BLOG: Small, unexpected kindness goes a long way
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
I was rounding during lunch break today in the hospital, and page No.7 for the day was for a new diabetes consult sent by the hospital unit clerk. I was in the middle of reviewing the cases on the endocrine census list on EPIC, our electronic health records.
The text was so courteous and so professionally written.
Incidentally, this week has been remarkable for challenging diabetes cases, including issues with diabetic ketoacidosis and insulin pumps. Just the other day, we were consulted about a patient with severe hypercalcemia whom I went to see in the ED the night before.
The prior six pages were typically brief texts. We are living in such a rushed world. We multitask, and we do everything with shortcuts and brief communications — along with plenty of abbreviations, such as “OMG” and “LOL” and emoji on social media.
When I read page No.7, it gave me immediate comfort in the midst of a busy call day. The text-page came in four screens. I selected these two screens shown here (Figure), where I covered the name of the hospital unit clerk.
The page-text message read:
“Room ICU-4
Re: New onset DM, presenting with DKA
Phone: HUC (name) or RN (name)
Will add to your census.
Thanks for all you do! HUC (name initials)”
Indeed, kindness goes a long way.
The hospital unit clerk went the extra mile and wrote the page-text message from his or her heart. Sure enough, the message went a long way at the receiving end.
As I wrote in prior posts since the COVID-19 pandemic, I have been touched by how society has been supporting and applauding doctors and other health care professionals and workers who are on the frontlines of the fight against this pandemic. As I wrote in “A Somber Doctors’ Day,” during the peak of the pandemic in Michigan: “This is the first time in my lifetime that we have witnessed how people around the world are valuing the role of health care professionals. Perhaps none of us were alive to witness what it was like during the 1918 flu pandemic. There have been some regional epidemics or global pandemics since then, but none has been as close to the magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a doctor, it warms my heart to see how people are saluting doctors, health care professionals and workers.”
Collapse