Hospitals and ICUs

One of many advantages of being on the other side of 50s is a sense of familiarity of that having happened before and a realization that nothing is as good or as bad as it seems.

Some label the reaction to these events as extreme, stoic or cynical.

However, visiting someone in intensive care at a Hospital, no matter what their age, has never been easy for me. It wasn't when I was in my twenties and three decades later, still remains challenging.

A recent visit on a Sunday evening to a Hospital ICU to visit a colleague once again reminded me about the fragility of human life and no matter what the circumstances, something always shifts for me.

Perhaps the biggest change that became evident for me was that everyone working at the hospital was as human as the rest of us. In the 1980s, my maternal Aunt, in her 30s, completed her PhD in Hospital Administration from a leading university in the United States. She was a trained medical Doctor from a prestigious College in New Delhi.

That is when I started to get a ring side view of the inner workings of a hospital. Even though she stayed mostly in academia, discussions with my Aunt centered around the people centricity of hospitals. The challenges that Doctors and nurses themselves faced - from extreme sleep deprivation to addiction. The fact that no matter what they did, there was always a human life at stake. At the same time, innovation is medical devices and diagnostics was resulting in improving the quality of health care and resulting human life.

That there was an entire ecosystem of medical professionals who worked tirelessly to give the patient the care they needed, deeply elevated them in my eyes and I remain forever grateful.