HOSPITAL TO PATIENT COMMUNICATION . . . when it breaks down

When my father was dying, I went to visit him in the hospital.  The night I got there, he wasn't in his room. When a patient is very ill, an empty bed at night is a frightening signal to a family member.  I couldn't find anyone who knew where he had gone.  For one of the rare times in my life, I sat down on the stairs and cried.

Today I'm going to an appointment with my primary doctor.  Afterward I want to go immediately to the hospital for a patient education lunch and lecture.  I've been looking forward to it; I don't want to miss any more of it than I have to.  There's a time factor here.

But I don't know how to get to the room in the main hospital.  I've always been in another building for the surgery center and the breast center.  I emailed the coordinating nurse; she emailed back to go to the main entrance and people there would guide me.

But where is the main entrance to the main hospital?  

My daughter has lived here for ages, but never needed the main entrance.  We drove over there last night.   There was one  pretty entrance with a luxury-hotel fanlight over the door.  A sign saying Maternity pointed toward it, but when we pulled up, a man in a wheelchair was being helped out.  Is that the main entrance?  It just says Pinecroft Lobby.  

My daughter said, tomorrow, the little shuttle will pick you up.  (I've seen the shuttle, and speed is not their thing.)  We went home.   

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

When we work somewhere, we know where the main entrance is. Or what we call the main entrance. On a store, it's evident.   What we call the back door may be on the side, but we still call it the back door when we talk to new customers or clients.  

In the past, there was no mistaking the main entrance to a hospital. Architecture made it obvious.  Now, we depend on signs for departments we don't need, signs that keep us from watching our driving among frantic, frightened people.  The sign I need would say Main Entrance.

We as patients have become inured to wandering around in hospitals hoping to find someone who can tell us where to find the waiting room for the colonoscopy or where to find Dad's room.  The red line on the floor leads to what is now an empty department. Yet hospitals are paying a fortune for signage.  Or is our insurance paying for it?  

Yes, today is just a lunch and a lecture.  No big deal.  But for the patient in the car behind me, how to get in may be a very big deal.

Am I wrong to think that telling the patient very clearly how to get where he needs to be is a sign of caring?    

On the other hand, how does the hospital know we're not happy if we don't say so?  This is what my patient voice is for.  

TAMOXIFEN - Life Without Soy - is Starbucks stepping up to the plate?

Monday:
Starbucks has sent me another no-fault reply.  They advised me not to eat anything there that didn't offer the product/nutrition information I need.

Formatting concerns kept me from posting that exact boilerplate reply.

After meeting with my tutoring client, I went to HEB market.  I asked one of the seafood counter persons about my favorite crab cake's contents.  He told me that the crab mix comes with a flour binder from Japan.  So I have no way of knowing if their binder contains soy.  (I've read in one of the soy-free product websites that some flour does have soy.)  The counter man waved his hand over all their crab cakes and advised me not to eat them.  I politely thanked him and went home a little grumpy.  But of course, I haven't given up on our market.

Tuesday:
Then last night I discovered that someone at Starbucks has taken my not particularly loving and patient suggestions. (Actually I had sort of threatened by email to call Panera about possible soy-free offerings.)

She wrote that she advised the "appropriate" teams, or words to that effect, about the request for something soy free.  We'll see what happens.  I suspect it will take a long time for this request to go through corporate board meetings and then slowly filter down to the guy who buys the flour, then slowly wind its way thru the test kitchens to the communications department so the web designer can slowly change all the printed info about what's in the food.  Or do they outsource all their baking?  I've never peaked into the kitchen.

Oh, did I forget to mention the endless palaver with corporate legal, who will be so sure I'll get sick and sue them even if the new product has no soy?

I have not given up Starbucks.  Many of us sit there with homework and some decaf.  I try to leave a good enough tip to make up for it.

Even if Starbucks finds that they already have something that can be labeled Soy Free, the whole process will probably take just as long before they assure me that I can safely eat the Banana/pumpkin Fluffy Scone or whatever.

This is what using my patient voice is for.  And don't you think it takes more time than it should?  I still don't have any figures on how many women take Tamoxifen.  But you can bet many, perhaps more than half of us, had been having a snack at Starbucks.  Until we took that first pill.

Your comments on what you do with your patient voice are always welcome here.

Be well.