Humor in the Hospital

Hospitals are funny. And humor is healing too. This is one of the signs on one of the doors of a patient room on post-partum. We OB anesthesiologists had taken it over. Why? Because there had been a flood in the call room suites in the basement that winter. I had been in the call room at the time, and silly me, had thought, well, the doctor's dining room next door, and Medical Records are flooded, but not the call room!

Water seeks it's own level! Duh!

As the water came in under the door, as deep as my ankles, I had the sense to raise the computer up on a chair, and grab my stuff. I think I still have picture of my scrub pants with the water line. Good thing I wear clogs! LOL

Humor is important in medicine. There are many different types of humor. Some is just plain folk wisdom, helping to teach people and foster the team spirit.

Last night I was talking to my cousin, who is a stuntwoman. She was going to play a red-headed doctor who was nodding off behind the wheel at night in some R-rated made-for-T.V. movie that I would never watch anyway because she dozes off and plows into a bunch of people. I had to make sure they were computer generated ones, and not stunt people, getting hit by the car.

We laughed because as I was coming out of surgery on Tuesday, I was pretty loopy. My crazy uncle, her father, and my sister had been there. The dilaudid was working, and I kept announcing, 'I am going to go to sleep now!'. then I would pass out for about thirty seconds, and repeat the whole thing over again. I made my cousin laugh by mentioning using me as research for her part in the movie!

She didn't know that we laugh in the hospital. All the time. I shared with her one of the old ones I first leaned in the O.R.: all bleeding stops eventually.

She thought that was funny. It took her a while to get it, but she laughed and laughed! It does. Most certainly. We either fix the problem, or the problem wins.

Variations of that are, 'What this patient needs is cold, hard steel' (an operation).

In Trauma Surgery, 'The life you save may one day live to take your own'.

Surgeons and Internal Medicine doctors have a rivalry. Surgeons say, 'we do everything an Internal Medicine Doctor does PLUS we operate!'. Internal Medicine thinks they are smarter. For example, many anesthesiologists have taken internships in Internal Medicine before starting their Anesthesia Residency Training.  They call the ether screen (the part of the drape that folds up by the head of the patient during surgery) the 'Blood Brain Barrier'. We are on the 'Brain Side'. ; )

Well, Surgeons don't take that lightly. If you look, you will never see one wearing a stethoscope around the neck like they do on T.V. Real surgeons would never do that. They keep it in their pocket. Why? Because surgeons like to refer to the stethoscope around the neck as a 'Flea Collar'. You may ask, 'Why in the world would they call it a Flea Collar?'. Because fleas are the last thing to leave a dying dog.

Think about it. And let me know when you get it. If you do. I bet George Takei would get it! LOL

My humor has its own place in the bedside. I go around to check the day after my inpatients have major surgery. One of the things I do in pre-op that usually upsets them, is I examine their teeth. I document the condition of everything, where a cap or a veneer or implant is, and caution them because, 'In surgery you never know. If I have to choose between keeping your getting oxygen and your teeth, I am choosing oxygen' (usually I don't put it that way, but they understand that things can sometimes happen, and loose teeth and prosthetic teeth aren't as strong as native ones in good repair.)

When I visit them the next day, I act all surprised that we didn't knock any of their teeth out. "Man, we were SO lucky weren't we?' They get the giggles all the time. Partially because I had the ability to knock them out in the first place, 'You...you...the LAST thing I remember was you telling me you were going to give me a little margarita in my i.v.!!!' and that I got them through all right, with no nausea and no pain in the first place. And all their teeth intact and their voice not hoarse or anything.

Anesthesia is a blessed thing. It truly is. I didn't want to remember the inside of the O.R. when I went for my robotic laparoscopic surgery. And mercifully, I did not recall the inside of the O.R. or transferring over in the first place from my pre-op gurney to the Operating Room Table. (It would have been lumpy, there was a bean bag on it for positioning in the steep trendelenberg position for the case.). Anyways, I had my best friend in there with me. She was doing Chinese Acupressure on me as I went to sleep. I asked her if I said anything funny. She said when I woke up I couldn't believe how quick the surgery had been, and I was happy and smiling. 'Sweet as your usual self" she smiled and said. My anesthesiologist had done anesthesia for other members of my family. He is a friend. He came in just for me that day, on his birthday. I am so lucky to have had all the members of my team that worked on me. They protected my privacy and helped me very much.

