Turning Point #2: An Awakening

Dr. Nishida followed a pre-med course of study throughout college. In the evenings, she worked in the emergency room of a local hospital. She began to notice a large number of elderly patients being wheeled into the ER via ambulance on a regular basis. They usually came in with shortness of breath, dizziness, palpitation, or chest pain.

It didn't take long for Dr. Nishida to realize that these elderly patients - most of whom lived alone - were calling 911 because they were scared and lonely. It was always the same routine: They were hooked up to monitors and maybe IVs, received some personal attention, and were sent home after several hours, all clear. The next month, they would return again. And again. Nothing was really getting solved.

But what especially disturbed Dr. Nishida during her time at the hospital were her trips to the ICU (Intensive Care Unit). She was shocked at how cold an environment the ICU was. Patients laid on sterile white beds in rooms surrounded by blank, white walls. The only sound that pierced through the eerie silence was the periodic beeping of the monitors. Many patients were hooked up to life support machines with numerous tubes coming out of their orifices, and even on the verge of death, these patients had no one around them but machines.

Was this how people's lives should end? Dr. Nishida wondered. Where was the human warmth and care? Do I really want to be part of a medical model that seems to treat the human body as a simple mechanical suit?

There had to be another way, a more humane way, to approach patient care.