There is a line between sickness and health where we stop treating the person like a person, “hi it’s Dr. Reid here, nice to meet you,” and start treating them like a situation or a procedure “hand me that suction, this is a tough one.”
When I was a rookie, this line was way out here towards health. To the the point where the patient might say, “I can hear you. I’m right here.”
With time, I’ve moved the line out to death. Then I heard a bunch of pathologist on #medtwitter talk about how using good manners around the dead is necessary to maintain their humanity. So I’m trying to get rid of the line altogether.
The result is to always treat the person—asleep, awake, confused, intoxicated, intubated, comatose, dead—as though they are alert and can hear every word.
@jkwillettmd
@jkwillettmd
