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Marc Regis
Erik Habecker
Writin 010
12/11/13
True Life: Working in a Hospital
The first book I was ever given was an encyclopedia. Though I would have wanted a new
Lego set, my mother gave me a book to read instead of new toys. I didn’t complain actually, that
encyclopedia grew on me. The pictures were vivid and very detailed, and it contained many
topics of interest: astronomy, world culture, sports, biology, etc., etc. What really piqued my
interest was a section titled “Human Anatomy.” It was amazing, it opened a window into my
own body and I thought that was the greatest thing in the world. By the second grade I had
memorized all the major organs of the ear and eyes along with certain systems of the body. And
that’s how my love affair with medicine came to be, with an intro to anatomy back in preschool.
I’m now in college. My degree of choice is in Psychology and I still love the idea of
learning medicine but the path to becoming a doctor is just too daunting. So as a sort of
“consolation,” I devoted a large sum of time in actually studying doctors and nurses. What I
hoped to get out of this excursion was how medical workers function in their own workspace, the
hospital. This is was a chance for me to dive in the world of medicine without actually getting
my feet wet.
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Mercy Medical Center is located in the small city of Merced, one of the many cities that
dot US Route 99. It serves the entire city of Merced, situated in its northern quadrant near the
newly built University of California, Merced. I arrived on a cold, rainy night not with the
objective of learning about doctors and nurses but actually as a patient.
The smell of medicine mixed with hand sanitizer wafted in the air as the automatic
sliding doors welcomed me in. I paid a visit to the emergency room which was also apparently
their walk-in clinic. As I’ve mentioned before, medicinal practice always intrigues me, it was not
out of the ordinary to find me fascinated just by sitting in a waiting room chair. It was a white
room, with rows of chairs that lined every wall. Magazine piles laid on the tables as reading
material for the bored patients awaiting their name to be called.
I walked up to the receptionist area and spoke through the glass wall separating the
employees and the patients.
“Hi, I have these rashes on my body, can you guys fix it?
The nurse on the other side barely moved her eyes up to meet mine.
“Medical provider?”
“I don’t think I have that information.”
The nurse took a long breath in and took her time exhaling.
“Do you have your medical insurance card?”
I gave her my Kaiser Permanente card. She barely took her eyes away from the screen.
Her fingers danced across the keyboard as she typed my medical information from my insurance
card. She told me to take a seat and gave me the hospital band.
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My name was called after 10 or so minutes and I was taken behind the glass wall through
a white door. This nurse was slightly more chipper than the one that took my medical
information. She was more responsive when I attempted awkward small talk. After my vital
signs were recorded, she put me in an exam room and in a few minutes a doctor entered the
room.
“Hey doctor, so how do I fix this?”
He checked my ears and the spaces between my jaw and neck for lymph node swelling.
This doctor was as cold as the nurse at the receptionist desk and went straight to questioning me
about what happened. It wasn’t surprising to me that the doctors and nurses were kind of cold
and cranky. It was ten o’clock at night and I’m assuming they were in the hospital for a
significant amount hours.
I told him I was at the lake and suddenly my body started heating up and getting itchy.
“You have a case of the hives and to cure this, I’m going to prescribe you a shot of
Benadryl. You should be fine but you’re going to fall right asleep. You’ll probably doze off in
the waiting room. I take it that you have someone to take you back to the UC?”
I said that I had someone drive me to the Center and he promptly exited the exam room.
A nurse came in with a syringe kit, complete with the vial of Benadryl.
“I’m kind of a wuss when it comes to needles”
“Don’t worry just keep talking, it’ll be a little pinch and it’ll be cool,” the nurse said with
a smile.
I kept talking. “Pinch” was the biggest understatement of the century, I stopped midsentence just to scream in pain. Apparently the nurse thought it was amusing. I said thank you,
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left the exam room, and took a seat in the waiting room. As soon as my information was
processed I left Mercy Medical only to visit again.
When I experienced Mercy Medical again, I was well and I explored the rest of the
building. Walking into the main lobby, it was very office-like. Orange lounge chairs were
organized back to back with a few positioned onto the wall to provide rest and relaxation to its
visitors. For hospitals, comfort is a high priority amongst them. Not only do they provide
comfort to their patients, but they provide for their families as well.
In this lobby, televisions arranged in a giant rectangle adorned one wall but did not play
regular cable sadly, rather programmed to display recent rewards and accolades the hospital and
its employees have garnered.
“Dr. Smith prized with a plaque in leading cardiovascular surgery techniques.”
