Moving Cubicles
By the end of today, I was so annoyed with things in general that the sound of someone walking up the stairs at the Rec Center was enough to drive me bonkers. Clomp clomp clomp. ARRRRGGGHHHH! It all started this afternoon.
Things started going poorly when I called Dr. Klein over. Well wait, I guess it all started last month, when I was in admissions clinic with a schizophrenic patient. She was well-controlled (said she didn’t hear voices anymore, which was more blunt than I had expected), but the side effect of well-controlled schizophrenia tends to be… reduced faculties. Like, the person is there, but they aren’t there. It’s difficult for patients to think through the drugs.
So. Dr. Meyer loves to ask patients about their med history… A1C if they have diabetes, INR if they’re on blood thinners, their blood sugar that morning, etc. I tend to not ask for these specifics because (a) patients just make up what they think you want to hear and (b) they get things wrong. So, anyhow, it’s a few months ago and Dr. Meyer asks my schizophrenic patient about her medication.
“How are you antipsychotic drugs working?”
“Oh, fine. They worked and I stopped taking them.”
The patient was clearly STILL ON her medication. This was verified by the patient’s chaperone from her managed care facility. I tried to communicate to Dr. Meyer with a significant look that let’s not ask her more questions and WHY DO WE ALWAYS DO THIS.
Fast forward to today. Patient is back, and I’ve just spent a half hour in the chair checking and re-checking findings in the patient’s mouth. Dr Klein comes over:
“What are you doing today?”
“Treatment planning appointment; there’s just a few…”
“Where’s your group?”
“In IFC.”
“You should go work with them.”
“But I was scheduled here in this cubicle—”
“You should go work with them.”
“So I should… move this appointment?”
“Move everything to IFC.”
“I… ok.”
The appointment had already started late. Now, I had just been told, in the middle of it, to pick up everything, all the sterilized instruments, radiographs, the whole set up and move to ANOTHER FLOOR?! For absolutely no good reason. For no. Good. Reason.
Down in IFC there weren’t any chairs free, so I had to grab an old cubicle with one of the original dental school chairs in it. From the 1970s. Yay. I rushed, got everything set up, and grabbed an extra chair, because my patient was with her adult chaperone from her managed care facility. By the time I got them back to the cubicle, the chair I had grabbed was gone. I went over and got another chair, sat everyone down, and left to let Dr. Larson know I was ready to see him. By the time I got back, my chair was gone. AIIEIIIEEEE.
Dr. Larson saved my afternoon. He walked me through managing dry mouth in medicated patients and generally was awesome.
But somebody better explain the floor moving in the middle of an appointment thing.
Comments
Dan McKeown +2
I wanted to draw your attention to a passage from the post above:
“AIIEIIIEEEE.”
It would seem that this outburst would demand an exclaimation point as anything in all caps tends to denote yelling. Yet Alex chose to end with a period. What at first seemed like a childish, high-pitched outburst suddenly seems much more subdued and…frightening.
God help Dr. Klein.
Alexander Micek
Dan, I appreciate your attention to the smaller parts of the story. I have to tell you, it’s downright surreal there somedays.