I made it 32 years on this planet before I became addicted to caffeine. I made it all the way through college and then grad school before it became a fixture for me. When I became pregnant at 31, it was easy to follow the doctors recommendations for reducing caffeine because it wasn’t a part of my routine. However, four days of labor and the eventual traumatic birth of my daughter which required a NICU stay later, and every thing changed.
When we had to leave the hospital without aforementioned kiddo in tow we were thrown into this messy middle of sleeping at home but living in the hospital every day for as many hours as they would let us. The first morning, my then-husband and I got up, absolutely bleary-eyed, raced into the hospital to try to make it to morning rounds. We knew this would happen after shift change at 7am and knew this was critical to be present when the massive team would stop by for full-squad updates of our “Day-2-of-life” kiddo. 48 hours on this planet and she had a team of probably 12 doctors, nurses, social workers, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, specialists, dietitians and others helping her stay alive.
We were exhausted, but we would NOT miss rounds. Something that had used to be a rare treat (a latte) became a fixture in our mornings while our daughter was in the NICU. Waking up 2-3 times a night to pump plus the stress of the situation left us running on fumes… and caffeine apparently.
I didn’t know if then but it was this time that I became an advocate. Having to think critically from a medical standpoint but then asking the “mama-bear” parent questions, too. In my head, I was constantly switching roles from “well what does this mean, medically speaking” to “how does this impact her and our family, personally speaking”.
NICU medicine, and much of specialized academic pediatric medicine for that matter is practiced the way medicine *should* be practiced. Its inter-disciplinary team-based approach with a patient-centric focus is a winning model. All of her needs were under the same roof. There was constant communication between providers and this was before everything was digitized, too.
Somewhere along the way, as we age, medical care gets worse and the patient is a bystander rather than the focus.
Doctors and teams are overwhelmed. Reimbursement is a losing battle. Large corporations are churning out profits on the backs of medical professionals labor whose burdens are ever-growing. Its sad. Its inefficient. Patients have a lack of health literacy and part of that is that our staff simply don’t have time to sit and explain our perspective and our concerns. We no longer discuss root causes because it takes too long. We only focus on symptoms and alleviating the ails of today. We are forced onto the next patient to keep up with ever-changing benchmarks. Our community is getting sicker.
These days, I rely less and less on caffeine to keep the ship of my life and my work afloat. I rely on my passion for elevating the human experience and improving medical outcomes to propel me. I know that together, we can do better in health care. I’m here to guide you. And maybe buy you a coffee 🙂