interdisciplinary meeting

Last week was pretty overwhelming, but this week has been much mellower. Yesterday I spent most of the day getting a bunch of on-line mandatory training completed that all hospital employees are required to complete. Some of it was interesting, some of it wasn’t so interesting, but it was nice to get most of it done.

Today I was back in Long Term Care. Many of the patients are the same ones I saw when I was there for a few days several weeks ago. Also, I met some of the patients who are now in LTC when I was working in acute care. I was excited to see one gentleman looking so much better than when I had seen him in acute care.

I went to a very interesting Interdisciplinary Treatment Team meeting today. Not only was it interesting to hear the professionals talk about the different angles of the patient’s treatment, but for two of the cases being discussed they invited the patient in to talk with everyone. The first patient was very complimentary of the treatment he had received, and I believe he is going to be discharged soon, though I can’t remember for sure. The second gentleman who came in had a bunch of health problems he was dealing with, and the poor man just wanted to make a short visit home. Unfortunately, coordinating such an event was going to be quite an undertaking due to the fact that he has a catheter, and is in a wheelchair, so transportation must be arranged, and there may have been other complications as well. It was neat how the patient was the center of everything and he was able to express his needs and desires and the team talked to him about the obstacles and what needed to be done to fulfill his wishes.

The other shocking thing about the case just mentioned is that the man is only a few years older then my parents, who just spent the last few days camping and windsurfing. It just amazes me how old people seem when they are sick, and how debilitating some of these conditions are.