doctors have really bad bedside manners and when did that sort of behavior become the norm?
It finally got so bad that we broke. He ignored our wishes that we, the parents, give the okay on all treatment changes before the change is made. It was the sixth or seventh time one of the doctors ordered treatment based on a statistic in his textbook instead of my son’s history. He ignored the nurse when she voiced her concerns. He ignored her second request to stop treatment when he started to crash and said “do it anyway”. It was the sixth or seventh time we watched helplessly as our baby stopped breathing, alarms echoed in the halls, and a team of people rushed in to resuscitate. Sixth or seventh time.
I started sobbing and wanted answers. He just smiled at me. Not just a smirk, but a full, toothy grin. That’s when we started yelling. Unfortunately, it wasn’t just one doctor that was the bad apple. Multiple doctors practiced this way almost every day to all three of our babies. After these “incidences”, the doctor/s never even came to check on him or talk to us about what happened. No phone call. Nothing. I was so worried the next time that happened, we would have one less child. So, he’s lucky that yelling was all I did! Why are so many doctors like this?
I’d imagine it’s a double-edged sword, becoming a doctor. You spend so long being cut-throat, competitive, and desensitized to the emotional part of treating human beings that it must be incredibly difficult to switch that off when you are with patients and their families. That’s the only way I can rationalize it…and I’m reaching hard here.
If it weren’t for the incredible NICU nurses, I’m confident I would have lost one (maybe even two) of my babies in the NICU. These nurses took the time to get to know my babies. They noticed if his color was off or if she was acting fussier or than normal, and often went beyond their job description to make sure each baby was not only alive, but thriving. The nurses became bodyguards for my babies when I couldn’t be there; protecting them from the doctors that were too busy to care.
The nurses had the guts to stand up to the all-mighty MDs and didn’t hesitate to use his/her voice to advocate for my babies. They kept me and my husband in the loop constantly. They read books to my babies every night. They even came in and worked on their days off just to make sure whatever procedure that was needed was getting done and done right. They became family. They cared. They were the definition of good bedside manners and what my family needed most. Docs, take a look at your nurses and take notes.
**NICU induced PTSD is a very real thing that many parents struggle with. Please, ask your NICU staff to arrange for you to meet with a hospital social worker if you feel overwhelmed. Reach out if you need help.**
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