They Do Get Better

As wrong as things feel sometimes as a working medical professional, the patient care seems to plug right along and, in most cases, do what it needs to do to get people better. I'm sometimes amazed at that fact but grateful when it happens. For the most part, people don't get better in the hospital when they stay long periods of time. I'm shocked when they do get better and don't catch something alien like a blah blah resistant blah or something just as bad. Patients do get better in spite of it all.

The most gratifying experience for me is to see someone progress from completely debilitated, totally dependent on medical care professionals for life and function, to walking out of the hospital better when they came. Having just experienced that, I'm elated to know that for the patient, the system often works just fine. And that is the saving grace of working in this often chaotic field. It's stressful, emotionally draining, taxing on the mind body and spirit at times for those that work in it...but in the end, if the patient benefits and walks out with greater healing than if he'd stayed at home, it's very gratifying.

And so was Ms. H. Mind and body totally dependent on us when we first met almost 3 months ago. And then yesterday, hugged me goodbye and thanked me for my little part in the process called medical care. Then I watched intently as she exhibited the improved function we had sought and worked so hard for.

People really do get better after devastating insults to the body. And that hug...the best feeling I've had in a long, long, long time.