It's been a busy week of discussion following Glenn Beck's bad backside brouhaha. His experience of having to wait too long in the emergency room to find relief for his horrendous pain has been well documented and blogged.
It flagged Elizabeth Cohen, CNN's Empowered Patient to check in with ER doctors and nurses to get some ideas of how to speed up the process for patients. She then penned (wait -- keyboarded?) a list of Five Things NOT to do in the ER. It's an excellent list, and while most of it is common sense, we must all realize that when we are sick or in pain -- enough to need the ER -- we just aren't in a position to use our common sense.
My suggestions? Here are a few:
- Print a copy of Ms Cohen's Five Things Not to Do.
- Find my list of things you SHOULD do in the ER -- print it off, too.
- Put both lists somewhere you can grab them in an emergency -- maybe with your first-aid kit or taped to the inside of your medicine cabinet door.
- Be prepared for an emergency that might come when you aren't at home, or with a loved one. There are some very simple things you can do (put ICE* on your cell phone, for example) that could be life saving.
- Understand why ERs are so crowded and too often attend to patients so slowly. That will give you a better sense of why you need to be patient (no pun intended) at times, or step up at other times.
When was the last time YOU had a trip to the ER? Was it a satisfactory experience? Based on this information, can you think of ways it could have been handled better? Why not share your experiences in our Forum!
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