It’s Just a Ride!
Tonight is my 23rd night shift in 25 days and I am still in the middle of an ongoing 3-dimensional, full-immersion hallucination. The following musings popped into my head.
The emergency department (ED) in which I’m working is divided into pods and each pod is responsible for 9 rooms and when busy, also absords 2 additional hallway spaces. As I disposition one patient, either home or admit them to the hospital, another patient is placed in the bed. If I disposition five patients at the same time, then I’ll receive another five new patients. This type of organization is called “geography.”
One of the criticisms of this type of organization is that the nurses and doctors in a particular geographical area will delay dispositioning their patients in order to “block” beds and consequently receive less patients and have less work to do. This is easily overcome, however, by establishing guidelines and expectations about how long a patient should remain in a bed prior to disposition and extremely easy to measure the time each patient spends in an area. Moreover, this can also be extrapolated by the number of patients a physician evaluates per hour and during an entire shift. Consequently, at least in this ED, you can’t hide, especially since it is designed to be, and is in fact, highly efficient in almost every way. Consequently, as stated in the subtitle of the film “Naked Lunch,” “Resistance is Futile.” All there is to do is to see the next patient, do the needful, and disposition them as soon as possible, adhering to one of the major emergency medicine precepts: ABC (“Always be dispo’ing!”) This means to either admit the patient to the hospital or discharge them home.
Last night was a particularly busy night and I was observing the flow of events as the night went by. In addition to the steady flow of patients, some incredibly ill and others not, there was the constant flow of comments/complaints from the staff, such as: why this particular patient came to ED with such a trivial complaint?; why EMS did or didn’t do this or that?; why the nursing home sent this elderly patient with no complaints?; why the nursing home waited so long to send this particularly elderly patient- didn’t they know better?; why are we getting another patient?; are we getting more patients than the other pods?; and of course the complaints about this or that staff member, which changed depending on who wasn’t in the area.
This type of chatter was incessant and has become the modus operandi of not only this particular ED, but in almost every ED I’ve worked in. Before I became “An Angel for Hire” (my dear friend Laura came up with this name for me when I told her that I was leaving academics to become a “Locums”/travel physician. I love the connotation and intend to engrave it on my next set of business cards!), I at first thought that this type of behavior was limited to the only two medical centers I had worked- 12 years in each. After working in many different ED’s in different cities, I very quickly learned that it is a ubiquitous phenomenon and more so, a reflection of the human condition at large.
I at first asked myself why everyone was so surprised and complaining about receiving patients. Isn’t that the sole purpose of our existence in the ED, to take care of patients? This is what patients do- they come in to the ED. But then I asked myself why I would even think to ask such a ridiculous question- this is what we do as human beings, we complain and create unnecessary drama. There are no surprises here and it’s all par for the course.
After catching myself and having a good laugh at my expense, I began to see the parallel between the dynamics of ED “geography” and our daily lives. Just like working in the ED, where we signed up to evaluate patients 24/7 and care for them, we/our higher selves/Consciousness signed up to have this human experience, and in both experiences we psychologically attempt to weasel out of what we signed up for. Similar to “geography,” once a particular problem or issue is dispositioned, another one seems to appear, and although we are accustomed to this, we behave every single time as though we are surprised and sometimes appalled that a situation or patient should have the audacity to show up. We hem and haw about what is presented to us, and come up with cockamamie tactics to resist their flow, failing to grasp the obvious, that “resistance is futile.” We complain about why this or that is presented to us and try as best as we can to blame others for our misfortunes. When good things come our way, we attempt to delay their “disposition” and cling to them hoping that this will interfere with another hardship taking its place. The similarities are uncanny!
Jed McKenna, one of my heros and author of “The Enlightenment Trilogy,” states that we are a prism with many different facets. The light of Consciousness shines through us and the reflection that is cast is our reality. Therefore (paraphrasing) the shit that we accumulate and is smudged onto our prism is reflected as a shitty reality that we of course attribute to an outside source. When our prism is clean, the beautiful light of Consciousness can shine through in all its magnificence and that reality is a paradise. This is why different people can experience what is apparently the same reality in totally different ways- each person is experiencing that reality as perceived by the reflection through the shit smeared on their prism. This is also the inherent meaning of Gandhi’s saying that you should be the change you want to see in the world. Our outer realities are indeed a reflection of our inner reality. However, everything in society ensures that all our attention is focused outward, and we are oblivious to the fact that what we perceive and experience is merely a reflection of our inner processes. By focusing on our inner processes, we have the opportunity to clean our prisms of all the accumulated debris and experience Consciousness more directly until we recognize that even the idea of the prism is an illusion and we can then experience Consciousness as our true nature. There is only Consciousness!
So by now, if you’ve survived this hallucination based diatribe, you’re likely dying for me to get to the punch line. You want to know what everyone who listens to the radio station “WII-FM” (What’s in it for me?) wants to know: “How do I extricate myself from this chin-deep tapioca?” The answer my friends are two-fold: 1) Let go, accept, allow and observe; & ) Pray for the Grace to be able to go deeper and deeper into #1 until you finally recognize that you’ve never done anything, had to do anything, or will ever have to do anything. It’s all being done. All you have to do is sit back and enjoy the ride!
DISCLAIMER: PLEASE DON’T TRY TO UNDERSTAND THE LAST BIT AFTER “PRAY FOR GRACE.” IT CANNOT BE COMPREHENDED BY THE MIND AND THEREFORE DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE. STICK TO #1 & THEN JUST PRAY FOR GRACE. LASTLY, DON’T FORGET: IT’S JUST A RIDE!
I am an emergency physician, writer and a lover of life. The purpose of this blog is to share my ideas, experiences and perspectives as they relate to Consciousness, and as they evolve. Consciousness encompasses everything in my life, your life, the world, the Universe — in other words — EVERYTHING! As the great Shaman Don Diego used to say: “It’s not the most important thing, and it’s not the least important thing…It’s the ONLY thing!”
Check out my novel: “The Twin Flames, the Master, and the Game”! It’s available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Balboa Press.
