Word: patiently
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Learning to Cope. In an economy move similar to the airlines' no-frills flights, more and more hospitals are offering no-frills care for patients who are sufficiently well to help themselves. The patients are asked to make their own beds, keep their rooms tidy, take meals in the cafeteria rather than wait for them at bedside, even pick up their own medications. The tactic not only keeps down costs-a saving that most hospitals pass directly on to the patient -but can also be an important part of therapy. For example, at St. Mary's in Rochester...
Self-care units have been set up at 288 hospitals, roughly 5% of the U.S. total. More can be expected in the future, as hospital administrators wrestle with the difficult problem of holding down expenses while maintaining the quality of patient care. Says an official of the American Hospital Association: "It's one of the most innovative approaches we've yet tried in meeting the challenge of rising medical costs...
...Patients and hospital personnel alike are pleased. Relieved from routine work, nurses have more time to give patients counseling and other services that help the patient's wellbeing. Says the unit's director, Dr. Robert Johnson, a cancer specialist: "Patients are strangers when they come in. But then they meet, become friends and do things, like eating together in the cafeteria." They are also freed from the usual military-like hospital restrictions and can even wear street clothes. Such relaxation of rules gives patients an enormous psychological boost. "They don't have the same sense of being...
...Mexican doctor was outraged at the apparently poor care given Hughes. As he worked to save the patient, Hughes' retinue seemed stunned and helpless. One of his physicians, Dr. Norman Crane, was weeping...
...operation in London to insert a pin in his femur failed, and Hughes would not submit to a second operation. As a result, he was in constant pain and developed an addiction to codeine. He refused to take other medication or eat properly. Hughes was a despotic, cranky patient who reduced his personal physicians to the status of mere valets. Three days before his death, he went into shock, probably due to a stroke. As his condition worsened, his aides became gravely worried and called Dr. Montemayor. "It is not easy to say whether they would have saved his life...