End Days

On my last day of medical school, I walked out the door while on the TV screens all over the lobby, David Koresh's compound in Waco, Texas was going up in flames.  Today, on my last day of service at Community Hospital, I walk out with the screens filled with scenes from the shooting of the Dallas Policemen last night. 

I just discharged the last patient on the Teaching Hospitalist Service at Community Hospital.  It was probably appropriate for me to do so, because I admitted the first patient to the Hospitalist Service in 2003.  Like most endings, it was more of a whimper than a bang – just me in front of a computer, typing in discharge instructions while the Respiratory Therapist marched my patient up and down the hall to assess his home oxygen needs.  

Usually my role in the hospital is to head an intimidating phalanx of trainees in white coats from room to room as we decide on plans and explain things to patients.  I don’t do a lot of paperwork because it’s the resident’s job to manage that.  I’m more there for teaching and guiding.  This year, July 1^st meant not only new residents and students for the school, but no more residents or students at Community Hospital, as they had pulled their funding from the medical school for the new academic year.  So it was just the attendings taking care of the last few patients on our service – first 7, then 5, then, when I took over on Wednesday, 2. 

 

It’s all politics, and I’m sure we’ll be back at Community Hospital at some point, but today is the end for this particular chapter.  As I walked out the front door, I went past the greeter, who says hello to everyone who comes in and goodbye to those who are leaving.  Some of the greeters don’t say hello to the employees who go past, but this one does.  And she notices you, which is such a marvelous thing.  She says “Nice tie!” and “Boy, it’s early, you sure are dedicated!”  Today as I came in she said, “There she is, the fashionista, as always!  You look like a fashion plate!  You’re beautiful!”  As you can imagine, this lady, Jackie, has been the best thing about my day on many days at Community Hospital.  

So of course I had to tell her this was our last day as I left.  It was kind of an overly dramatic thing to do, but I knew she was going to give me a hug, and I kind of needed one.  After she hugged me, she asked why, and I shrugged and said it was politics. “Well, we’re friends, why can’t we all be friends?” she answered.  And then she told me that she was one of the medical school’s first patients back in the 1970’s when the school started.  “The clinic was a house!” she told me.  “The lab was the kitchen!”  Then she teared up.  “The world is going crazy,” she said.  “We’re going to pray.” And standing there in the lobby, with TV screens full of hate and fear all around us, we did.