“Mercy Medical Center Awarded State of the Art Imaging Systems.”
Other doctors were mentioned in the queue as well. Apparently this hospital was very
well off and it was reflected in its employees. The lobby was pleasant and aesthetically pleasing
to the eye. It had a modern style with bright orange colors and white walls. The windows were
unobstructed to let light in more. Typical of buildings with lobbies, a receptionist’s desk and a
sign in sheet stood between me and the rest of the first floor. There were no nurses or doctors on
this floor only volunteers so I moved beyond the receptionist’s desk.
The first floor housed most of the big machines commonly used in hospitals. A lone
Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine was anchored to both the ceiling and the floor of an
imaging room. A staff of medical technicians were operating on the machine, routine
maintenance I had assumed. I had heard of this machine before and had no intention of using it
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firsthand as a patient or as a technician so I snapped a couple of pictures before a technician
coldly closed the door.
I sat down and took a rest. Hospital chatter is a variety of things, from a mother scolding
her child to the hushed tones of a doctor- patient conversation. It was very interesting to take it
all in. I turned my attention to a doctor speaking to one of his patients. I heard the world “child”
multiple times in the conversation so the patient must have been a parent and her child was the
doctor’s patient. It was a very serious conversation. I could not hear the words but the doctor
spoke with his arms, demonstrating a procedure that might be used on the mother’s child. The
mother was clearly distraught, one of her children would be going under a scalpel and with
surgery being unpredictable as it is. I felt this visit to Mercy Medical Center had concluded and
walked out.
The challenge of interviewing a doctor or a nurse was very real, almost all the employees
in the hospital were busy writing up patients or doing their own thing in their own offices.
Fortunately (and unfortunately), I wasn’t feeling too well later on and had to go back to Mercy
Medical for walk in examinations. I gathered what I could from interacting with the nurses and
doctor that had treated me. But knowing that wasn’t enough, I had to outsource my time away
from the hospital to grab a little 1 on 1 with someone I knew back home that knew how a
hospital worked firsthand. Coincidentally it was my brother, Mark (father wasn’t too creative
with names).
Mark is a Licensed Vocational Nurse, or LVN for short. LVN’s are assistants to the
Registered Nurses, as Registered Nurses are assistants to licensed physicians and doctors. They,
of course, are not as fully trained as a registered nurse but can still practice nursing and
convalescent care. My brother Mark was in the process of obtaining his Registered Nursing
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license. I met with my brother over a weekend and we talked. Mark did his required hospital
hours in an emergency room of a nearby hospital.
“When you were in the emergency room of your hospital of study, what were you in
charge of?”
“I was in charge of taking down the vital signs of the new incoming patients prep them
for surgery and doctor’s appointments.”
“Is it stressful?”
“Yes … It was a good kind of stress, kept you on your toes it was exciting.”
Mark had encountered numerous deviants in the emergency room. They had a tendency
to be frequent patients in hospitals.
The most memorable occurrence he had in the emergency room was when an officer fully
clad in tactical armor walked in my brother’s ER. He had been complaining of “something in his
neck” and wanted it out. That “something” was an ice pick. The ice pick was 4 inches deep and
barely touched any vital nerves or arteries.
I asked my brother how he would go about taking care of an ice pick impaled 4 inches
deep into a neck.
“I checked his pulse and vitals, everything was normal. I was surprised he was still
standing.”
“Did you give him any medication?”
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“No, all I did was stabilize the ice pick and prevent it from going in more. We put him on
a gurney, took his belongings and sent him to an X-ray.”
That was when they found out the ice pick was embedded 4 inches deep into his jugular
area. A “holy shit” was in order after hearing the details.
The topic of the media and how it depicts doctors and nurses in a hospital came to mind
so I asked him about it
“The medical dramas you see on TV’s, would you say it’s different or any similarities
between them?
“It’s very different. For example, House?”
House is a medical drama that revolves around Gregory House, a roguish doctor whose
skill in diagnosing patients is shadowed by his very risky procedures that sometimes puts his
patients and his colleagues in danger
“The way he does his assessments and treatments, if you did that in the real world, you’d
be out of a job. You’d be fired and that would be the end of you. Because in the real world the
safety of your patients come first. Giving medications and other things can jeopardize the safety
of your patient.
“In the real world you have to separate yourself from the patients, you have to focus on
their safety. You can’t be emotionally attached because it will hinder your decision making.
Sometimes we have psycho patients, drug seekers. Some patients get too close and comfortable
and they as you in the end for pain meds because they’re so addicted.
