My aunt was one of the most kind and courageous people that I have ever met. She fell in love with the medical field at a young age and devoted her adult life to taking care of sick babies. As a neonatal nurse at Beaumont Hospital, she spent the majority of her time tending to the well-being of others. She even saved my brother’s life when he was a baby born with complications. She was the perfect example of what American biomedicine should strive to be and what most people think the healthcare system exemplifies. Due to all that she gave to her profession and to her patients, I was heartbroken when the hospital did not treat her with that same care and caution.
In 2011, my aunt got into a car accident that changed her life forever. She broke her neck and was told she would have to spend the rest of her life on an oxygen tank. She was given a brace for her neck for it to try and mend on its own, but was eventually told that she would need surgery. Some of the positives of the biomedicine system was that they quickly got to the scene of the crash and took care not to further injure her neck or cause paralysis. Additionally, the medical staff was efficient in diagnosing her condition right after the crash and getting her the help she needed at the time. However, the positives of the American biomedicine system in this scenario end there. When going in for her surgery, the medical staff constantly made errors, which led her down the path of three more painful operations. After living in a constant state of discomfort for two years, she passed away unexpectedly at the age of 43 due to the injuries that the hospital failed to treat properly.
While the American biomedicine system has been a lifesaver to most of my family members and to most individuals, in this case it exemplified some of the problems with our healthcare. As mentioned in the lecture, people think of doctors as divine beings. This is a lot of pressure to be placed on one person. At times, they are just like everyone else in that they make mistakes that can often lead to a devastating outcome. In my case, it led to losing someone very close to me. I believe that these outcomes come from a fundamental issue within our biomedicine, which is overworking our health professionals.
As a student who is looking to go into the medical field, I know the firsthand effects of being exhausted due to the strenuous curriculum for a pre-medical major. However, in addition to the four years of exhaustion in undergraduate, I have yet to go through what a future doctor will have to: four more years at medical school and three to seven years of residency training after that. Even for Physician Assistants (PA) a student must complete at least 1,000 patient contact hours before even being considered for a competitive PA school. On top of that, they have to get a lot of patient hours in a hospital or clinic. Moreover, once a medical student overcomes all of these hard tasks, they have to work overtime, night shifts, and long hours.
I believe that the overworking of our future medical professionals can lead to more mistakes being made in a hospital. A solution to this problem that is becoming more common in students today is taking a gap year between undergraduate and medical school or a post-graduate program. Moreover, I hope that I can continue to study the biomedicine system firsthand as I make my way into the medical field and learn how I can prevent cases like my aunt from happening to other people.
Wow, this experience really touched my heart. I am so sorry for the loss of your aunt. I am inspired by her love and care for young babies. I have heard and experienced similar medical events, not quite as extreme as this but similar. My grandpa has been in the hospital for weeks before figuring out a very obvious solution to his issues. It can see sometimes like the doctors and other hospital staff are too busy or too occupied with other things to invest the time, care, and compassion needed. I agree with you that part of the issue is how hard the pre-medical students and medical students are worked so hard. By the time they get to actually be an independent physician, they are burnt out. Do you have any ideas how the future and current doctors can change this? I have recently become aware of how prevalent of an issue this is. I now have friends that are in medical school or are going to go to medical school and I can see, first-hand, the stress they are put under.
Hello. I’m so sorry to hear about your aunt and how she wasn’t given the proper care that she had once given her own patients. My grandmother was diagnosed with throat cancer three different times, and the last time was by far the worst. During her surgery, the surgeon noticed her tissues had become infected, which resulted in another surgery. The surgery to heal the infected tissues lasted 18 hours, which requires a lot of time and energy for the surgeons. After watching this week’s video and reading your blog post, I realize how overworked doctors are. Growing up my best friend’s mom was an Emergency Room doctor, and she was rarely around during the day. At such a young age, it never occurred to me that it isn’t normal for people to work 12+ hours a day or even work through the night. She always did her best to support her family and spend time with them, but working 60 or more hours a week meant she rarely spent time at home and when she was home she needed sleep to ensure she was well rested to care for patients.
I’m terribly sorry for your loss. It sounds like your aunt was a great person. A lot of what you talked about was shown in that documentary that was assigned on the first week. The hours of time physicians are expected to work in the office, be on call, and do their extra duties is insane. Not to mention the stress that comes with the job. It’s amazing more people aren’t killed or maimed by exhausted and overworked practitioners.