Time limits

Im on my rural prac at the moment covering the wards at the regional hospital. I have one patient who has an extensive medical history. He was transferred from one of the tertiary hospitals in Perth back to this hospital in his home town. I had treated him twice for his cardiorespiratory impairments, one large component of which is ambulation.

There was one comment that he made which made me think about how we do things as a ward physio. His comment was that we dont spend enough "quality" time with patients, that we have a quota and need to fill it. After some conversastion about what he had said, I went away thinking that perhaps there are occassions that we may not be compassionate enough to patients, especially if we have a large caseload to complete that day. Whilst I understand that we cannot spend an hour with each patient in a ward setting, perhaps an extra 5 minutes here and there with the more deconditioned patients might go some way toward keeping their faith in the profession. The next time I saw the patient, I did this and he seemed to respond a little better to the session - so perhaps there is something in this (or maybe its just this patient).