[Verified Answer]: Emmy and Maddy’s Great Adventure A TRAINING…

Emmy and Maddy’s Great Adventure A TRAINING CASE FOR HEALTH CARE PERSONNEL August 16, 1995. Our day began at 5:20 am. Hurricane Felix was predicted to hit the Carolina coast by the end of the afternoon and I like most of the folks in southeastern North Carolina had spent much of the previous day preparing the house for the upcoming storm. However, my wife and I had one extra concern the others did not. My wife was six months pregnant with twins and the prospect of spending lots of time in the car in the attempt to remove ourselves from harm’s way was not particularly attractive. We had decided to wait until after my wife’s Doctor appointment at 9 am to make a decision on whether we should leave or stay at home and ride out the storm. We never made it to the doctor’s appointment. At 5:20 am, I was awakened by the fear in my wife’s voice. Her water had broken, and the twins that were due on November 16th had apparently made up their collective minds that they were going to be born thirteen weeks early. As first time parents, we understood that our next move would be to go to the hospital, however, we were unsure as to the best mode of transportation given our particular situation. We had been informed by doctors that multiple birth pregnancies were high-risk pregnancies and that every precaution should be taken. We quickly called the hospital and asked for advice. The hospital suggested that my wife should take a shower, shave her legs, pack some essentials, and it would be appropriate for us to drive ourselves to the hospital. Too stressed out to take any chances, we passed on the shower advice and quickly threw some things together and drove to the hospital immediately. THE EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT Upon our arrival to the hospital, we drove to the emergency entrance and I quickly exited the car to find a wheelchair. I was immediately confronted by a security guard who had been previously engaged in a casual conversation with another gentleman. I was informed that I could not leave my car in its current position. In response, I informed the security guard that I needed a wheelchair and would move the car after I was able to move my wife inside. The security guard pointed his finger in the direction of the wheelchairs. I grabbed the first wheelchair I could get my hands on and headed back out the sliding doors to assist my wife. At this point, the security guard informed me that I had grabbed a juvenile-sized wheelchair. I headed back inside, and grabbed a much larger wheelchair. I returned to the car, assisted my wife into the wheelchair and headed back inside. The security guard, while continuing on with his other conversation, instructed me to leave my wife with the triage nurse within the emergency department so that I could move my vehicle. I said goodbye to my wife and went to move the vehicle. When I returned, the security guard informed me that they had taken my wife to the maternity ward located on the third floor. My wife’s encounter with the triage nurse was apparently short and sweet. The triage nurse had called for an orderly to move my wife to the maternity ward. On her way to the third floor, the orderly asked my wife if she was excited about having they baby. She responded that she was scared to death because she was only six months pregnant. The orderly replied that there was “no way she was having a baby that early that would survive”. THE MATERNITY WARD As I exited the elevator on the third floor, I headed for the nurses’ station to inquire about my wife’s current location. I was greeted by several smiling nurses who escorted me to my wife’s room. On my way to the room, I met another nurse who had just exited my wife’s room. The nurse pulled me aside and informed me of the orderly’s remarks. She continued on to assure me that what he said was not only inappropriate but more importantly inaccurate. She also informed me that my wife was very upset and that we needed to work together to help keep her calm. This particular nurse also informed us that she, herself, had given birth to a premature child, who was approximately the same gestational age as ours, a couple of years earlier. By this time, it was between 6 and 6:30 am. The resident on duty entered the room and introduced himself as Dr. Baker. My wife gave me this puzzled and bewildered look. The OB/GYN clinic, where my wife was a patient consists of five physicians who rotate their various duty assignments. Dr. Baker is one of the five. However, Dr. Baker was thirty to forty years older than the resident who was just introduced himself as Dr. Baker rather than Dr. Baker’s assistant. Realizing his mistake, he embarrassingly reintroduced himself and informed us that Dr. Baker was the physician on call and that he was being contacted and kept informed of my wife’s condition. The resident left the room and soon reappeared with an ultrasound cart to check the positions of the babies. This time he was accompanied by, who I assumed to be the senior