The main thing that jumped out to me in this piece, and probably the main topic of discussion is communication. The communication of the health care provider, both spoken and unspoken, seemed to be lackluster and unconsoling. Most of the time, it left this already frantic mother, even more anxious about her child. From the “you don’t know until it is in the bucket”, to the inexperienced medical student, to the doctor who wanted her to sign his book, it all felt unreal. The facade of healthcare ripped off in a moment, the professionalism swept away.
The professionalism in this piece also was shown to have a common structure. “Valerie is a saint, but her voice is the standard hospital saint voice: an infuriating, pharmaceutical calm.” Just like in any situation, a pre-scripted, fake response can easily be seen through. People in pain often want the actual human interaction that is unknown to the conscious watch of our ego. The second we give a sympathetic look or an ideal that nothing is abnormal, is the time we go beyond human and become a robot. The biggest struggle I believe for a healthcare worker, is not to become a modeled version of who you should be. Healthcare workers should go with tools they knew were important before all the anatomy classes and empathy tests with paid actors. Do not let what you should be outshine what you know you are.
You are onto something so big in this piece. I think that the language used throughout this piece by the health care staff in particular was very “odd” for a lack of better terms. You talked about the nurse and her “infuriating, pharmaceutical calm.” I think that healthcare professionals think that calm is the best approach because it relays a sense of calmness to a case of chaos and disaster, but does this calmness make these healthcare professionals sound as if they don’t care?
I would argue that this calmness makes it seem as though they are required to care, making healthcare become in-genuine in the eyes of patients.