HIPAA regulations may preclude me from identifying the patient, so I will simply note that a close family member for nearly 30 years, whom I will refer to as “Anne,” passes out in public about every seven years—or at least has done so twice in that span.
There are some downsides to these events to be sure, but upsides too: ambulance rides; notable exits; and, for our purposes here, hospital comparison shopping.
The two incidents have some similarities. Both occurred on very hot days over dinner with the consumption of some wine, the first in Los Angeles and the second in Great Barrington. Each time, the folks around Anne showed great concern, although the Los Angeles restaurant’s concern may have had more to do with turning the table. Each time, (needless) embarrassment ensued. The hospital experiences on the other end of the ambulance rides are where the similarities ended.
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is generally considered Los Angeles’s premier hospital: 2,800 nurses, 2,100 physicians, and thousands of other dedicated health care professionals. The kind of place where you might expect both U.S. News and World Reports number-one rankings and Michelin Stars. So, when the EMTs told me to meet Anne at Cedars-Sinai’s emergency room, “pleased” may not be the right word, but certainly relieved that Anne would be cared for at Beverly Hills blue bloods’ hospital of choice.
Do you recall the Fyre Festival, the purportedly transformative music festival promising luxury accommodations, gourmet food, and A-list musical acts? And do you recall the reality—wet mattresses in tents, cheese sandwiches, and barely Insta-famous influencers? Well, the gulf between Fyre Festival expectations and reality applies also to the white-glove service I expected to find at Cedars-Sinai and actually experienced. Well, what Anne experienced, while I was an invested observer.
To be fair, it may be that no large city hospital on a Saturday night is as tranquil as a Sunday in the Park with George. Should I reasonably have expected a maître d’ to show Anne to a hospital bed overlooking the water? Given that it is an emergency room nowhere knew the shore, probably not, but let’s just say my expectations were higher than Anne’s blood pressure.
Reality: chaos, shouting, screaming, yelling, crowds, panic, crying, and no room at the inn. Anne was parked on her gurney in the middle of the ER, which is not great for privacy, but wonderful for observers taking it all in. And by parked I mean no one attended to Anne for a few hours. Triage assessments reasonably mandate that the severely injured, likely insane, and clearly handcuffed individuals deserved care before someone suffering a notably poor Gewürztraminer, but three hours strikes me as a long time. If Anne’s injury had been something worse than a face-plant, we might have gotten past the rope line to be shown to the area with I.V.-bag service, but it was not to be. Such is life.
As you likely surmised, Anne survived, discharged with advice to hydrate more on sweltering summer nights with something other than sweet wine. And if you believe—as I do–that every outcome is positive as long as it makes for a good story, we can chalk it down as a win-win.
Present day, Anne has escaped Los Angeles heat—or so she thought—by moving to the bucolic Berkshires: fewer snow jobs, more snow; a place where you see stars in the sky rather than across a restaurant. Of course, you can take the woman out of Los Angeles, but that doesn’t mean she still won’t pass out.
Anne’s next episode occurred at an event in Great Barrington in July celebrating our favored place, the Mahaiwe. Hot, humid evening. Tent. Wine. Passing out, non-face-plant variety. The lovely folks from Volunteers in Medicine rushed to restore Anne to consciousness immediately, for which we were immensely grateful. The ambulance arrived so quickly I hardly had time to describe Anne’s condition. We were all encouraged by the fact that Anne recovered sufficiently to make sure her swag was collected prior to making her grand exit. Moments later, we arrived separately at Fairview Hospital’s ER.
Our Fairview Hospital experience was everything that the Cedars-Sinai ER experience was not. Talk about concierge service. Anne was wheeled right into her own little sick bay. She had the entire ER to herself, literally. We could hear a pin drop. The nurses, physician, and hospital staff could not have been more gracious and were clearly grateful to have a patient, albeit one that only needed an IV. Thoughts of “this is what it must have been like to be a Maytag repair person” came to mind as these wonderful medical professionals happily scurried about providing care. They were plainly pleased to be called on to flex their treatment muscles. They could not have been kinder or more thoughtful or more attentive.
The only thing truly similar at the two ERs was the diagnosis and medical advice. Anne survived once again, discharged with advice to both hydrate with electrolytes and to consume salt before going out on scorching summer nights. Gatorade and pretzels. Got it.
Boy did I have it wrong. I assumed the world-famous hospital would provide a better patient experience, while it turns out the real gem has been right here all along. Like Dorothy, I have come to understand that if I ever again go looking for a desired hospital, I won’t look any further than my own backyard. Now I know: There is no place like Fairview.
