Latest / HAVE FAITH LET IT BEGIN® / S7 Ep: 1927 Navigating the Broken ER System: A Personal Experience

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S7 Ep: 1927 Navigating the Broken ER System: A Personal Experience · HAVE FAITH LET IT BEGIN®

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  Music.
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  Faith, let it begin. Podcast of inspiration.
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  It's a podcast of hope. It's a podcast of faith, and it's a podcast of friendship.
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  Here is your host, Angel Santana, and special co-host, Dr. E.
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  We're a three-part last time. That's it, man. Let's rock and roll in three, two, one.
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  Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Monday edition of Have Faith, Let It Begin.
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  Angel Santana, Dr. E is next to me. Dr. E, how was your weekend?
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  Angel, I had a very beautiful and balanced weekend. I did a little bit of outdoor walking.
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  I did a little bit of hanging out at the house, puttering. I did a little work in the office.
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  We did a podcast. I mean, a lot of productive stuff, my brother.
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  I understand your weekend was probably not as good as mine.
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  Nope. So here's the way it goes.
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  How do we start? So Friday night, and my father had some health issues.
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  He's fine, by the way, just to get that out of the way. But Friday night, he was not doing well.
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  We decided to take him to a, we'll just say a local ER. I don't want to get anybody in trouble.
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  But we went to a local ER. And when we got there, blood pressure was extremely high.
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  And we got there at 530. He did not get seen till 9 o'clock.
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  At nine o'clock. They strapped them on with some stuff, gave them an x-ray,
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  get the EKG and no results came back for another two hours. They did blood work.
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  I'm staying at home because they're so busy. You can't have more than two visitors.
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  I go to sleep because that's what I'm supposed to do. Get phone call at 11, still nothing.
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  I get up and say, I'm going to the ER. I go to the ER.
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  They're doing more blood work. They tell us the first blood work was quote unquote
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  inconclusive, which means they lost it and they gave them more blood work.
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  At that point in time, a critical patient came in. They needed more space.
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  They kicked me out of the ER nicely.
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  And then six, seven minutes later, they discharged my dad.
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  I mean, talk about and without any information, just, Hey, blood works good.
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  This is good. You're going to leave now.
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  We need the room. What is that?
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  You know, I mean, listen, I know I'd like, I, you know, Well,
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  I have to tell you, Angel, first of all, I am very sorry that you had a negative
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  experience because I have to tell you, you know, there's definitely a broken
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  system in our emergency departments across the United States.
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  And I will tell you one of the problems, and I was talking to an emergency room
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  doctor not too long ago, and I would say, you know, we have a patient,
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  you know, who has a medical issue. And.
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  Here's where I think the crux of it is, Angel, is that I don't think that the
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  community doctors are taking care of their patients.
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  So I'm going to give you an example. I know that's a very drastic statement,
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  and I do want to back it up.
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  And I'm not trying to say that our primary care doctors are bad or they're lazy
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  or not dedicated or devoted.
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  But I think there is a change just basically in the model of medicine.
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  Now, if you were a person who went to medical school and became a generalist,
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  so an internist or primary care or general practitioner or pediatrician or whatever,
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  and you had your patient and your patient got sick,
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  they would call you in the middle of the night and they would say, doc,
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  I have some chest pain or doc, I feel busy or doc, I fainted and I'm on the floor and I cut my head.
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  And the way it would work is the doctors would go,
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  you would either go to their office in the middle of the night,
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  they would go to your house, or, you know, they would meet you in the emergency
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  room and they would do the work,
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  they would evaluate you, they would order the testing, and you would be sitting
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  there in a cubicle with your doctor.
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  So somebody you're comfortable with, maybe a doctor that even, you know,
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  delivered you or a doctor that has been taking care of you since you were a
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  little squirt and now you're 20 or 30 or 40 or however old you are and you felt
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  comfortable, you felt loved.
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  And even if you were waiting in the emergency room for eight hours, you know,
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  you knew that Doc Smith was going to be there eventually and get to you or Doc
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  Smith was going to stop at the house or Doc Smith was going to meet you in the
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  office and open up the door to the office and put on a pot of coffee and you
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  guys were going to get taken care of.
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  The problem is, is that that model doesn't exist anymore. So.
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  When I see a patient that has medical complaints that possibly could be serious,
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  now the potential of the seriousness is not 100%, 90%, 80%, but if somebody
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  comes to see me, they're getting their radiation treatments,
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  they feel faint, they feel busy.
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  We do their blood pressure, everything is okay, but we just don't kind of like
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  the fact that what if we send them home and they're going to have a heart attack?
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  What if we send them home and they're going to have a stroke?
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  So we call the oncologist and oncologist 99 to 100% will say,
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  send them to the emergency room, send them to the emergency room.
