Our family has someone who is in the hospital recovering from surgery. They are doing as well as can be expected and we are hopeful that they will be out of there soon and on the way to recovery.

Hospitals have changed quite a bit over the years. The food has improved in quality and variety, the rooms are brightened up and decorated more, the attitude of the various staff especially the nurses has improved the greatest. The indifference that used to just kill me, has reduced over the years. Now you get chatted up by everybody from housekeeping to the doctors. All these changes have made much of the experience a little less unpleasant than what it used to be.

There is still a major problem with the way hospitals are run. The kingship and divine right of doctors to not be accountable to anyone for what they do or don’t do especially as to when exactly they are going to show up and explain what is going on. They reserve the right to come early, late, or not at all. That coupled with their right to be the exclusive conduit for much critical information forces the patient’s family and loved ones to keep a constant vigil so they don’t miss out on their one opportunity that day to visit with the surgeon or doctor. If you miss him or her, or if they decide to not show up, then that’s it. No second chance.

That’s bad because the patient involved is often too groggy or sick to really ask the questions that need to be asked or provide critical information to the doctor or engage them about their decisions and explore alternatives in treatment, therapy, medication or whatever. And there is no second chance. You miss the doctor, you miss out.

The nurses are sympathetic and readily admit that this jealously guarded prerogative of doctors is exhausting to families. They say that the single most asked question they get from patients is “When is the Doctor Coming?” and they don’t have a satisfactory answer and the best they can do is guess based on their knowledge of the doctors’s habits. They see the resulting physical and mental exhaustion this practice causes to families but they can do nothing about it.

So, how about doctors making a schedule of their rounds and sticking to it? How about authorizing the nursing staff to inform families of what is going to happen. How about making use of all this whiz bang information technology they brag about to include the patient and the family.