Reader's Great Response to the Dystopian Hospital Code of Conduct for Patients
"You don't need a written code of conduct. Just be a real, living, breathing person who is trying to help another person get through a potentially unpleasant experience."
This story is a reader’s response to my recent article about the dystopian patients’ code of conduct in MA. I was so touched by it that I am publishing it with his permission. It was written by Andy Rivett, a nuclear medicine technologist from Niagara. Here it is:
Hi Tessa,
It amazes me to read that the new standards make it incumbent upon the patient to behave in a prescribed way. A big part of managing patients is knowing that they are arriving for procedures or admission to a hospital and it isn't necessarily a happy time for them. Some patients are sick, nervous, frustrated and angry and they show it. That is to be expected and I consider it a part of my job to make their experience OK, if not the thing they really want to do.
The codified standards are a new thing. I'm old (67) and just before I retired from the hospital I had a patient (another old guy even older than me) compliment my co-worker by saying, "Oh, you are beautiful"..…
