Getting to know the British NHS (National Health System) has been intriguing. We start late, take coffee breaks during rounds and prioritize. Ward rounds can take a back seat to more pressing issues. We are not lacking in patients or work. Over the last week we admitted more than 40 new patients to our firm. We start seeing patients each day at 8.00 (vs 6 back home) so, ward rounds can often linger late into the morning.
On Friday our firm gave grand rounds so we started ward rounds a little late. At 9.30 we mosied up to the floors to start. Intermittently the consultant (equivalent of an attending), Mr. Maynard, would split off to check a computer on the floor. He wasn't interested in lab results, radiological studies, or email...he was checking the score of the England versus Australia cricket match. Come 10.30, even though we still had four patients to see, Mr. Maynard was done. It was much more important to enlighten me about the nuances of cricket and its many points of superiority over American baseball. The entire team (Mr. Maynard, the house officer (intern), three medical students and myself) promptly left the wards to watch the match in the Doctor's Mess.
By the time the last few bowls were left for the English, it was a four point game. More and more teams poured in to watch. By the end, there were at least 30 people crowded around the tele cheering and commentating. Having lost every game in Australia last month at the 5 day cricket Test Match, the mere promise of a victory kept the room hopping. With three bowls left, the English won! The room errupted and then reluctantly drained back to work.
Back home, the World Series or the Superbowl wouldn't be enough to stop rounds!
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1 comment:
You are talking just like a true Brit! How different the atention given to patients is compared to home. Keep up the blogs, I can hear your voice, a few chuckles here and there and some astonishment. Love, Mom
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