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  Oh, my patient's got pain in his arm. My patient has a swollen leg.
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  My patient has a fever. My patient has this.
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  My patient has a bloody nose. My patient has this. My patient has this.
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  Blurry vision, headache. Oh, it could be brain meds. Could be this, could be that.
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  Send them to the emergency room. The emergency room now is basically the spot,
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  the landing spot that everybody who has big symptoms, potentially big problems will go.
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  And we just cannot absorb the volume of people that come through.
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  So these emergency room doctors are very skilled. And what they have to do is
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  something that I'm not good at and I could never do in a million years.
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  They are trained to see if a patient is appropriate.
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  For a hospital admission. So that problem, the potential heart attack,
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  the potential stroke, the potential tumor, the potential this,
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  the potential that, as long as that patient gets through the testing.
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  So dad's case, it was blood pressure checks, initiation of medication,
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  whatever, you know, some blood testing or whatever.
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  Once they determined that, you know, your dad was out of harm's way and most
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  likely that the data would support that it would be safe to let him go home
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  and he shouldn't just drop dead.
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  He should be okay to go to his primary care and get his testing.
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  That's what they have to determine. And unfortunately, because of the volume
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  and the magnitude of the amount of people and what's on their shoulders,
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  they're not able to comfort a patient.
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  They're not able to, you know, make it into a positive experience for the most part.
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  Now, of course, there are emergency room visits that are great,
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  I'm sure, with very warm and fuzzy outcomes.
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  But your story, your dissatisfaction, rightfully so, is more of the norm than it is the ab norm.
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  And I think what we need to do on Have Faith, Let It Begin is maybe do a series
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  of podcasts about giving you guys some advice on how to actually utilize your
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  emergency room or your urgent care.
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  So maybe you could avoid the bad experience that Angel and his dad had.
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  Angel, I rambled on and I apologize. I hope I gave you some info.
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  No, and that's why you're here. You know, we needed your expertise on that.
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  And I think it's very helpful.
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  It's not always about, you know, angel hosting the show. It's getting the right
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  information out to the public.
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  And I'm encouraging the Have Faith, Let It Begin family, as we close out,
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  to reach out to us if you have questions for Dr.
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  E, you know, that he can answer. And if he can, he will.
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  If you have a story, an ER story or an urgent care story or something to that
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  nature that you want to share, give it to us. We'll love to talk about it and
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  then we'll utilize it for future episodes.
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  We'd like to remind each and every one of you, the Croc podcast.
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  Citizens Reunited to Overcome Cancer is available now every two weeks.
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  There's a brand new episode that just dropped yesterday.
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  Don't worry if you just missed it, you get to listen to it again next week.
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  And then a brand new episode will come on the following week.
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  So Dr. E is on top of it. He's on every Sunday at 9 a.m.
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  I'm with him and you are with us every weekday at 730 Eastern time. and with Dr.
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  Ian, especially on Mondays. Let us come together and pray for all these brave
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  men and women who are nurses, doctors, technicians,
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  and specialty people out there that are doing their part to try and overcome
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  the amount of patients that are coming in and doing their part to get them in
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  and out in a safe and respectful manner. Heavenly Father, we thank you.
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  We're having people that have taken in this commitment to help save lives.
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  We thank you for the heroes that have helped those during the hardest times
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  of our lives, during the pandemic, during what is considering to be now this
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  flu epidemic, this nasty weather we're having.
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  We pray, Lord, that babies and children and nurses and doctors can be healed
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  and saved and given rest.
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  Noah is tired. Noah wants some breakfast. I'm going to close it out by saying
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  this May God be with you May he shine his light upon you And grant each and
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  every single one of you Peace on earth On behalf of Dr.
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  E and I We say thank you And never forget,
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  Faith let it begin Noah Go get some pancakes Later guys Thank you for listening
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  to Have Faith Let It Begin We'll be back tomorrow Thank you for listening to
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  another episode of Have Faith Let It Begin,
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  That's right Ariel We're done with another show and it's always great to have
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  this show with you, my love.
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  You know, we're going to encourage each and every person to listen to our show every single weekday.
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  That's right. You and I are going to help change the world. Do you think that you can do that for me?
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  Huh? Yeah, you know you can.
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  She does. We want to let you know and yes, we encourage you to listen to our
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  show each and every weekday. And it's going to be live at 730.
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  Make sure you're subscribed to our show. Make sure you get ready.
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  Fasten those seatbelts. because Ariel and I and my family are going to bring
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  you a new topic, a new story, each and every day.
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  Right? Isn't that right, Ariel? Yeah.
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  And we... She's smiling at me. Guys, enjoy your day.
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  Thank you for listening to Have Faithful Begin. We'll be back tomorrow.
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  Music.