Inflammation

I wonder if it's my quakerism that means I don't bite people's heads off, or the fact that I don't bite which makes me a quaker. Whatever the causality behind the issue, it isn't always a good thing, it seems.

I'm on the wards, moaning gently about the fact that someone has bleeped me and the phone is engaged when I ring back literally three seconds later. A few moments after that, my reg's bleep goes off too. Same number. She rolls her eyes good-naturedly and I go back to my slightly ill tempered whining. No big deal in that, I think, except one midwife makes a point of it and scowls. 'Pugnacious' I note to myself, and leave it at that, though I'm a little irritated by her reaction.

Maybe five minutes later, a gentleman at the front desk pipes up. I'm scrawling in some notes about axillary tails. An interesting story there which may have to wait for another time.

"I have to say, this is the most unfriendly hospital I've ever seen. It's ridiculous."

He looks tired and grumpy. I'm wondering whether I should lend him an ear; but pugilist gets there first.

I think it's she who makes the allegation that he's being rude and hostile first. Technically, of course, he is: but then so would any person who has travelled from London only to find his daughter has gone into SROM and he's not allowed to visit 'out of hours'. I'm watching the midwife carefully. She scowls at him like she had at me, then makes some defensive comment before he has got his vent out of his system. Then I watch him - as his he gets edgier and louder to make himself heard over her crossed-arm deafness.

Another midwife stands next to pugilist, and reinforces that they don't have to take this abuse, that he's being hostile and confrontational. I'm a little puzzled as to exactly how this is supposed to help, and as if on cue, he reports back "I AM NOT!"

I stand up and smile. "Hello sir. I'm the Dr on duty today. Can I help?"

I do what any quaker (or any midwife) should do, using the only organ that matters in these situations; the humble ear. It's obvious he's cranky. He sees it too, it's bloody obvious.

"You can understand we have to be constistent - we can't have different rules for different people." He agrees softly, given that I have just agreed with him that the hospital is impossible to find in the Reading one-way system. It is! Did I not get knocked off my bike on that same interminable system when I came here for interview so long ago?

We're chatting more softly when the report comes back that his daughter is not on the ward. He looks irritated again and I look at my work to see whether it can wait a moment; it can. So I offer to help, with that vague echo at the back of the mind that helping the pushy and the irate perhaps lends itself to outrageous abuse of the system. But I do feel for this chap, so I do the courteous minimum to help him and he goes on his way.

So worried am I about Pugilist by now that I speak to the nurse in charge: she needs to be softer. I leave it at that; the bureaucracy serves less than a kind word might, so I'll let him pass that on. A droplet of human kindness? I don't know.

Colleague comes up later to inform me I had undermined them both.

On thinking about it later, I did, yes. And in all honesty, given the poor outcome their particular method was leading to, I would do it again, too: when a grave error is being made, you step in. I just wonder - as I hear later, third hand, that she was 'quaking in her boots' - whether next time she will be a little softer, a little gentler, a little kinder. And a little less angry at me.

The quaker in me is a little subdued right now. Frankly, I doubt it.