Small Town Health Care
Besides great care, my hospital room boasted great views.
My procedure was scheduled for 7 am, and they told me to be at the hospital by 6:00. The drive takes an hour and fifteen minutes; we wanted to leave some time for snafus, so we left the house at 4:30 am.
It snowed all night, but by the time we left the skies had cleared. We figured they'd have plowed the freeway, so we took the Saturn in order to save gas. We were wrong: the first forty miles was a miserable, slushy drive, and we arrived at the hospital a half hour late. But this is southern Utah, and they accomodated our late arrival as unavoidable.
Before I went into surgery, the nursing supervisor for the floor came and introduced herself. It turns out she's the mother-in-law of one of my best friends. And when the procedure was over, the nurses took incredibly good care of me— even on the night shift when my friend's mother-in-law wasn't on duty. "How are you feeling?" "Can I get you anything?" "Do you need a snack?" I got the impression they gave everyone this level of attention.
The next day, when it was time to leave, my cell phone ran out of juice. I mentioned this to the nursing assistant, and that my wife had planned to call me when she arrived downstairs. In a moment the assistant returned with her personal cell phone. "Here," she said, "why not use mine?" That would never happen in LA.
I've visited friends at some of the best hospitals in Los Angeles, and their nursing care left much to be desired. My wife, who used to work in an urban hospital, says that in a small town they're more attentive because the person they're taking care of might be the grandparent or child of someone they know. This contributes to a general sense of civility that seems to get lost in urban areas.
I've opined before about the long drives for medical care, which have included a 900-mile round trip to get tests done I couldn't get locally. There's no one medical center here that has all the different specialties— and it's hard to get doctors from several different offices on the same page. But the upside of rural health care is the personal attention. The nursing staff couldn't have done any better.
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