General Trying to educate the medical profession - let alone the public!

[Sweetpea76]

Ug! How do you think a person with combat PTSD got PTSD? Asshats!

I hate the "did you ever kill anybody" question... what do they think war is, a big ole pilllow fight? Shut up and carry on. :mad:

When we're together and somebody asks him that, sometimes I get so pissed off that I'll pipe up and say "He hasn't, but I have... want to add to my body count, Dipshit?"

 

[Sighs]

@Sweetpea76 - I keep telling my vet to lean in and whisper "Not yetttt". :ninja:

Seems to me people fall into two categories - those with morbid curiosity who ask those sorts of questions and stop to gawk at car accidents and those who just don't understand WHY anyone would do those things. I always wonder what they would do with the information if they got honest answers. Like do you really want to hear about someone's rape? Or how their buddy got killed in front of them in combat? Or that time they tried to hold a kid's brain in its skull after a car accident? I mean why would you want those images in your head? :confused:

PS - kids ask those kind of questions not through morbid curiosity but innocent curiosity. LIke asking "Why is that lady so fat?" or "What happened to that man's face?". Its part of our job as adults to teach them sensitivity. Guess I'm still trying to teach people!

 

[Friday]

After all, they are a health professional and I'm just the kid's mother!

So the children’s hospital near me that my son was at...

Gives parents photo ID on bright orange lanyards that read PARENT CAREGIVER.

The ethos is that the parents are as much a part of the treatment team as the docs and nurses. Right up to being included in every meeting, consult, reading, decision, etc. after day 1. (Day 1 = normal hospital type experience, unless you’re there a lot, but if you aren’t discharged within 24hours? Welcome aboard!) I went down to the smoke shack on day 2 all “Why are they asking me for my ideas on what antibiotics to use???” :O_o: And the other parents laughed, and said after a week I’d have a strong opinion on the matter! :roflmao:

They were right.

The hospital feels that parents only have 1 patient, and are with their kids 24/7, so if you educate them as to what’s going on medically, and how to perform basic tasks/read the machines, you’ve got someone who is useful and not just in the way, but even better can be counted on opinion-wise. And they really, reeeeeeeally listen / take you at your word. Whether it’s worded medically because you know exactly what, or “Something just seems off” = the docs drop everything and figure out what.

:inlove: And don’t even get me started on how freaking well educated the entire staff is (from volunteers up). 2 words “sensory issues” and the dynamic immediately shifts. Same is true across the board. Pick a developmental disorder or neurological condition, and wham bam, people do exactly what’s needed, how it’s wanted, shifting gears as smoothly as a sports car. It’s a thing of beauty.

I despair sometimes of ever lessening the stigma and having more understanding of mental health in the general community when we can't even achieve it within the health professions

:sneaky: So there IS hope. It can be done. It has been done.

Now we just need to thump everyone else into line, is all. ;)

 

[Sighs]

Ah @Friday - you give me hope!

My daughter at 13 was old enough to be treated in the adult hospital. Lucky us. The surgeon told me I could stay with her overnight even in ICU. The ICU staff were horrified and told me I had to go home. I told them that there was no way in hell I was leaving, that I would sleep on the floor if I had to and really, did they want to look after an autistic child who had regressed to a non-verbal state due to pain, shock and medication or did they want me to do it? They found me a recliner to "sleep" in. (Its a tie between ICU and the ER for the least relaxing sleep inducing environment in the hospital...)

PS - she is now 20 and although her spine is fused from T2 to T12 participates fully in life, just got back from an overseas trip and is at University studying stuff I don't understand.

 

[Sideways]

With a certain degree of projection because I’m already pretty livid about a few things today...

<Cue rant>
Reasonable medical care should include NOT asking questions where that is the safest way forward in a particular patient’s care.

Preparing a person for sedation includes a series of questions designed to assess medical (including mental health) issues relevant to the procedure being planned. If it comes to light at that point that a patient has ptsd? It is entirely appropriate to make enquiries with the patient to establish if any special care will be required when administering the sedative, or during recovery. Those questions could well include questions about whether there may be issues related to the ptsd that the staff need to be aware of.