Sometimes we have a problem that needs surgery. I can't wait to share more about the many opportunities I had for Reiki in my recovery, and in the hospital as a whole. This new energy medicine/Reiki combination is going to be GREAT! We have so much work to do on this together.

Namaste,

Reiki Doc

Intuitive Mediums vs. Allopathic Medicine

Yesterday a colleague came to me flustered. A prominent surgeon had picked up the phone from a patient, who berated them at length over 'not being called by the office and the disease is going to progress and kill them!'.  Interactions like this are not typical for this surgeon, and they dug in through the emotional maelstrom to find the truth: the patient had chosen to see a psychic, an intuitive medium, instead of following up on their own care.

The medium, guided the patient BACK into the system, but said, "You are going to get stage IV recurrence and die even though you get the surgery". The surgeon, who had followed their OWN intuition, found out the truth!

Never before had this type of scenario happened in this surgeon's prominent career over two decades.

And never before has the surgeon known, that I, the one approached for reassurance, was a psychic, Intuitive medium, and Reiki Master myself!

"Who IS this medium?", I asked authoritatively, shocking the surgeons somewhat. "They should be reported." (I know a teacher in the area, and it might have been one of their students) "In talking like this they are practicing medicine without a license."

"Well how are you going to report THAT?" the surgeon shot back. "Besides the medium told them to come back and have the surgery."

"Anyhow, I think you should have your patient request me to do anesthesia for the case. I could help them in the O.R., I am good with patients who are like this." and that went totally over the surgeon's head.

"Well, they are back in the system, and the patient is happy. I don't think it's going to make a difference now."

And I shut my mouth. A big part of being a Reiki Master-Teacher is knowing when to let it rest.  This medium was not acting in the best interest of the patient. And for anyone who is considering going into  practice as an Intuitive Medium, heed this case! It is a lawsuit in the making, for metaphysical malpractice.

Now take the counterexample, also from yesterday, of the Intuitive Medium Physician at work. A patient presented with the same disease that was mortal to my father. The goal was to have a test in the CT scanner, where a biopsy was taken to hopefully return the patient to the transplant list. My experience with this disease and my assessment of this patient's clinical condition was that the outcome was not good. I was willing to give it a try with the anesthesia, but a hunch told me to double-check on the risk of a known complication of this procedure that would be deadly to this patient with end-stage organ disease of the lungs. Sure enough, the radiologist had cancelled the procedure two days ago, on account of risk, and scheduled anesthesia to be assisting with the case. The risk of this particular outcome, was over fifty-percent.

So my gut instinct was right. But how to break the news to the patient, that they were going to stay off the transplant list for good because it was not wise to do the anesthesia for this test?

This is where the mediumship came in: I asked for Divine Guidance, and I also had all of my Intuition Radar up. My approach was, you are not doing so well with two lungs, this procedure might drop one. We can likely get you through, but you might not wake up the same as you are now, or not at all. I am not a gambler. The risk to you of brain hypoxia, renal failure, myocardial infarction, ventilator dependence, and death are too high to take you through this risk. I 'get it', the importance of this test for you, and how much you put your hopes on it. But things today could go way bad in a hurry, and I am not going to move forward with anything that could do that.

And the patient understood. We were talking soul-level to soul-level, heart-to-heart on their future, and the quality of it, in the short time that was left. Both of us knew, before we ever met, how sick this one really was.

The radiologist was deeply relieved, and went to ask the pulmonologist what else we could offer.

Mediums who are aligned with the medical system have so much more to offer than those who are against them. Doctor-bashing and establishment bashing is a sport. But blinders need to be lifted.

Dear Primitive Patient--your whole concept of Allopathic Medicine is going to change. Because Reiki Doc is in the house, and going to bring the Light in, and that is going to fix it. There is a whole movement around us called Intuitive Medicine coming in. There are so many of us doing our thing out there from within the system--that we are going to rock the house! Orloff, Shultz, Oz, and more...

Namaste,

Reiki Doc