The unsung heroes who make this doctor’s work possible l Expert Opinion

During one of my recent rotations, I fell into an efficient routine of placing pharmacy orders for my patients after their operations. Because the patients continued to do well and went home in a few days, I kept on doing it the exact same way.

Then one day, as I looked through a patient’s chart, I noticed that the orders were slightly different from how I had placed them. I asked the other members of my team what happened.

“Oh, the pharmacist said this dose would be more appropriate for this patient,” my intern said.

“And we typically hold these types of medications for someone like her after surgery,” the advanced practice providers chimed in.

“I had no idea,” I replied, “Hopefully, I haven’t made too many other errors.”

“That’s why we are here,” they said with a smile.

With our busy and variable schedules, many of us seldom experience a patient’s hospital stay from beginning to end.

Because I spend most of the day in the operating room, I see patients briefly during morning and evening rounds, only snapshots of their clinical course.

Based on these brief encounters, when patients recover from a life-saving operation and go home in several days, I often feel tempted to believe that what I see tells the entire story – the simplicity, the overwhelming positive change, the lack of complications.

But there is always more to the story than what I see.

If we are lucky, there are people who constantly support or correct us, often even without our knowing or without wanting any credit. For me, these people comprise the rest of the team, including junior residents, advanced providers, and nurses who take care of our patients in the unit, on the floor, at the bedside each day.

Whether it is correcting orders or doing the time-consuming and often thankless day-to-day tasks of patient care that enable their recovery, these are the people who see and render possible the entire story. They allow us to remain blissfully ignorant of just how much work goes into making anything successful. They allow us to remain under the illusion that things move from point A to point B simply due to the passage of time.

Beyond the hospital, beyond health care, the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed all kinds of unsung heroes who were never properly noticed until they were sidelined. “Essential workers” is a new phrase to describe people in some of the least glamorous jobs, people who keep the gears of society turning in the background so the rest of us can live with conveniences we may only now be fully appreciating.

Like health-care professionals, retail workers, trash haulers, transit workers and countless others have continued to report to work in dangerous conditions.

Unlike the members of my team, however, many have lacked the protections they need to stay healthy. All too often, these are the people who end up in our hospitals, fighting for their lives and sometimes losing the battle.

As I advance in my training, I know that the demands of my job may take me further and further away from the bedside. My time with patients may become even more brief and even less frequent.

But my team’s dedication – and that of so many essential workers during this pandemic – have taught me an unforgettable lesson in how our achievements and even our lives can rely on the silent help of others.

Jason Han is a cardiac surgery resident at a Philadelphia hospital.