–Therese Zink
I am not referring to my backside, although I do have a well developed gluteus
maximus due to my stocky German build and fifteen miles of running every week. My ass is Jimmy, a shy miniature donkey (think Shrek’s pal) who has been the companion of my horse, Indy, on my twenty-acre farm for almost four years. Recently Jimmy saved my ass. Please pardon my crass language, but it is the truth.
At about eight one evening, my cell phone chimed as I was driving home.
The local nursing home needed help with an elderly gentleman who had been
admitted three days earlier. My partner had given him some furosemide late
that afternoon for congestive heart failure, but Mr. Olson was still edematous
and very short of breath. “The family is upset and wants me to do something,”
the nurse reported. “His hemoglobin is four and his potassium is six. Will you
talk with the daughter?”
A hemoglobin this low would require a transfusion of several units of blood,
and the potassium suggested kidney failure. “Sure,” I responded. Not wanting
to be the student who lost her homework, I said, “But I don’t know him. Please
read me his diagnoses and tell me what meds he’s on.”
It took the nurse several minutes to tick off the list, which included some
dementia and repair of a thoracic aneurysm seven years ago.
“How old is he?” I asked wishing I was not the one on call.
“Eighty-eight,” she informed me. “He’s very sick. DNR-DNI. The family is
pushing me to do something. The daughter is really upset.”
As I drove in the darkness toward home, I took a deep breath and readjusted the
phone next to my ear. My new challenge flashed like a neon sign—the distressed
family of a new patient who I didn’t know. “Any thoughts?” I asked the nurse.
“The daughter is a handful. Good luck.”
“Put the daughter on,” I said and prayed for inspiration.
“This is Janet,” the voice said. “You know me. My husband and I borrowed
your donkey for our church’s Christmas nativity pageant.”
I thanked God for the connection, some place to start this conversation. “Of
course, Jimmy. That was a cold day.” I said and remembered that the shepherds,
kings, even Mary and Joseph, wore snowmobile suits under their cloth costumes. Thick Sorel boots peeked out beneath their flowing robes. Jimmy was insecure without his buddy, Indy. So this manger scene had had a horse and a donkey. Janet and her husband had given me the digital photos that I had cut and pasted into my Christmas letter to family and friends. “I am glad to talk with you again, but I am sorry about the circumstances. Tell me your understanding of what’s going on with your Dad?”
Janet cleared her throat. “My mom cared for him at home for six years. He
started having trouble walking two weeks ago, so I started coming every day
to help her. We decided he needed more than we could do and looked for a
nursing home. There was an opening here, so we moved him last Friday. He’s
gone downhill since.”
I heard the frustration and recrimination in her voice: Why was he doing
worse, not better at the nursing home? “The nurses tell me he has a lot of fluid in his lungs,” I said. “We can help him breathe easier.”
“Can you help him get better?” Janet asked.
Read the rest of the story
First published in JAMA,299:16 (2008):1879–80, used with permission in The Country Doctor Revisited (Kent State University Press, 2010)
Building trust is an important ingredient to the doctor-patient relationship. In the 4 habits model, Dr. Frankel ARTICLE presents a very practical model for thinking about how to approach the patient. Sometimes trust must be built rapidly, such as in an emergency or crisis. In this story, I was faced with the angry daughter of a patient I did not know. Luckily my miniature donkey gave us a place to start the conversation. If you are on a rural rotation, what have you observed about how doctors and nurses build trust with patients?
The Country Doctor Revisited 