Health Care Interview
There are many components to a hospital or medical facility. All of them are necessary to have a properly functioning environment. The emergency department of a hospital is a fast paced world. You have to be constantly on your toes and prepared for whatever may come through the doors. There are many people that work in an emergency room to make it run smoothly. Techs, nurses, CNA’s, LVN’s, and doctors all work side by side to help those who are critically injured. Without all these people it would be complete chaos.
Triage is usually the first step of the emergency room and helps determine severity of each patient. Once through triage, the patient is either sent to a different area of emergency or another part of the hospital. The emergency department is usually broken down into different parts as well. Typically, there is a trauma area, an area for those less urgent, resuscitation areas, and even a psychiatric area. Trauma is reserved for those with life threatening injuries or illness and is always stocked with the equipment needed for these cases.
Resuscitation areas are for those who come in unconscious or DOA (dead on arrival). These rooms are equipped with all the equipment necessary to try and save someone’s life. There are many things done in an emergency department. Vitals are the usually the first thing when a patient comes into the emergency room. An injury or illness may not be immediately visible; vitals are an easy way to see if anything is out of the ordinary right off the bat. When injury is more apparent, like a broken bone, x-rays can be done right in the emergency room. EKG’s are often performed on those complaining of chest pain.
The emergency room also does the simple stuff like suturing wounds or doing ultrasounds. As you can see there is not much the emergency room cannot do. It is the center of the hospital. My interviewee specifically works in the emergency department of Valley Children’s Hospital. Although the primary patients are children eighteen years of age and younger, they will accept all patients until stabilized and able to be transported to the correct hospital. A children’s hospital is a type of specialty hospital. There are many other types of specialty hospitals, but this type specifically caters to children.
The emergency at this hospital sees many different types of injuries and illness. Although, this hospital is well known for seeing the sickest children from Bakersfield to Sacramento, they care for kids with rare cancers and other life threatening illnesses. I chose to interview Jeff Gonzales who is a technician in the emergency room. Upon starting the interview, I quickly got the feeling that the technicians do a lot more than I would have thought. The technicians are usually the first person the patient deals with. They start the initial work up and take the vitals.
After the nurses and doctors have decided on a proper course of treatment, the technicians often help with the procedures or getting the patient to the correct area of the hospital. The technicians may also draw blood for cultures or even splint a patient. “We are kind of all over the place, go where I am needed and help where I can,” explains Jeff. Like any good profession these days, there is some education that is required to attain a position like this. Jeff went to school for phlebotomy and was originally planning on being a fire fighter.
After gaining the emergency training from the fire academy, Jeff was unfortunately injured and could no longer go after that career. However, his emergency training comes in handy for the emergency room, he states, “you have to be prepared for anything, having the EMT training helps me when things get hectic. ” As for additional training, the only thing that needs to be kept to date is his phlebotomy license. All other training is provided by the hospital and is typically done on an annual basis. Working in an environment with so many different people could cause problems.
You have to learn to trust your coworkers and work together to the best of your ability. Letting management know about any problems right away helps a lot because the issues can get addressed immediately. “Like any job, there may be that one person you do not get along with, but as long as you do your best to just do your job and avoid drama, you will be okay,” he says. Taking care of the patients is always the number one priority in hospitals. Jeff informed me that the best way to make it through the day is to be compassionate and have patience. Dealing with children can be hard, especially to those who have children of their own. When we lose a patient, it is hard not to take it personally,” he says. That is where the compassion comes in. Losing anyone is not a happy time, but dealing with children, it is difficult to not get attached. Being patient is important because you are dealing with kids. “Sometimes the children do not understand what we are asking or why we are poking them, so being patient is very important,” says Jeff. Although there are many changes starting to roll out in health care, Jeff informed me that he has not personally experienced any of them so far.
He explained that most of the changes occurring in his place of employment were in upper positions. He did mention that he thinks that technology has come a long way in the medical field and is heading the right direction. Electronic medical records have made every aspect of patient care easier and improved communication between doctors. Also, the advances in surgery have also made things in the emergency room easier. With lasers and other computer controlled surgeries, the turnaround for recovery is much lower and often times an overnight stay is not even necessary.
After taking a deeper look into this department of a hospital it is easy to understand why it is so important. Without an emergency department, trauma and critically ill patients would have nowhere to go. With so many people in on place it is hard to keep things organized. All the parts of the department must function like a well-oiled machine to keep up with the chaos that occurs in emergency rooms. The teams of medical professionals have big responsibilities to their patients, especially the children.
