#18 How I Became the Christmas Doctor
My yearly mitzvah (good deed)
For the better part of 25 years, I have volunteered to work on Christmas Day because, like so many people, I don’t celebrate Christmas. I was always very happy to let my co-workers who celebrated the holiday spend the day at home with their families. After all, they did the same thing for me, although they didn’t even realize they were helping me out. It was never too difficult to get days off on the holidays I wanted to observe. I always felt pretty good about working on Christmas morning and the cookies were pretty yummy too.
What fascinated me over the years, was the observation of just who would come to the Emergency Department on Christmas Day. You might think that it would have to be something pretty severe to go in there that day, but you would be wrong. That one guy who presented with feeling his ear was clogged (for two months!), I think he was just lonely. If this was the only way that he could interact with other folks on Christmas day, then so be it.
A fair number of people came to visit their elderly mother or uncle and noted that something was different or horribly wrong with Mom or Uncle Morris. Some of those untended elders could slide into some pretty severe medical conditions while no one was watching too closely. Many families would discover that their elderly relative could no longer live independently.
On Christmas and several other holidays, people don’t chew their food thoroughly and some large piece of meat gets stuck in the esophagus, the tube that extends from the back of the throat to the stomach. In severe cases, a person cannot even swallow their saliva and it is super uncomfortable. We have a few maneuvers we can try to dislodge the stuck food which many times is a sign of an underlying narrowing or stricture of the esophagus. If we can’t get it loose, we have to call in the gastroenterologist. Another Christmas doctor gets to join the party along with the endoscopy team.
One year I treated a teenager who tried to kill herself with a pill overdose on Christmas Day. She got a large gauge tube inserted to “pump out” her stomach. This occurred long before I actually had children of my own. I remember that mother just beside herself with anguish and tears. The daughter did not actually harm herself but this dramatic cry for help was unforgettable. Now that family’s Christmas day would become linked with this horrendous memory.
On the following Christmas, the mother of adult children was brought in after being found unresponsive at home. The family said they looked over at her chair in the family room and she was slumped over. They called 9-1-1 and the paramedics started CPR (cardio-pulmonary resuscitation). We were never able to get a pulse back on the lady. The mom and wife of this one family died on Christmas Day. The husband and the adult sons solemnly looked in on her in total surprise and disbelief. What may have started out as a lovely Christmas morning, ended in a nightmarish evening. Christmas day would always be the anniversary of their mother’s death.
Mostly I remember quiet Christmas mornings and busy afternoons. The ward clerk or tech on duty would cheerfully call out “Merry Christmas” as I came through the door. Of course, I would never dare correct them or tell them that I didn’t celebrate. That would have been rude. They could probably not even imagine that someone would voluntarily forego their most favorite holiday. I just politely said thank-you They were saying it to me but mostly singing out that greeting made them feel good and I was all for that.
Christmas Day in the emergency department 2012
I thought that our patients were grateful that the staff and I were there for them, especially on Christmas. The stories I have read online about angry families punching doctors and spitting on nurses horrifies me. How did such violent and rude behavior become normalized? Why do people think an assault on a nurse or a physician will get them anything but charges filed against them. (Those people should have charges filed against them.) I still believe that the bad actors are a very small minority of our patients. Most of our fellow citizens appreciate the courage and effort of their healthcare professionals. I don’t know anything about the topic of Jesus but I feel certain that yelling, spitting and punching your fellow man would not be what he would do or condone.
I remember that most of the staff on duty took their holiday assignments with grace. A few people wallowed in a bit of self-pity. Mostly we enjoyed each other’s company and ate a lot of pot luck lunches. I take a few minutes on every holiday and every weekend to think thoughts of gratitude for the paramedics, nurses, PA’s, and physicians who staff our community emergency departments. Those dedicated people are there for you and for me, every night and every day. They are away from their families and in the hospital even on Christmas, Yom Kippur and during Eid al-Fitr. During your big game party or Independence Day barbeque, the staff at the hospital are there for you. Chew your food thoroughly and please thank them for their service.
