I blogged T.O.D.A.Y @ 17:57

the day when i felt sad when patients were discharged

the way we handle patients, or more specifically, patient number is slightly different from when we are in an acute hospital setting. in the latter, the number fluctuates and there are good days and bad days. Good days mean there are a lot of discharges and no patients are admitted to the ward under your care. Bad days mean there are no discharges, yet got new admissions, and yet got a lot of happenings to your current patients.

why we prefer low patient number - because lesser patients, generally, mean less changes, mean more time for us to have self-improvement, be it mentally, spiritually or physically.

However, in my current working environment, the patient number usually remains quite stagnant. Whenever u discharge patients, new patients will come in. in fact, we anticipate how many patients we will have because they are all planned admissions. We do have a lot of patients, but let's put it that it is a comfortable number of patients per team if there are two MOs per team.

Another difference is that patients stays for quite a while. I am currently in the stroke team, and most of my patients stay on an average of 1 month to undergo rehabilitation.

I have never really witnessed, or follow through how rehabilitation really works until now. yup, they do improve, and some of them to a significant extent. it is really heartwarming to see how their motor power increases as the days go by; from not able to move at all, to be able to walk with aids.

and yup, time really flies and i am in the current team for almost a month already, which is about time when the patients whom i first encountered are going to be discharged. somehow, it feels strange to see an empty bed when it is usually occupied by someone u know.