In observation we had a patient admitted with a nosebleed. Throughout the night shift, this patient continued to bleed. He bled so much that his hemoglobin dropped 3 grams overnight. There was a consult placed to the Ear Nose and Throat doctors, but nearly 13 hours after admission no one had come to see the patient. Harmony Jordan was the patient's nurse and began her shift trying to contact the ENT doctor who was consulted to update them on what was going on. She called to consulted group only to be told that they should not have accepted the consult because they were not on call. She then called the other group and was told there was no doctor available to come a see the patient. She did not stop there. She asked to speak with the office manager and was again told that 3 of the doctors were at a funeral, one was in Novi in the office seeing patients and the 5th one was in surgery in Novi and no one was available to come to see the patient. Being concerned for her patient, she pushed until she got the office manager to have the doctor in the office call her. When he did, he again told her that no one was available. She became a true patient advocate and would not take no for an answer. When she got off the phone with the ENT doc, she called the attending and explained that her patient was actively bleeding and she could not get an ENT doctor in to see the patient. The attending then began to suggest that we consider transferring the patient. The attending did not feel like we had any other choice. She then called the ENT doctor back and told him of the attending's decision to transfer the patient. The ENT doctor, then reluctantly told her that someone could be there in 45 minutes-1hour, but he was being pulled out of surgery to come and see the patient.
About 1 hour later the ENT doctor did arrive and treated the patient. He was in the room for over 1 hour trying to stop, what he called a "significant" bleed.
I truly believe if it wouldn't have been for Harmony's persistence and advocacy for her patient, we would have transferred this patient to another hospital for care. Because of her, the patient received the care he deserved and had a complete recovery and positive outcome. She spent the first 3 hours of her shift trying to coordinate all of this for her patient.