I had this 18 years old young chap who fell from his bike with a gal as the backseater. Both of them had minor abrasion wound over their left limbs. It was 6:00am in the morning and I had good sleep thanz to the night shift attending physician covering the ward.
I had asked the phone number of his parents and called up.
“Good morning, sorry for disturbing in such an early morning… are you Mr A, father of A jr.?
“Yeah…what is the business…?”
“I am Dr lywuu of F hospital and your child had fallen from his bike on his way from KD to KHH….. he had sustained bla bla bla…”
“What on earth, ain’t he suppose to have ? class today morning…..”
Typical slipped out from hostel and brought she-classmate for an over night in the famous KD beach 50 km down south of our hospital… Most of the chaps will spent the whole night there and rode their bike in a “not enough sleep” zombie mode back to KH city early in the morning…some unlucky one would rammed their bike while day dreaming in limbo or too tired to react to some emergency condition and landed in my shift….
One of the crucial element of ED management is communication. Proper communication with the family and patient is always a key to avoid medico-legal problem. For an adult, the ED physician just need to well explained the medical condition to the patient, and then discharged the patient. But for youngster like the chap, communication with the guardian is vital. Imaging you had a 18 years old patient with traumatic knee injury who can still walk, after clearing him from any knee fracture, you just dischaged the patient. Unfortunately, the patient collapsed hours later in his house and a traumatic intracranial bleeding was diagnosed in another hospital. The family would definitely stick to your axx like a no head fly - why didn’t you examine his head and do some thorough studies before you discharge him? . For youngster who had not attained the age of majority it is crucial to speak to the family either face to face or talk via the phone.
In actual fact, half of the youngsters are reluctant to let guardian acknowledge about their condition. And many of them just couldn’t understand why the law allows them to get a motorbike license at the age of 18 but the age of majority is 20. Sometimes I would insist the parents to come over and fetch their children in person if the youngster had difficulty of walking or other risk who required further observation or admission....
There was a few times I had to threaten the youngster to surrender them to the police just to get their parents phone no….Most of the parents was polite and I could feel their worried and disappointment when their children met such accident…
I remember one of my lecturers had taught us that a child of age 3-5 would think that he is the king of the world and he is capable of everything…. But nowadays, lots of youngster thinks the same, they never know their limitation….
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