When a loved one recently had a scary diagnosis and surgery, we found ourselves on the other side of the stethoscope, so to speak. I took my own advice. (See post: A Bad Diagnosis) We researched, got a second opinion and made the best possible decisions we could at the time. We chose what we believed was the best hospital, and the best surgeon for this particular case. Then we just had to wait to get scheduled.

One of the hardest parts for me, as a health care provider well outside her field of expertise, was relinquishing control and not focusing on minutia. When I found myself, having never performed any kind of surgery, up in the early hours researching the merits of different surgical clamps, I realized I had to let go and the let the surgeon do his thing.

For the most part, I wasn’t in a hurry to reveal my health care background once we were in the hospital. As I frequently say “I’m not that kind of nurse.” Not the kind who executes hospital procedures with ease or can scan an EKG in seconds. Not the kind who can fix a misbehaving infusion machine with the press of a few buttons. Or the kind who can matter-of-factly inflict pain when necessary. (Still don’t like giving injections.)

Basically, I didn’t want to get in anyone’s way, or interfere with the practiced execution of care. Still of course, I was watching. So I noticed that a loosened tourniquet was the reason a nurse couldn’t get any blood out of my husband’s arm.  I wordlessly retied it. Or when I blurted out in recovery that his pulse ox was a little low and got that bemused look from the nurse, before she gave him some supplemental oxygen. It was okay though. I fessed-up and we chatted about NP school.

Once on the floor, I kept careful track of his pain med schedule and asked what was being given if the nurse did not explain. She usually did, though. (No male nurses on the floor when we were there.)  Change of shift, as it was when I was still in nursing school, was a chaotic time, resulting in delays moving from recovery to a room, and also in getting discharged because of something that wasn’t communicated.

An advantage to usually being on the other side of the stethoscope is an understanding of how things work, how busy people are and knowing not to take up their time unnecessarily. My husband does not like to rock the boat and there were a few times I wanted to call the nurse (or have him call her) to remind her we were awaiting a lab result, or pain medication and he stopped me. My “nursey sense” alerted me there was a problem, and in both cases, was spot on.

This experience was revealing in a lot of ways.  I don’t know if nurse practitioners communicate to their patients differently than doctors do, but we resented when we knew results were in and there was still a delay in communicating them. This didn’t happen across the board but it did happen.  I always call my patients ASAP with results I know they are concerned about. Of course, if the news isn’t good, I need to have a plan for next steps formulated. But I don’t delay for days until everything is in place. I feel comfortable saying: we are going to refer you to this type of specialist, I am just awaiting a callback so that we can get you in as soon as we can. In our case, we waited unnecessary, agonizing days for results.

Some good things. Our surgeon was an excellent communicator. He was easy to read and was able to read us as well. And whenever he did stop by, no matter how busy he was, he always found a chair to sit down and talk with us. That face to face time, eye to eye, meant a lot. I will be more conscious of that with my own patients, when I’m on the other side of the stethoscope.