Many patients have seen their long-term physicians retire. When I ask how they like their new doctors, they say: “She’s okay, I guess. Quite efficient. Seems thorough. But it’s not the same. It’s just business. Nothing personal.”
Dr. Alan Rockoff
Sometimes you have to look backward to look forward. So it’s perhaps fitting that I glimpsed the future at my last colonoscopy.
In recent years, I’ve had such procedures at a local suburban surgicenter. Easy access, plenty of parking.
The woman who checks me in is all business. She scans my insurance cards and hands me a clipboard with a medical history form. Have I ever had cancer? A hernia? Am I pregnant? I wonder whether anyone reads these.
A different young woman brings me inside, the first of many new faces. Their roles are murky.
In a curtained cubby, yet another staff person asks me to pack my clothes in a plastic bag and put on a johnny. Then an older man enters, initiating furious multitasking. A different nursing assistant asks me to confirm my name and date of birth, then inserts an intravenous line in one arm, while the old doctor hands me an anesthesia consent form to sign with the other hand. I check many answers very fast, ignore the small-print boilerplate, and sign.
I am handed two more consent forms to sign, one from each side. The staff makes no pretense of explaining them or even telling me what they are for, and I make none of reading them.
They depart, replaced by still another person, who rolls me into the next room. He confirms my name and date of birth, and which procedure I am there for. The purpose of these multiple checks is clear, along with dispiriting depersonalization. One could mitigate this with some light banter, but no one bothers. No time.
My physician – whom I actually know – enters, says hello, and exchanges pleasantries. The last guy asks me to turn onto my left side. Intravenous sedation flows into my veins. The rest is silence.
Sometime later I wake up, greeted by another staff person. She asks if I am okay and offers me water or juice and saltines. Noting her Boston Red Sox sweatshirt, I say, “Great game last night,” but she does not know what I am talking about. She cares only for football and plans to fly to Nashville, Tenn., to watch her favorites.
Curtains are closed, and I am asked to dress. Another assistant directs me to a chair, where I will await my ride home. Through I try to walk alone, she takes my arm. “We assist everyone,” she explains.
As the sedation wears off, I observe. All around me I see movement, brisk and purposeful. Staff members crisscross before me from all angles, striding from one task to another, from prep room A to cubby D, walking with or pushing patients from procedure room M to holding area 8H. No one I’ve just met recognizes me, or acknowledges having met me before.
At last, the final staff member approaches. She flashes a kind smile as she takes my arm to walk me to the door. I take this for a personal touch, until she explains that she must make sure I don’t fall and that I get into the right car. As we pass, no one in the waiting room, neither staff nor patients, takes any notice.
My wife is outside, idling in the correct car. She’s brought coffee and a chocolate croissant, which – almost – makes last night’s prep worthwhile. She confirms neither my name nor date of birth.
Altogether, I have been in and out in 90 minutes. In the car, I peruse the handout that had been given to me as I exited. Drinking my coffee, I read the postcare instructions and enjoy its full-color pictures. Seldom has my cecum looked more radiant.
In “The Checklist Manifesto,” Atul Gawande described the outcome improvement that systematized practice can achieve. Data analysis confirms the measurably superior efficacy of such a method.
As for me, I feel like output from one of today’s cataract factories: like a car just extruded from an automated wash, with a photo on its front seat of the shiny, Simonized hubcaps included with the premium service package.
Just business, though. Nothing personal.
Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years. His second book, “Act Like a Doctor, Think Like a Patient,” is available at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com. Write to him at dermnews@mdedge.com.