One of my most personal stories is something that had occurred when I was 9 years old. When I was in fourth grade, on February 2nd, 2010, my grandfather had received a heatstroke as he began to increase his running pace on the treadmill. My grandparents came from India to visit us, as my mom was due with my brother. Therefore, my grandparents were not too particularly familiar with how things generally work here alongside speaking coherent English on the whole. As my grandfather was alone in the basement as he got his stroke, he yelled for my grandma as climbing the stairs. My grandmother heard my and immediately yelped for my mother who was upstairs. My mom made it downstairs and came to understand the situation and immediately called 911. The ambulances arrived at our house immediately and took my grandfather to the hospital. My grandfather was immediately sent to the emergency room and regular hospital protocol was followed in an attempt to save my grandfather from this stroke. As the doctors finished their initial check – up on the patient (my grandfather), they came to be relatively confused when we explained how my grandfather had a relatively healthy physique as a retired army officer and no other illnesses that we knew about in the background. Hearing this the doctors progressed forward with their basic routine, which would involve a series of setting up an electrocardiogram (EKG) reading, attempting to study the heart rate of my grandpa and then simply diving in with alternatives in order to bring grandfather’s heart rate to normal resting heart rate such as the use of defibrillator and many other respective techniques accordingly. By the end of all of the doctor’s attempts, my grandfather was pronounced to be dead at the age of 64 years old on February 2nd, 2010.
Now one of the biggest mysteries that frankly haunts me yet also motivates me as an individual is how someone as fit as a retired army officer ends up getting a stroke, and that too is unable to survive this. This is what motivates me personally to pursue the path of studying medicine and many other personal endeavors of mine personally. In order to properly analyze this, we must begin by assessing the positives and negatives of this medical event as a whole. For starters are the positives. The idea that the first responders came within minutes after our phone call suggested for the chance of my grandfather’s survival overall. With the amount of time that my grandmother and mother had taken to relay and understand what was going on, if more time had passed then my grandfather might have not made it to the hospital. Second, there are procedures set in stone, however many of the emergency doctors are more than knowledgeable and capable of mixing up the procedures they follow accordingly in order to adapt to the patient’s symptoms and needs respectively. Finally the idea that the hospital is required to keep the relatives present in full notice of what is going on seems ethical enough, however to be communicative and also presenting of the options at hand are things that seem to be relatively crucial and important that they do. Now, on the flip side, for negative aspects I do feel that there is no relative scope for the negatives respectively. One thing, is that the use of a defibrillator might need slightly more contemplation before use. It comes to my understanding that the use of an electrical force can potentially regenerate the heart’s beating pattern. However, on the flip side the use of this defibrillator could also bring one’s heart beating to a complete stop. In addition to this, the lack of clarity of what other methods were in use could also prove to be detrimental when especially the patient is unable to make a decision with the current conditions he/she is in. I feel in my grandfather’s case, things like the defibrillator especially with a situation such as a stroke could truly prove to be a gamechanger. For this reason, I hope to continue studying as I can hopefully one day understand all the aspects of my grandfather’s death.
Hi . I can totally relate, this was also the initial reason why I wanted to become a doctor. I also witness my healthy grandad suddenly fall ill. I was devastated, but at the same time I was so confused. I wanted to know why and how, someone who has taken care of themselves properly could end up sick and in the hospital. My desire career was internal medicine I wanted to know the difference causes and solution for curing something that’s unpreventable. When shadowing a physician, I learned some people simply have health problems due to genetics. This shocked me because growing up I was always told as long as you take care of yourself, have a good diet, and exercise daily then you would live a long and healthy life.
You mentioned how the lack of clarity of what other methods in use could also prove to be detrimental when the patient is unable to make a decision due to their current conditions. I also thought about that when I learned about different things that MUST happen in order to save a patient’s life. This made me decide to pursue a career in healthcare management instead of being a physician. I wanted to have a say in what was right for the patient, when they can not make the decision themselves. From my bioethics, I have learned so many reasons why certain procedure are set in stone, and I have always learned some of these procedures need to be review to respect the autonomy of a patient.
Strokes are pretty incredible things. I remember in psychology class learning about the brain and getting to play with a software that would allow you to put a clot in different parts of the brain and it would tell you how that individual could be impaired. I like that you brought by the defibrillator, a lot of times we look at medical technology as magical miracle devices, when we should approach them with caution and a critical mind.