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I talked to him for a while and gathered that complacency would be the death of you in
the ER. You never know what would walk in through the doors so you have to be always ready
and always prepared. Being a nurse and also a student means that you never stop learning. There
are new treatments and new procedures that always refresh your abilities to take care of people.
“What’s the best part of working as a nurse?
“Working with doctors in different fields. Every day you learn new things. Sometimes
they let you test out new therapy sessions, machines. You’ll never be the best nurse or doctor,
you’ll always be a student.
“And our last question, how was the first day on the job?”
“It was shock treatment. They put you on the spot and they expect you to do things
without explanations. The purpose of that is basically, well yeah, to shock you. If they
sugarcoated everything you’d be totally unprepared. But they do watch us because, of course,
patient safety always comes first.”
Like all other occupations, doctors and nurses have their own jargon or language that
they use in their line of work. Talking to my brother, I noticed that they talk in shorthand which
involves shortened words or phrases. Instead of “vital signs,” they say “vitals.” Instead of
“medicine,” they use “meds.” In a situation where time is critical, conciseness is key. The time
used to say long, medicinal terms could be used to replace an artery or save a man’s life from a
crippling stroke. On other occasions that do not involve a life or death split second, a nurse
speaks in a calm manner. Most of the time nurses are taking care of the elderly or the young.
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Since constant interaction with fragile people is asked of of nurses, they must use their way of
speaking to comfort and assure while also to inform and get straight to the point.
During my study, I met another medical employee that went by the name of Dr.
Mangrola. I asked him a few questions during my latest visit to Mercy Medical where I had a
case of the strep throat.
“I have a really bad sore throat, mild fever, and body aches.”
“All right then, let’s take a look.”
“Well it seems like you have the case of the strep throat my friend!”
Dr. Mangrola was warmer than most of the employees behind the walk in clinic
receptionist area. He told me all the complications strep throat entailed and gave me some advice
to counteract some of the symptoms. It’s worthy to note that prior to my visit I had actually
Googled what strep throat was and what it was caused by. I’d like to thank Dr. Mangrola here for
not bombarding me with strep throat’s lengthy, almost un-pronounceable name, Streptococcus
pyogenes.
“So how long have you been here?” (I actually had asked how long has he been working
today.)
“Well, I’ve been working here for at least 3 years.”
I went along with the answer and asked what he had been doing prior to working here in
Mercy Medical Center.
“Before this I was actually living in South Africa, providing medical care to people there.
It wasn’t charity work or Peace Corps. worthy, but I was regarded as a fine doctor back there.
“And you enjoyed that of course?”
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“Yes. It was a very nice experience. I taught and treated a lot of people.”
People often forget that doctors can also be teachers. The learning material that they have
to comprehend is extensive and must be learned thoroughly. When I speak to doctors, they teach
me rather than tell me. It leaves me asking more questions because I’m so intrigued by what’s
actually going in my own body.
On the contrary, a doctor might use his language and medical terminology to intimidate
or impress. Doctors are always in the running for various rewards. Mercy Medical Center was no
stranger to triumph and success, their awards were bragged about on a rectangular TV display in
their main lobby. When talking to very important sponsors and patrons, a doctor has to put on his
Sunday’s best and pull everything out of the book to make it seem that what they’re doing is very
important. Even Dr. Mangrola was guilty of bragging about himself when he was in South
Africa.
At the conclusion of my study, I had garnered a lot of information about doctors and
nurses. My outlook on the medicinal society did not change drastically, my expectations were
kept at a steady. I found that they are a very diverse and interesting group of people with
different goals and reasons on why they chose to work in this harsh environment. Some may do
it for the awards that it brings, or some might just love helping people. As for myself, helping
people was always a big thing when I had dreams of becoming a doctor. The money and
accolades would always come second. From the environment they have to work in and the
language they have to use, I’ve come to the conclusion that doctors and nurses are always cranky
and somewhat egotistical, the latter mostly pertaining to doctors. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing,
given the circumstances that they had to go through to get to where they are now. Long hours
into the night and into the morning can never get used to along with the varying conditions of
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their patients. But from my interview with my brother, I can also conclude that the profession
never gives you a dull moment. You would never know what came in through your hospital
doors. This attribute of working in a hospital as a medical employee is what attracted me to the
profession in the first place. You would always be kept on your toes and you would never stop
learning. For me, staying in one place is counter-productive. You should always be challenging
yourself, and this study on the medical society was a challenge in itself that I was glad I took up.