Observations

I'm thankful to report that my friend Ken returned home from the hospital. I got to the hospital Friday just as he was about to be rolled out the door to start the trip back. Over his stay, I was able to visit three times. Looking back, I've noticed a few things.

When I'm in the hospital, the nurses have always been careful when visitors are around. They don't discuss any medical information unless prompted and try to be as scarce as possible. Even when I have someone assigned to stay with me they will often excuse themselves while my parents come. That didn't happen when I visited.

Hospital rooms are small, so I wasn't always able to get all the way in the door with other medical equipment around. However, nurses freely come in and out when my assistant and I were there and discussed medical information freely. It was rather surprising to see this change.

No, I'm probably not the most regular looking visitor. When nurses see me, they likely presume, correctly, that I'm very familiar with the hospital system and not easily surprised by what's happening. Nothing too detailed was said, but still more than I should have been hearing.

Fortunately, it has been about four years since I have had a hospital stay and the staff has all changed. Staff changes aside, I would still hope privacy concerns would be a hospital regulation. Maybe I'm just picky too and pick up on things faster than some people.

It will hopefully be quite a while until I see hospital patient interactions again. This was an observation of the quad life from the outside that I hope isn't repeated.