Here's how you can make your inpatient stay more successful:
1) Carry a list of your home medications. I want to hug you when you whip out a piece of paper, however scrappy, with the meds you take at home and their doses. If you can't do that, at least bring all your pill bottles.
2) If you get most of your treatment at one hospital and have been admitted to that hospital several times in the past year, for the love of God, please go back to that hospital! Please don't decide on a whim to come to this emergency room, because "I was at my aunt's house and it was the closest one." Your usual hospital is only 5 minutes away from this one!
Fact: your care WILL suffer since we have NONE of your past medical records. And you know none of your history. And while we try very, very hard to figure out what is ailing you, it is impossible to get the whole story at 2 AM. We will waste a lot of time on our part and your part figuring out what you did and didn't have done at the other hospital. And this will make our treatment of you here much slower and worse. All the extra CT scans you get here because we can't look up your scans at the hospital...well, that extra radiation will give you cancer later on.
3) Be an active participant in your care. We love it when you ask questions; we like it even more when your family is involved. (Family involvement = positive prognostic sign) To maximize your ability to participate, ask your nurse about the hospital workflow. What time does the team round in the morning? What time does the attending (chief) doctor round? When does the team discuss your daily plan? These are opportune times to ask questions. Even if we don't have time to answer right away, your questions let us know what's on your mind. And then we can better prepared to come by later to discuss them.
