SIGNS OF HEALTH

by Robert Lopresti

Last week Melodie wrote about communication problems during her hospital stay. By coincidence I had written something on a similar topic a week before. My view was pretty different; no doubt in part because I was just visiting (not Melodie, by the way). Compare and contrast …

Recently a friend of mine was in the hospital (she’s going to be fine, thank you) and I visited her a couple of times. It had been quite a while since I stumbled into such a temple of medicine and I was impressed by the changes I saw.

Not in medicine, which I am not qualified to evaluate. I’m talking about changes in communications. It’s clear that someone has been putting a lot of thought into how to simplify complicated discussions among the staff and between staff and patients.

For example, on the wall of the patient’s room hung a white board with the names of the nurses on duty and a list of goals for the patient that day. For example: “Drink clear liquids.” How clever, I thought, to make all the members of the team—patient or staff—know what they are trying to accomplish.

And when we went for a walk around the floor (because one of the goals was “ambulate”) I noticed another interesting sign: on some of the room doors there was a picture of an autumn leaf. What did that mean, I wondered.

My friend, who, when she isn’t a patient actually works at this hospital, knew the answer. The autumn leaves mean “fall risk.” I loved it.

Question and answer

But the good communication was not just signage. While we there a nurse came by to give some medication. She told my friend what the purpose of the medicine was, confirmed that she wanted it and then—just before providing it—asked “What’s your name?”

Thereby doing a quick test of the patient’s mental status, and confirming that the right person was getting the stuff. My admiration overflowed for the strategists who came up with that one.

The fly in the medical ointment

You can probably guess that I am leading up to something. It was a series of posters I saw in the hall. Each one featured a photograph of a smiling medical person and the words “Ask me if I get between patients! It’s OKAY to ask!”

Get between patients? What the hell did that mean?

I asked my friend, and her husband started laughing. He had had the same reaction. They told me to go take another look at the poster. I did and saw the same thing. Then, finally I understood. The poster actually said “Ask me if I GEL between patients.”

Referring to hand-washing practices. The poster font and the unfamiliar use of the word “gel” as a verb had fooled me and two other people I discussed it with.

I even wondered whether the ambiguity had been deliberate. After all, if you want to get people discussing something, maybe you want to force them to ask what the hell you are talking about. But I don’t think they were being that subtle. I think whoever designed the poster knew what they meant it to say and assumed everyone else would too.

The inevitable mystery angle

The reason this fascinates me is that I spend a lot of my time, as a librarian and a writer, trying to communicate. Fortunately the results if I screw up are less likely to be catastrophic than, say, giving someone the wrong medicine. But the struggle to be clear is always there. Most of the time as a librarian I get to talk face to face with the person I am trying to reach (or at least by phone), and that’s a help. But as a writer I can only be as clear as I can and hope the reader—whoever, wherever, and whenever that person may be—will comprehend it.

There are writers out there who are deliberately obscure. I would argue that the best of them understand their obligation to be obscure clearly. That’s one of the reasons Leonard Cohen was able to sell his song catalog for five million bucks and the guy at the open mike can’t give his away. Of course, Lenny’s tunes are pretty too.

Now I’m becoming obscure, so it’s time to go. And please, if you get between patients, don’t forget to gel.