The golden hour

For whatever reason acute care doctors got themselves trapped in an impossible dogma. With no way out, with no sign of any emergency escape, we have let ourselves be stranded in an impossible world where ignorant junior doctors feel comfortable. Allow me to explain.

As junior doctors have been struggeling with delivering good healthcare to the acute ill, we have dogmatised the idea of the golden hour. Save lifes, do it right now, meaning get expert help now. Don’t fuck around, call your supervisor, even if that is me. Now that we kind of got this one sorted the idea went viral. Everything needs to be now, STAT. Faster, faster, Fastest…

The other day we saw this kid, fell of some stairs and is doing fine. Is playing in his mommy’s lap. He was triaged to be seen urgently and after carefull evaluation we found there was not a single injury in sight. Proceeding cautiously we managed to get some imaging that was fine. Mother was fine. Kid was fine. healthcare done. Wanting to admit the patient for some observation a junior doctor from the admitting service rolls in, exited, pupils dilated and obviously on drugs (by that I mean bitchslapped to often by her supervisors). There was no excuse for our behaviour, obviously we slipped. Because My Oh My, had we let the golden hour pass.

Little kid doctors out there, let me rephrase the golden hour again, for once and for all. The hour is a concept, not a real thing. You can not feel it, touch it, nor measure it. The golden hour has not passed after 60 minutes, nor will it need to last that long. Being kind and kind to your patient, weighing in reality, humanity is priceless. Looking at a clock is what was thought in kindergarten.