December 1998

Racing With Time

Healing Hands in ER

By Louisa Yan



     The television drama Healing Hands was once the talk of the town two months ago. It unveiled the work of the emergency room doctors, and portrayed emergency rooms as exciting, interesting and challenging places to work in. However, what seems to be exciting to the public may be normal in the doctors' eyes.

     Dr. Richard Sai Dat Yeung, a senior medical officer at the Accident and Emergency Department of Tai Po Alice Ho Mui Ling Nethersole Hospital, feels that the drama was exaggerated.

     "Healing Hands merely gives you the highlights of our work, without mentioning the less exciting side," said he.

     Receiving patients one after another with different degrees of injuries or having a group of seriously wounded patients arrive at the same time is not common.

     "The situation in emergency rooms is more or less the same as what you see on television.

     "There is a team leader, usually the senior medical officer, to tell the other members what to do and then each of them will play their part," Dr. Yeung added.

     "Doctors have to think and decide what treatment is the best for the patients," said Ms. Helen Wu, a year 4 nursing major studying at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

     She recalled her 10-day experience in the Accident and Emergency Department in the Prince of Wales Hospital while she was doing her clinical placement.

     "There is no time to carry out research or refer to books. There will be no time for hesitation."

     Although it can be twice as stressful as it appears to be, working in the emergency room has been challenging enough to keep Dr. Yeung there for six years.

     Having worked in other departments, Dr. Yeung finds working in the emergency room most challenging and exciting.

     However, to another medical officer, Dr. John Chan, working in the emergency room is more than challenging.

     He has been working in the Nethersole hospital for seven and a half months.

     "I enjoy the acuteness, satisfaction and diversity it gives to me," said he.

     Dr. John Chan admits that the pressure and workload in the emergency room are relatively great.

     "Pressure is great, especially for the team leader because he is the one who decides what we are going to do," said he. "He cannot afford to make any mistakes."

     In the emergency room, doctors and nurses occasionally undergo unusual experiences.

     Recalled Ms. Wu: "One morning a young boy was sent to the emergency room after being knocked down on his way to school by a car. His status was stable but unconscious."

     The little boy was later transferred to another department. But what remained in her mind was the worrying faces of the boy's relatives.

     "At the time I stepped out of the resuscitation room, I could see all his family members worrying about him to death," uttered she.

     Ms Mei Yi Chan is a registered nurse who has been working in the emergency room for two years.

     Ms Chan feels glad whenever a patient's condition becomes uncritical after receiving treatments from doctors and nurses. Sometimes she feelspity towards the less lucky ones.

     Said she: "I pity some patients, especially those who die in their youth. However, I won't let these feelings affect me or my work."

     Working in the emergency room is not always exciting. Doctors and nurses may be required to deal with patients who do not have urgent needs.

     "It's hard to say whether a patient is abusing the emergency room, said Dr. Jimmy Chan, the Chief of Service of the Accident and Emergency Department of Nethersole Hospital.

     "You have no clues about what is wrong with them until you have finished examining them."

     He also shows his sympathy towards the patients.

     "People having flu flooded the emergency room when bird flu was once prevalent.

     "It is understandable and reasonable why the public are so panicky. You can't really blame them," he added.

     Patients' benefits are always on top of his list of concerns.