Hospitals, IVs and people who shouldn't be in customer service.

I recently had to have the enjoyable experience of spending some time in the emergency room. No need for alarm dear reader, just some fuss about my tonsils, which I've had trouble with for some time now. The long and the short was that the health services place I went to didn't have an ear, nose and throat doc available that day, and I was having trouble breathing and keeping anything down because it was all sore, so they shipped me off to the ER. There they promptly pumped me full of steroids, didnt believe my story about how often this happens and released me with no diagnosis. Now among the four billion topics to write on I'm going to stick with the general concept of customer service, although I did notice some interesting trends in the hospital hierarchy, cleanliness, triaging and alarming amounts of staring going on, all of which may need to be covered at a later point in time.

Since the inception of this blog I've *tried* to keep it positive. I don't want this to turn into a complaint forum. So instead of posing the question "why are people who have short tempers in customer services, especially in medicine where people really need a little kindness" I will just note that its really difficult to explain to someone what you think is going on (especially since you are the only one who knows the whole history, and it is in your best interest not to elaborate or make things up so that hopefully someone will figure it out). I actually have thought long an hard about a more people friendly career, as my job currently calls for me sitting in front of the computer screen for 8 hours a day. I really like people, and I like listening and I like problem solving and so I've, in the past, considered medicine. Of the twelve or so people I encountered this morning at two places (both considered emergency services) the ER was a much less friendly place. When the nurse came in to look at my tonsils she scolded me because I was pulling away. I explained to her I have really bad reflexes and that I was sorry and I'll try my best but her waiting impatiently to get over my "fear of being choked" while she tried to poke the popsicle stick down there wasn't making me feel relaxed. Just something she might have observed ... especially since she probably does that at least one time a day?
When I came back from an x-ray there were no available examination rooms, so I got to see the hustle and bustle live from my gurney. And I saw a lot of short tempers, and bewildered patients. I was scared and I was just there to get my tonsils checked out. I can't really imagine what going in there for a heart attack, or something of a more serious nature.

Does anyone have a positive ER story?
I'd love to hear it.

That being said there was some very nice doctors I dealt with at the first place, where I was admittitly much more overwhelmed, and "ill" so that helped. Thanks for that ladies and gents.