Four Swampers
Picture is Disney Wonder at Cabo San Lucas
- Joined
- Feb 7, 2012
- Messages
- 998
I am a pediatrician. I have toured the DCL health center facilities on the Magic and the Wonder. After noticing some concerns here on the boards, I would like to make a few general statements about doctors and a couple general statements about DCL health care facilities. As I have no actual knowledge of specific events, I shall try hard not to address any specific events, but rather just some general concepts that can occur in similar situations.
First, we doctors aren't House. Nor any of the doctors you saw on e.r. The most accurate show about medicine ever to air on t.v. was Scrubs. We are regular people. As a pediatrician, I have zero chance of successfully removing your appendix, and there are a ton of adult medicines that I have never heard of.
Second, the DCL facilities are great. They have everything they need to treat any emergency. That does not mean they are a hospital with a pediatric ward. It does not mean they should have a patient staying in the health center when they can be evacuated safely to a land based facility. It just means they have crash carts (meds for people who have had a cardiac or respiratory emergency), burn kits, IV fluids, etc. But at the end of the day, this is a cruise line, not a hospital.
Third, the doctor on board has to be the doctor for the passengers and the crew. That doctor has to be able to care for babies, toddlers, children, parents, grandparents, and crewmembers who might suffer severe mechanical injury (such as a crushed arm) or a chemical burn while working in the engine room, or on a ledge on the side of the ship. They are hired through a staffing agency that works for much of the cruise industry. Often, the doctors come from South Africa, because their training is more generalized than in the USA. A South African doctor gets trained in kids, adults, and surgery to a greater extent than almost any US doc. Frankly, if I was staffing a cruise ship, I would choose one of the docs I have met on a cruise over myself any day. But again, we should remember that they aren't a fictional television character, whose lines are created by a half dozen writers and a couple of different medical advisers. They can't know everything.
It occurs to me that even on land, patients get transferred from one hospital to another if the second is better able to care for them. Last night, I had two different emergency rooms call me and ask if I would admit a child from their er to our hospital. This is standard procedure, as their hospitals don't have pediatric facilities. Yet those hospitals would be far better able to care for a sick child than any cruise ship, simply because of access to resources. With multiple doctors at the hospital and a pediatrician only a phone call away, they probably could take a child. Yet they shouldn't; the child is much better off at a pediatric hospital. Likewise, DCL's health center could care for a child, but they shouldn't; the child is much better off at a land based hospital.
Please, I'm not looking for an argument or flames of any kind. I just want people to understand that I feel the general setup and staffing of the DCL health center is excellent, and that I am quite comfortable with my friends and family going on Disney Cruises.
First, we doctors aren't House. Nor any of the doctors you saw on e.r. The most accurate show about medicine ever to air on t.v. was Scrubs. We are regular people. As a pediatrician, I have zero chance of successfully removing your appendix, and there are a ton of adult medicines that I have never heard of.
Second, the DCL facilities are great. They have everything they need to treat any emergency. That does not mean they are a hospital with a pediatric ward. It does not mean they should have a patient staying in the health center when they can be evacuated safely to a land based facility. It just means they have crash carts (meds for people who have had a cardiac or respiratory emergency), burn kits, IV fluids, etc. But at the end of the day, this is a cruise line, not a hospital.
Third, the doctor on board has to be the doctor for the passengers and the crew. That doctor has to be able to care for babies, toddlers, children, parents, grandparents, and crewmembers who might suffer severe mechanical injury (such as a crushed arm) or a chemical burn while working in the engine room, or on a ledge on the side of the ship. They are hired through a staffing agency that works for much of the cruise industry. Often, the doctors come from South Africa, because their training is more generalized than in the USA. A South African doctor gets trained in kids, adults, and surgery to a greater extent than almost any US doc. Frankly, if I was staffing a cruise ship, I would choose one of the docs I have met on a cruise over myself any day. But again, we should remember that they aren't a fictional television character, whose lines are created by a half dozen writers and a couple of different medical advisers. They can't know everything.
It occurs to me that even on land, patients get transferred from one hospital to another if the second is better able to care for them. Last night, I had two different emergency rooms call me and ask if I would admit a child from their er to our hospital. This is standard procedure, as their hospitals don't have pediatric facilities. Yet those hospitals would be far better able to care for a sick child than any cruise ship, simply because of access to resources. With multiple doctors at the hospital and a pediatrician only a phone call away, they probably could take a child. Yet they shouldn't; the child is much better off at a pediatric hospital. Likewise, DCL's health center could care for a child, but they shouldn't; the child is much better off at a land based hospital.
Please, I'm not looking for an argument or flames of any kind. I just want people to understand that I feel the general setup and staffing of the DCL health center is excellent, and that I am quite comfortable with my friends and family going on Disney Cruises.
But do not ask me to look in a kid's ears, or prescribe kids' medicines. No good would come of it.
Happily, they can!