However, the basic rule? Is ‘first do no harm’. It is reasonable to expect that a medical professional will NOT trigger anxiety or re-experiencing symptoms that could (very obviously) arise from inconsiderate and entirely unprofessional questions abot the person’s trauma.

In short: if someone comes in with a mental illness, you don’t then start up on the “Oh, yeah, how’d you end up with that?”

The staff member in question needs some urgent training on managing mental illness in their practice. They should be absolutely ashamed of themselves, and if you and your man were shaking with rage at being put through that experience by someone who really ought to know better? That seems entirely reasonable to me.

This is the 21st century. Shame on them. And go you good thing for making such a level-headed complaint. I think in the same position I would have completely lost my nut.

 

[Sighs]

Interestingly, my vet has confirmed that the nursing staff had already sensitively enquired as to whether he was likely to "come up fighting" from the sedation and whether there was anything they should be aware of due to his PTSD. Assuming that old mate doc was given this information on handover he really had no need to go prying about the cause of my vet's PTSD.

 

[Tinyflame]

I think Doctors can be cold and perfunctory and insensitive- the last one I had was so bulleted and angry blasting me with questions I lied in response to all of them- 'no, nope, nope..'., it just came out Then she did a scope and forgot the freezing but I said nothing- just wanted to get out and forgot to even question it, at first. I'm 15 years past when it was recommended I start getting colonoscopies but hearing there's sedation, you need a ride, and God-knows how I'd react or how'd they'd react or what I'd start spewing out, I'm not going.

He is VERY lucky to have you there @Sighs .

 

[Swift]

Hey. I'm so sorry that happened. How insensitive.
Just for a different perspective, my parents are both doctors and they didn't get taught any mental health in 7 years (or 9) of study in the 80s. Mum had one 3 month psych term that was optional. Dad had a behavioural studies course once a week for his first year, that was known by it's acronym, BS.
They didn't ever learn about trauma, or any psych health short of one lecture on schizophrenia. So no autism, no PTSD, very little depression and anxiety.
They'd never heard of dissociation or triggers until I was diagnosed.
These are highly trained, highly skilled people. And they just don't know anything.
So yeah, keep sending letters, keep emailing, keep pulling your doctors up on it. They appreciate it, if they're any good.
Ignorance isn't an excuse by any means, but just wanted to throw that out there.

 

[DharmaGirl]

I was told in my ER that if I could make it through nursing school, I don't have PTSD. This was a new nurse, I know because I worked there. I was in because I was horribly suicidal and my therapist sent me in. She said that they were losing their jobs and I didn't see them acting this way so I needed to "shake it off" and get back to work. Nice, huh? What nursing school did she go to? I guess she came to that conclusion with her vast 6 weeks of experience. Let's be nasty to the mentally ill, then they leave and we don't have to take care of them.

 

[Sideways]

Just for a different perspective, my parents are both doctors and they didn't get taught any mental health in 7 years (or 9) of study in the 80s.

It’s definitely a shortfall of older styles of medical training.

But even then, keeping abreast of professional development, and best practices, one would hope that between the 80s and 2018, doctors trained in that era would have done at least some professional development in mental health.

To me? “I didn’t learn that when I was trained”? Is not an excuse. Dealing with mental health issues has been par for the course long enough that all medical professionals should have reasonable awareness of it by now.

 

[Swift]

Yeah, it's not an excuse at all. That wasn't what I was trying to say. I guess my point was that training is/was woefully inadequate and should be better.
They're obliged to do a certain amount of training each year to stay licensed - I think some of that should be mandatory mental health and some should be mandatory social education (marginalized communities, LGBTIQ*, autism, people with disabilities etc).

 

[Sighs]

The doctor had the guts to telephone and personally apologise. He said that he was trying to build rapport and "destigmatise and normalise" PTSD. My vet handled it really well. He said "I appreciate the apology and I understand where you are coming from but can you understand how those questions could be unsettling for me? You started me thinking about things I don't ever want to think about at a time when I was about to be sedated." The doctor seemed to take that on board. I sent a follow up email thanking the DoN and saying that I hoped the doctor would change his practice.