Heroic Firefighter is a painting by Christopher Lane (November 7th, 2012)
The image above depicts an image of a fire man saving a young lady from a burning building. The flames are aggressive and seem to blend in with the suite of the fireman with the lady in the white dress contrasting the chaos. the fireman’s suit makes him blend in with the flames making him appear impervious to the flames. We know that is not true, the fireman risks his life regularly in service of others, he does this because he is more equipped than the average person who finds themselves in theses dangerous situations. He risks his life in the mist of danger,but for something much greater than himself which is the service of others. As a future health care professional I have come to understand that we work in an environment where we have manage a to certain level of danger, although the danger is not as imminent as the situation in the painting our lives are on the line.
In 2018 I was diagnosed with TB; I had a pleural effusion which was managed with an intercostal drain. I stayed in the hospital for two weeks and for a moment in time I was on the other side of the fence. I was the patient and not a health care professional. On the 03 of September, I treated a patient in ICU and a few days later he was diagnosed with TB. It was my first experience treating a TB patient after I had completed my treatment. I treated the patient with great caution and did the bare minimum as I could not wait to get as far away from him as possible. I did not provide the same standard of service as I did a few days before. Throughout our studies and practice we have always been taught to put the patient first but at that moment I decided that my health was more important than his health, which made me question if it is possible to put the health of a stranger first if you have something significant hanging on the line.
The experience brought about various feeling at various stages. The experience of TB was bleak and unremitting. It gave me a perspective of what it feels like to be on the other side of the bed. Contrary to what I thought, the experience has not made me sympathetic towards patients who have gone through a similar experience or have experienced the same illness. It has made me feel more desensitised towards their pain. I felt a moment of great distress when I had learned that the patient, I had been treating the past few days was on contact precaution from the very illness that I had just been liberated from just movements ago. I felt the need to protect myself which is why I did the bare minimum so that I would have to spend as little time as possible with the patient. I felt that my health was more important to me than his.Therefore, I could not put his health before mine.
Although the most part of the experience was bad there has been a part of it which I have been able to channel into something positive. The experience has made me more cautious around patients with infectious diseases, which has made clinical practice more challenging as it is difficult to learn and be effective when you are overly cautious and anxious. The experience of having TB was unpleasant but through the process, I have gained knowledge and experience relevant to my profession which most health care practitioners will never experience. It has given me a different perspective on patients and illness as a result allowed me to experience empathy as oppose to sympathy to a greater extent.
In retrospect, there are various aspects which I can make sense of when reflecting on the experience. “Healthcare workers are often viewed to be immune to injury or illness. Ideally, the very fact that the health facility is within their reach would make one believe so”(Joseph and Joseph, 2019). I have learnt that as a health care professional the knowledge we have may seemingly make us impervious to disease, but it does not. Healthcare industry is one of the most hazardous environments to work in. Employees in this industry are constantly exposed to a complex variety of health and safety hazards in the course of their work. Hazards range from biological exposure to disease causing organisms such as tuberculosis and human immunodeficiency virus or exposure to chemicals(Joseph and Joseph, 2019). Initially, I did not understand that the danger was real until I experienced it. I realise that my fear has led me to violet a patients rights as every patient has the right to access to health equal health care and denied him that opportunity (Ghebreyesus, 2019).
Having gone through the experience that I have I now understand some of the pain that the patients go through during physiotherapy sessions, as a result, it has made me more desensitized to their pain. This is not to say that their expression of the pain is exaggerated or to underrate the suffering they experience but it has desensitized me in the sense that I have an idea of what it feels like and what it feels like to overcome it. With regards to the experience of the patient I had to treat with TB, it has made me aware of how traumatic the experience was for me. It has also brought me to a realisation that I have come to a point in my career where I now full understand the choices and personal sacrifices that I am putting on the line and to do my job effectively i have to decided at the end of my journey if I am willing to put service before self.
In retrospect, there are various things I could have done differently. Although, I believe I took the necessary precautions and practice the appropriate hygiene having TB has made me more cautious and more knowledgeable therefore, the quality of my caution and hygiene has improved. With regards to treating a patient with TB, what I could have done differently was to tell my clinician that I am uncomfortable giving her the necessary reasons why, as there were other students who could have treated the patient. In future, if I am confronted with a similar situation I it would mean that I have chosen to put service before self and therefore I will treat the patient to the best of my ability.
References
Joseph, B. and Joseph, M. (2019). The health of the healthcare workers. Indian J Occup Environ Med., [online] 1(2), pp.71-72. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5299814/ [Accessed 25 Sep. 2019].
Ghebreyesus, D. (2019). Health is a fundamental human right. [online] World Health Organization. Available at: https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/fundamental-human-right/en/ [Accessed 26 Sep. 2019].