Last December 24th at 7PM, my mom had to be rushed to the Emergency Room of the Philippine Heart Center. The previous hours indicated that she might be having a stroke.
At a little past midnight, with her vital signs showing some progress toward normalcy, we made arrangements for her to be admitted to the Neurological Intensive Care Unit upon the recommendation of Dr. Y, a neurologist.
Dr. Y walked into the ER and started looking at the MRI scan did on my mom a less than an hour ago. She walked into BED no 5 and started to explain some of the things we needed to know. She was thorough, had excellent bedside manners, did not talk down to the patient and was very calm in answering our questions even at past 2am.
During my mom’s confinement, she would visit everyday, take out her stethoscope, ask questions, look at my Mom with concern and give some clear instructions on what we need to be aware of in taking care of her. Thorough and very attentive to the patient.
In contrast, my mom’s attending doctor was DR. V, a cardiologist. He ordered a 2D echo exam on my MOM – which because of so many reasons ( vacation, holidays, no of days it will take to wait) we did not even get to see the results. Dr. V would also visit my mom… make very irrelevant comments (maybe he was trying to be friendly, I don’t know) like “ang dami nyong magkakapatid†( does it matter if there were 4 of us?)…
We would ask him questions and his retort would be “ganyan talaga pag stroke tulog lang ng tulogâ€â€¦.I think I only saw him once take out his stethoscope to check on my mom. His visits would last a little longer than 45 seconds…
Dr. V did not even know Dr. Y. But both of them actually need to be working together on making some clinical assessments on her improvement.
On January 3rd, we got the recommendation from Dr. Y for our release. Mind you, DR Y is not the attending physician but DR. V.
Dr. Y gave us the notice of her professional fees and along with that a very complete prescription with clear instructions of when we should be back for follow-ups. And yes, she gave us discount on her PF which amounted to P10,800.
Dr. V – also sent notice of his professional fees but did not give us the prescription. I had to ask the nurse to get the prescription from Dr. V. We go the prescription issued from the Nurse Station. Dr. V.. with his short daily visits charged us P25K… yes, he made some discounts as well so we got the final amount to P20K.
What is the difference? While the PF may seem to be the most visible one, the difference was in how they treated and looked after my mom.
Dr. Y would come in almost un- intrusively that you would not even noticed that she was already there. Her voice was soft because the patient would be sleeping and she did not want to wake them up un-necessarily. For her, my mom was a patient that needed care. Her instructions were clear and very specific. “Pls make sure to turn her from one side and then after 30 mins to the other side…†“Makes sure that her back is kept dry because we do not want her to get pneumoniaâ€â€¦ Dr. Y would ask what had we observed as we closely monitored my mom. She would politely call my mom “Mommy†and would ask her permission every time she needs to check on something. One time, she walked in and the first thing she said to the nurse was “please check her diapers… you need to check it first before you do anything to make sure that she is comfortable. The patient cannot speak for herself…â€
Dr. V on the other hand would come in with his louder voice. I never heard him address my mom like Dr. Y. He did not ask us anything that we had observed as we monitored her. The response to our questions would be “ganyan talaga ang stroke…†and the other thing was “sabi ko sa inyo eh.. either tulog lang ng tulog or gising lagi…â€
Two doctors at the Philippine Heart Center at the time when families would rather be away from any hospital or medical institutions. Dr. Y did her rounds at the ER on Christmas eve because her patients were calling on her.
Dr Y made us feel that she was really looking after my mom and was concerned for her recovery. Dr. V on the other hand, made us feel that he is more concerned about him being a big doctor that commands a stiff professional fee.
Two weeks later, we had another follow-up with Dr. Y.
We entered her clinic and she again asked important questions. Took note of what we need to anticipate, wrote our a prescription for a month and entertained questions. She did not rush the medical appointment and showed concern on her face when she noticed that my Mom had a build-up of phelgm in her throat.
A tale of two doctors at the Philippine Heart Center.
One showed kindness, compassion and care.
The other… showed us how expensive his short visits could be.
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