Did you know hospitals hire "secret shoppers" to understand the patient experience of care?

A nurse walked in with a loaded syringe. “Can you lift your gown?” she asked.

The woman on the gurney held the scratchy emergency room blanket closer to her chin. “What’s in the syringe?” she asked.

The nurse frowned. “Don’t you want the medicine your doctor ordered?”

The woman took a deep breath and kept asking questions. She had more than just self-interest on the line.

She was a “secret shopper,” a consultant pretending to be a patient in order to evaluate the quality and culture of care in a hospital.

TO learn more, check out my article at The New York Times.

Bearing the weight of mistakes

I stopped breathing when the syringe filled with bubbles. The resident and I stood silently for a couple of breaths, watching the syringe fill with more pink bubbles each time the patient’s chest filled with air.

“Shit,” said the resident, taking the syringe from my hand. He withdrew the syringe from the vein, and applied pressure with a gloved hand. I watched, my own carotid pulsing at my chin.

A STAT chest x-ray confirmed our worst fears...

To read more, visit my article in the Living Hand medical humanities section of the Journal of General Internal Medicine.