One of my new goals is to learn everything about core body temperature in the ICU. Why it’s taken, how it’s measured, when it’s used. What information it gives a clinician and how they can use that information to drive clinical interventions. It goes without saying that I’ll be spending some pretty significant time in the hospital over the next several months.
Five years ago this June, I worked in a hospital. Grady Hospital, specifically, in the trauma center. Grady is one of those classic inner-city hospitals you hear about. It’s the largest trauma center in the Southeast, and the only Level I trauma facility within 100 miles of Atlanta. My first day, we intubated a woman shot in the mouth during a work scuffle (she lived). My last day, we watched a chief resident attempt a full thoracotomy on the way to the elevator for a man who had been shot in the chest with an AK-47 (he died).
I was technically a Research Associate. We were supposed to be running four studies for PIs at Emory – interviewing patients, coordinating with pharmacy, observing procedures, the like. Honestly, I don’t remember doing much other than talking to the homeless people about their smoking habits (one of the studies) and waiting for two hours by the bedside of a man who had a seizure while driving so we could measure the extent of his head injury (another study).
What I do remember learning that summer was how little of being a doctor is treating a patient’s condition. Instead, and especially in a place like Grady, it’s about demographics, socioeconomics, and psychology. And paperwork, too.
You do more for a patient by helping them find a job with a decent wage than you do by prescribing anti-depressants. Or by reducing sodium intake instead of prescribing lasix in patients with CHF. Or just by sitting at the bedside with an elderly homeless woman who has thrown herself off a bus to get a place to stay and a person to talk to.
I always meant to be a serious blogger about device design. I think I write about design like James Altucher writes about hedge fund trading (he doesn’t). That summer at Grady was for my medical school dreams what this blog is about my life as a designer.
Five years ago, the day before my birthday, I was at the hospital late. I was scheduled to leave at 8, but at 7:15, we got our first LifeFlight call. A peds case, but no details. In the hospital, “peds” case can be anything from a few months to 18 years old. Half an hour later I rode up to the roof with another research student and a PA, a stretcher and an excited silence between us.
I don’t remember what actually happened. A helicopter landed. A boy, bigger than I was, was pulled off the board and onto the stretcher. We ran back to hold the elevators for the trauma team on call. I remember pointing out that he might be a candidate subject for a design research study, but quickly dismissing the thought as we took a separate elevator back to the trauma bay.
The details came slowly, from quiet conversations at the nurses’ station and the residents’ orders to the pharmacy. He was 15, spending the holiday weekend at the lake with family. He played football at the local high school. He was a good student.
He had attempted suicide.
His parents came in, having driven from the lake, about 45 minutes later. I vaguely remember the attending dismissing the first and second year residents minutes before they walked in. It’s hard to understand what to say to a parent whose son has just attempted suicide when it’s your first week on the job at Grady’s ER. I remember standing in the corner of Trauma 2, peeking into the next room, thinking that he was just three years younger than I was, and yet we were so far apart.
I think about that night a lot. About the look on his parents’ faces when they walked in to that trauma bay. About the promise of a young man’s life – a young man who hadn’t yet learned to drive, or been to the prom, or filled out a college application. About the life that lay ahead of me at 15. About all the things that I had yet to do and see and experience.
Sometimes, when I am in the hospital doing design research, I think about how all the technology in the world can’t save you if you don’t nurture the soul inside you. That all the diagnostics in the world can’t tell you everything that’s going on inside the human body. Design becomes practical to me in that moment. Hope becomes visible. We become human.
Five years ago this June, I worked in a hospital. Grady Hospital, specifically, in the trauma center. Grady is one of those classic inner-city hospitals you hear about. It’s the largest trauma center in the Southeast, and the only Level I trauma facility within 100 miles of Atlanta. My first day, we intubated a woman shot in the mouth during a work scuffle (she lived). My last day, we watched a chief resident attempt a full thoracotomy on the way to the elevator for a man who had been shot in the chest with an AK-47 (he died).
I was technically a Research Associate. We were supposed to be running four studies for PIs at Emory – interviewing patients, coordinating with pharmacy, observing procedures, the like. Honestly, I don’t remember doing much other than talking to the homeless people about their smoking habits (one of the studies) and waiting for two hours by the bedside of a man who had a seizure while driving so we could measure the extent of his head injury (another study).
What I do remember learning that summer was how little of being a doctor is treating a patient’s condition. Instead, and especially in a place like Grady, it’s about demographics, socioeconomics, and psychology. And paperwork, too.
You do more for a patient by helping them find a job with a decent wage than you do by prescribing anti-depressants. Or by reducing sodium intake instead of prescribing lasix in patients with CHF. Or just by sitting at the bedside with an elderly homeless woman who has thrown herself off a bus to get a place to stay and a person to talk to.
I always meant to be a serious blogger about device design. I think I write about design like James Altucher writes about hedge fund trading (he doesn’t). That summer at Grady was for my medical school dreams what this blog is about my life as a designer.
Five years ago, the day before my birthday, I was at the hospital late. I was scheduled to leave at 8, but at 7:15, we got our first LifeFlight call. A peds case, but no details. In the hospital, “peds” case can be anything from a few months to 18 years old. Half an hour later I rode up to the roof with another research student and a PA, a stretcher and an excited silence between us.
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| The next day, my 20th birthday. |
The details came slowly, from quiet conversations at the nurses’ station and the residents’ orders to the pharmacy. He was 15, spending the holiday weekend at the lake with family. He played football at the local high school. He was a good student.
He had attempted suicide.
His parents came in, having driven from the lake, about 45 minutes later. I vaguely remember the attending dismissing the first and second year residents minutes before they walked in. It’s hard to understand what to say to a parent whose son has just attempted suicide when it’s your first week on the job at Grady’s ER. I remember standing in the corner of Trauma 2, peeking into the next room, thinking that he was just three years younger than I was, and yet we were so far apart.
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| It's a patient privacy violation to take pictures of patients in hospitals, but this seemed fitting. |
Sometimes, when I am in the hospital doing design research, I think about how all the technology in the world can’t save you if you don’t nurture the soul inside you. That all the diagnostics in the world can’t tell you everything that’s going on inside the human body. Design becomes practical to me in that moment. Hope becomes visible. We become human.
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