Seventeen-year-old Matthew Scheidt decided to play doctor. And not in the way a typical 17-year old would play!! While working as a part-time file clerk at his local hospital, he walked into the personnel department and announced that he was the new physician’s assistant for the Emergency Room. They sat that nice young man right down, snapped his picture and gave him an ID.
After a week or so, his co-workers were fed up with his stories – namely his story that the local sheriff’s department also deputized him – and they discovered that the local sheriff’s department did not deputize him after all. OH! And he wasn’t a physician’s assistant either!
It seems that during his weeklong stint as an ER doc, the only thing he actually did wrong was run his mouth. In the words of the hospital administrator, “Whew!”
What seems to be most befuzzling to me is the fact that he, at 17-years-old, just walked into the HR office and got the ID he needed to pull of his little masquerade. And I say little only because I was not one of his patients. At age 22, I applied for a waitressing job my senior year in college; because my waitressing experiences were “incomplete” (that is to say non-existent), I had to start the job as a hostess. Strike that – a hostess in training! That’s right! Before I could seat people in their red vinyl booth so they could eat their ribs and smoked bologna, I had a trial period! Also, I didn’t get a permanent name tag until I was approved by the head hostess. (By the way, the head hostess was 39, missing her front bottom teeth and would always ask me if I had any condoms she could borrow. Proves how good their BBQ was, huh?)
I tell you that to make this point: If 20 years ago, a local BBQ joint took such pains to make sure their customers were treated in the best possible manner, shouldn’t a hospital – in this day and age of scrutiny – take double the precautions?
I wouldn’t know the first thing about what it takes to be a physician’s assistant (even though my friend FloJo’s sister just graduated top of her class as a physician’s assistant and I can’t wait until I get sick, so I can text her and hassle her for a prescription!). I also wouldn’t have the first clue as how I would run a human resources office. But, I can tell you this: If someone came in and announced that he were a new narcotic-administering, injection-giving doctor-like person, I’d be certain he was who he said he was before I gave him a name badge and essentially turn him loose to help those who are ailing and have a malpractice lawyer programmed into their speed dial!
It just seems to me that with the medical field under the proverbial health-care microscope, greater precautions could and should be taken to insure the care they are given is actual care. Maybe the medical reforms should take a long hard look at the business end of medicine first.
