During my orthopaedic inpatients placement when I had to see 12-14 patients a day, there were a couple of times when I told my patients that I would come back to see them in half an hour after they had their painkiller prior to treatment (which takes about 30 minutes to kick in), I would then end up doing something else that take longer than that which made two of my patients unhappy. I would either have to see other patients during this period of time when my supervisor was ready to stand a patient up with me or when the nursing staff was ready to wash them or get them to shower. When this occurred, most patients were able to put up with it as they understood that I had to see many other patients especially in the morning, however throughout my placement, two patients were not happy with my unpunctuality and walked down the corridor to look for me. One of them complained to me that I should have seen her on time for treatment as she was having painkiller that she normally would refuse to have. Another patient could not wait for me and started doing his exercises on his own. I explained to the patient that painkiller only takes 30 minutes to have their pain covered maximally, however will normally last for 4 hours and therefore it would not be necessary to perform treatment 30 minutes right after having the painkiller. I also apologized to both patients and suggested that I would come and see them last in the next morning so that our treatment would not be hindered by other patients. I consulted my supervisor and she suggested trying not to see too many patients at a time, for example not having them to have painkiller at the same time and also increase liaison with nursing staff and continue to improve my effectiveness in planning and management of time. She also suggested that this will usually come with practice when I become more familiar with the patients and the nursing staff. On reflection, even though many other patients did not complain about this problem, I will need to continue to improve in managing the variable demands of time and to see my patients as punctual as possible. It is also worth taking each patient’s characteristics into account when managing my time.
2 comments:
I have had similar experiences on one or two of my placements this year, although i don't think Ive been taking on quite so many patients. I've found that for some of the patients explaining to them that your time is limited and this is the only time to see them can help (although this may not be as effective for patients needing pain killers). Ideally I would try and see the patients when I went to see them, as I generally had a plan of how/when I would treat. I found that allowing the patient to dictate their own treatment time could be helpful in increasing compliance with treatment, but at the same time it was a fine line between facilitating treatment and then being disorganized to the point that other patients were disadvantaged. As such, ideally i would treat the patient on my own terms if I had a busy day, and allow patients more control over the treatment time if the situation warranted it
12-14 patients a day! That is alot of patients to get through. At my current placement, I realised that to manage my time effectively during the day, it helped if I planned my day after knowing which patients I am allocated. This probably takes about 15 minutes to liaise with the nurses for medications/shower times and with my supervisor (if its a 2 assist patient).
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