A receptionist's tale: Keeping faith
A receptionist's tale: Keeping faith
As told by Susan Walker, receptionist
When we're swamped, I feel like I'm the eye of a hurricane. The phones are ringing off the hook. Parents who call are angry when they discover we're so busy that we can't see their child for another four hours. Often, I'm the lightning rod for their anxiety and hostility. Patients are backed up in the reception area, some with no place to sit. The nurses and docs are breathing down my neck, upset that I have just booked another child into an already over-packed schedule. Believe me, whoever is sitting at the front desk is not going to win a popularity contest.
One evening, when things were particularly bad, a mother called, concerned because her child had passed out. Unfortunately, I often listened to such concerns with a dose of skepticism. The cynic in me presumed she was making things sound far worse than they were in order to get an appointment. I responded according to company policy.
"If you're worried about your child, come right on over. You'll just have to be patient and sit in the waiting room, but we'll work you in as quickly as we can." When I hung up, I thought, "Oh man, we probably won't be seeing her." Luckily, I was mistaken. In fact, I was nearly dead wrong.
Forty-five minutes later she showed up at our door. Standing beside her was her teen-age daughter with hardly an ounce of color in her face. I don't think I had ever seen anyone come into the clinic looking quite as sick. Without hesitating, I ushered them back to the nurses station. We got a urine sample and the nurse immediately ran the test. A moment later she told me to quickly get the doctor who was seeing another patient. His preliminary diagnosis was juvenile diabetes, and he feared that she might slip into a diabetic coma at any moment. Instinctively, I ran for the wheelchair. Within seconds the doctor was running with her and her mother in tow to the emergency room just a couple hundred yards away. She was so dehydrated they had trouble even getting an IV into her. Luckily, they were able to stabilize her, then move her to Primary Children's Hospital.
Rarely, do we have a chance to follow up with our patients. Even more rarely are we contacted by a parent letting us know how things are going. This mom was an exception. A few days later she called me to let me know her daughter was going home. Most of all, she wanted me to know how grateful she was for all that we had done.
When I hung up, I, too, was grateful. What if I had said, "No, I'm sorry. You're going to have to wait four hours." That girl would have died. I had a newfound appreciation for the principles that Nightime had established for receptionists. They worked. Most importantly, they saved a life.
When people used to ask me what I do, I would say, almost shamefully, that I was just a receptionist. But since that fateful night, I say the same thing, thinking, "I'm so proud of that."
Reprinted with permission from Nightime Pediatrics.
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