The clinical path and the disease process

Week 5
The clinical path and the disease process

This week, we only have one day clinical. It is nice that our instructor let us to come to the clinical site without prep. It reduced our paper work but challenged our time management skill and the ability to face the real patient care situation. We also discussed the clinical path and the disease process which made us realized the difference with theory and facts.

In theory, diseases have certain path to go, either better or worse, it is kink of black and white compared with the reality life with disease process. That is where the clinical path came from. It is other people’s experiences, other practitioner’s conclusion. Patients who have the same disease and treatment would most likely to go that way. But there always are some exceptions.

We discussed my patient this week which is a relatively young guy who went through a coronary bypass surgery. He was in post op day two, and already ambulating. His chest tubing drainage was only 40ml at my shift, which met the protocol to disconnect. He is pretty much following the clinical path. But on the other patient my classmate care of was a different story. He is much older in his 80s. I think he was post op of CABG week two and still there with lots of complications. As the ordinary clinical path, open heart patients should be discharged in a week. But this one was staying for another week at least. That is an example of exception.

Medicine is called “practice” because there are not always black and white answers. Same disease, same procedure with different patient can have different outcomes. It based on the individual’s health status, life style, and genetic variation and … as a student, it is very important for us to know there are differences, so we can be really careful with assessments, treatments and assistance. I appreciate our instructor leaded us for the discussion. Thanks.