As I mentioned in the last post, I underwent the planning session for the 5 upcoming SBRT sessions which will begin next week. I had urethral pain that evening and quickly resolving discomfort the next two days. But I was still quite disconcerted about what I perceived as a lack of attention to my concerns as expressed in the email I'd spent a good deal of time writing. So I decided to express my thoughts about what I perceived as a lack of attention to my anxieties to the Nurse Navigator as well as Department Head.
The Nurse Navigator was out Monday, so the first communication I received was from the Department Head. To his credit, he said, " It was very clear about your concerns—which, if we had all read it closely, should have been our concerns as well. You did fine job of communicating, we don’t seem to be listening very well." This was followed by contacts from the RadOnc in charge, one of the Rad Therapists that worked on me as well as the Nurse Navigator. I'll sum it up with I think my concerns have finally been heard.
What I learned from this experience is that if you have a past sexual trauma in your life that might cause you excess anxiety/fear, tell your new physician upfront, in blunt terms so (hopefully) they can treat you with a little extra care and instruct staff to do so as well.
What I hope the staff learned is that EVERY patient should be treated with the utmost respect and concern for privacy as IF they might have a traumatic episode in their past, as IF they might feel vulnerable.........as if one in every ten of their male patients has been raped at some point in his life. Medical staff who have years of experience, as the ones treating me do, are the folks you want doing invasive things with your body. But with years of doing the same job, sometimes humans can forget the little things that might make a HUGE difference in patient experience.
Maybe we all learned from the experience and the next patient's experience will be better.
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