From a physician to an anxious parent to a humbled person

It was 1:00 am in the night, when my wife woke me up saying that our tiny tot (who is six month old) is shivering and having a high fever. We immediately packed him in all his beddings and rushed to pediatric ward of my hospital. Surprisingly, on that night, there was less hassle and chaos in the ward. I requested one of the senior post-graduate students to assess my baby. Wasting no time, she immediately started assessing all the parameters and told us that the baby was having 102⁰ F of temperature. Meanwhile, the baby again started shivering with rigors and had two bouts of vomiting. Keeping in mind the whole clinical scenario, the pediatrician advised to get the baby admitted under intensive care.

 We obliged and I rushed to the admission counter to get all the admission formalities done, while my wife stayed back. The baby was put on antipyretic drugs and injectable antibiotics (which I thought was unnecessary). Few blood samples were drawn to know the cause of fever (which ultimately was non-contributory except raised leucocytic count). Around 3 a.m.  in the morning, both mother and child went for a peaceful sleep. Somewhat relaxed and less anxious, I started taking stock of other patients admitted under ICU care. Ours being a rural medical college, most of the patients hailed from villages of central India. The situation was disturbing, the usual laughter and infectious smile of babies which enlightens the atmosphere was totally missing. It was replaced by shrill cries, few moans and groans which were intermittently breaking the silence of relatively peaceful ICU. Laughter, smiles and babbling, the usual signs of a healthy baby was over powered by intermittent beeps and alarms of various monitoring systems kept in the ICU. One of the child had various tubes and catheters placed in all the possible orifices of the body and he seemed to be in lot of pain. At other end of the ICU, few under-weight babies were admitted for supportive care; one of the babies was grossly underweight at 1.34 kg and looked listless. Amidst all these happenings, the post-graduate students were regularly monitoring the vital parameters of the critical patients. Somehow, I started comparing the plight of myself as a parent and the parents of other critically ill babies. At one end, I being a doctor (knowing all the science behind illness and diseases) was well placed financially and socially with a good family support. On the other extreme were clueless parents caring for their admitted babies with all the worries haunting them (financial crunch, rain-washed crops, loss of wages, kids back home, and flooded homes). Every day, I see hoards of patients thronging the hospital wards and OPD section accompanied by their kin. Seldom, we doctors are concerned about the anxiety or worries of the patients which are subconsciously occupying their debt burden minds except giving few heavy sighs on reading some article (farmer suicide, rain washed crops, poor rain, dry and wet drought) in the print media. We doctors in government or semi-government setup readily gets miffed at the patients when there is a delay in follow-up or the patients has missed few pills in total disregard to his economic backing. It is a fact that the financial and societal strata of the patient are predominant decisive factor either in treatment adherence or regular clinic visits. It seems the white apron donned by physicians makes him impermeable to all the agonies of the patients and their kin.

Keeping in mind the high rate of hospital acquired infections, we both considered it wise to obtain discharge on request during morning rounds. I left the ICU with a healthy baby and quite relieved. This culminated my short journey from a physician via anxious parent ending with a humbled heart.