preop rounds

I believed after my first day of surgery, that nothing could be more awkward, inefficient, or generally unproductive and uncomfortable for everyone that morning rounds.

Day 1 involved a team of literally, I exaggerate not, 27 doctors, students, and nurses. We trooped from bed to bed- well actually we kind of just collectively turned in the direction of the beds because there isn't actually room to move during morning rounds. The doctor of the day looks at the patient, looks confused, looks at the chart, looks again at the patient, checks the name on the bed to confirm that the patient in the bed is at all related to the chart he's holding, and then reads the admission from the chart. Bonus points if they make no eye contact with the patient whatsoever. Double bonus points if they accidentally refer to the patient as the opposite gender than they are during the entire report. (And of course all time high score if they refer to the patient as obese at least three times during the presentation.)

Then about half the doctors poke the relevant body parts, then force all the students to poke said body parts again. Especially if they hurt. Most of the surgeons are Russian, so we get the added benefit of Russians translating Hebrew to English. It's an extraordinary learning environment really. And fun for the sick people!

So I believed I was relatively inured to insensitivity and dehumanization. I had not yet experienced pre-op rounds.

Background: Patients at our hospital are not allowed to know who their surgeon is before surgery. I'm not 100% sure why, but something with socialized health care and being a community hospital. To ensure that this anonymity is maintained, each surgical patient must be examined and interviewed by every single surgeon.

At the same time.

Let's set the scene. You are a person. Probably not feeling your all time best. Perhaps a little bit apprehensive about your upcoming surgery. Possibly your medical condition involves a private or sensitive body part.

You show up to the basement of the hospital and are led into a bomb shelter like room (which is actually a bomb shelter) containing an examining table behind a curtain in the corner, a desk, and a circle of 20 - 30 doctors and students with a chair in the middle.

You sit in the middle of the circle while these 20+ strangers discuss your possibly embarrassing medical condition and fire questions at you from all directions.

You then go over to the examination table behind the curtain, take of the necessary amount of clothing, and squeezing into the tiny examining corner 5-7 at a time, every single doctor examines you.

We students felt a bit odd about it and tried at first to get lost in the crowd and not subject the poor patient to, for example, 27 intimate examinations of their rectal fistula. But the doctors always seem to notice and insist upon every single one of us palpating the testicle until we've all felt the hernias to his satisfaction.

It's absurd. Even more so in practice, I can't seem to describe it right, but the general atmosphere of the whole thing is pretty much what I imagine aliens would do to the first human being they discover.

The strange, and good part I suppose, is that the patients don't seem to mind at all. Or even to find it unusual.

And healthcare goes on. . .