The Death of the Individual (post surgical day 5)

I wish I felt well enough to try and do this justice.

Our country is eschewing personal for corporate responsibility. This is not news. It is, however, tragic.

Medicine, once populated by rugged individualistic types who both made tough decisions, performed difficult procedures under pressure, and took the consequences of failure, is now being populated by 'teams'.

Example: After my surgery I felt like shit, and that may sound silly to say, but YOU SHOULD NOT feel like shit right after. In fact, right after is usually the honeymoon period when the local anesthetic is still cooking, the general has just come off, and you are getting some pretty good drugs.

Well I felt so shitty I asked them, 'what did you give me?' and the answer was 'droperidol for nausea and .....'

Droperidol is great for nausea, but it makes you feel like SHIT. It's essentailly a short acting Haldol and we used to give it like candy in residency to get people to STFU and quit spitting on us and it worked great. Then it got black-boxed by the FDA for, supposedly, it's potential to generate dangerous heart rhythms.

So I wake up and feel like shit and simply want to go to sleep. I try, but I keep waking up choking. I paged the nurse and she came in and I pointed out to her that not only was my pulse oximeter not connected, that I was not on a monitor either and didn't I get droperidol in the OR?

Her answer?? "Sir, I am a CHARGE NURSE. The care team comes by to check vitals every four to eight hourse."

Glad they didn't find me cold and blue. She didn't even process my question, she just answered with the 'it's not my job' answer. It's the care team... the care team will take care of it. SHIT.