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Dear Fellow Vermonter,
Most of us can probably agree that one of the places we don’t want to find ourselves is in the Emergency Department of our local hospital. The reality is that if we are there, something has probably gone very wrong.
Sometimes it is a true medical emergency that sends a person to the Emergency Department – a ruptured appendix, heart attack, stroke, or car accident. In those times, the doctors, nurses, and medical technicians who work there are well-equipped to take care of us. In these scary moments, they know just what to do and we are fortunate to have them.
But too many times, the Emergency Department is the place where all of the cracks in our broken health care system are exposed. It is where the older Vermonter finds themselves after falling at home because there is no available assisted living facility. It is where the new parent takes their baby because they can’t find a pediatrician accepting new patients. And, tragically, it is where people who are uninsured or underinsured show up when the untreated chronic health condition they have turns into a true emergency.
Unlike many in the medical profession, people who work in emergency medicine never quite know what is going to walk through their doors. The good news is, they are well-trained and ready to provide the care that is needed, when it is needed. And they don’t do this work alone – often times, they are working closely with the local paramedics and EMTs who are the first to arrive to an emergency situation. Dr. Joe Kennedy, an emergency physician at the UVM Medical Center in Burlington knows just what this work is like. Listen as he describes a typical day at the Emergency Department, and his thoughts on how we can improve our health care system.
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