A siren whirrs, the doctors stir
The ED is teeming, a constant blur
The shouts and yells of caregivers had doth begin
Drowning out the beeping alarms above the din
The trolley on rusty wheels doth squeak
On it the young man motionless and meek
His septic shock is not a condition one would envy
He might otherwise appreciate the monitoring device so shiny and trendy
Sensors, pricks and alarms abound
His pain makes him yell but you hear no sound
His hope doth rest on the tireless doctors and nurses
In his mind, the gods responsible for his creation he curses
But such is the anomaly of the healthcare setting
A gamble of sorts, on science you’re betting
Despite the attention the pressure plummets as does the saturation
Time to intubate and start a norad infusion
The vitals are stable but the patient unconscious
Then begins the real battle, the civil war of the conscience
With financial strife an ICU is out of the question
How did we reach here, was there no moral injunction?
The anomaly of inequitable healthcare in every corner clamours
Yet simultaneously the technology advances are built to enamour
The exponential growth of research we relish
And adoption of the snazzy with a spirit so zealous
What about those who fall through the crevice?
And thus the financial anomaly unfolds
The system so warm and yet so bitterly cold
The real cost of medicine, the truly sardonic price
There lies no option but “Discharge against medical advice”
In a system so chaotic there seems not a moment too static
The flurry of patients, to be Hippocratic
The systems genome, along with its chromosomes, the media deems malevolent
Yet practitioners in their exhaustion do their utmost to remain empathetic and benevolent,
Sadly this monstrous system we’ve created makes it all too easy to move on and forget,
Patient number 34501, wheeled out in the sunset to his inevitable death
Doctorness 