Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Amazing Logistics

January 13, 2015

Logistics baffle me. Yesterday I was at Hamot hospital in Erie, PA visiting someone having surgery. Walking down a hallway with  her husband, we passed various offices filled with clerks, nurses stations, custodial personnel, and cafeteria staff. Outside the waiting area, workmen were installing steel beams for an addition to the building. Hamot is a top-notch heart center in addition to orthopedics and general medical treatment. It's certainly not the largest hospital in the country, but it is big. Doctors, nurses, support personnel, record keeping, and keeping up with myriad regulations, ordering all the supplies necessary to smooth operation; it all depends on logistics, and I cannot imagine what it takes to keep it all running efficiently and effectively.

I am grateful for people with the vision and skills to make possible the kind of medical care we in the US take for granted, for those who dream big, those who teach and those who study the human body, those who build and maintain, those who run budgets, pharmacists and those who produce the pharmaceuticals, sutures, all the electronic devices, tubing...you get the picture. Making sure everyone has what is needed for all the various procedures and care being given is an enormous task.

It's easy to complain when we don't get the medical care we feel we need or deserve, and there's no doubt the medical community makes mistakes, just as we all do, but having seen the lack of medical care in other parts of the world, I know we are blessed. And I am impressed. And amazed. And thankful. And tonight, I am thankful that right now I don't need any of it.

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