“Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of the employees, they will take care of the clients.” – Sir Richard Branson.
Its 2.15 am in the morning (and 4.20 am by the time I finished penning it down) and I just can’t stop thinking and thanking my stars for how lucky I feel to be a part of Dr. L.H. Hiranandani Hospital, an organization that has given me the opportunity of a dream job so early in my career and at a young age of 29. In the last 4 months that I have been part of the organization, I have received uninterrupted support and encouragement from everyone at the hospital, right from the top management, the Human Resources & administrative department, all the consultants, the nursing team, purchase department, housekeeping staff, security, etc to set up a department which I thought the hospital deserved long time back.
I have no shame in accepting that the Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital where I did my post graduate residency from has the best ‘functional’ emergency department in western India, but with the kind of work that we have been able to do at my institution over the last 3-4 months, we have successfully set up a state of the art Accident & Emergency department, ready with its infrastructure, documentation & the SOPs, medications, equipment, etc.
There would very few people on the planet who would say that they love their ‘job’, they look forward to Monday mornings and that their boss is good. Well, I’m among those few who have their passion as their job and even a single day spent away from my work place now makes the day seem incomplete.
I still remember my first 3 months at the hospital. We have an 8 bedded (+2 OTs) A&E now, which was known as casualty then. Every morning when I used to come to work, I would see that out of the 8 beds, 6-7 of the beds were always occupied with patients for Intravenous therapy, Electroconvulsive therapy, Endoscopies, Ascitic tapping, urine catheter insertion and removal, rectal enemas, etc and we were dealing with very few real emergencies. I wondered then that if that is the kind of emergency department that I’m going to work in, I don’t think I’m going to stay for more than 1 month. It was only at the insistence of and counseling from Dr. Anurag Naik (our Medical Director) that I decided that I should settle down first and then think about bringing about the radical changes slowly.
I used to work from 8 am till 4.15 pm, come back home by 5 pm and get back to work again from home designing all the paperwork and forms, sending emails, making phone calls and it used to become a regular routine wherein I was working till 10 in the night, just to set up the department I can now boast of.
It really was a proud moment for me when I presented the overview of the emergency medicine as a specialization and my A&E department during the clinical meet in January in front of 60-80 doctors from the hospital, including the top management, and receiving a big round of applause from the audience and special praise from Dr. Sujit Chatterjee (our hospital CEO). “You really have done a commendable job Mohit, hope you continue to keep up the good work”, were his exact words which still keep ringing in my ears, motivating me further to fulfill the high expectations that everyone has from our department now.
The ambiance at the work place, recognition for your work, the appreciation by your superiors, a cooperative management, the feeling to be wanted, etc are important aspects why an employee would love their place of work and the company or the organization. I’m amazed to see that there are so many doctors, nurses and others who became part of this Hiranandani hospital family right from the start of the hospital and never left!!
Apart from our constant endeavor to provide the best and quality treatment to all our patients, I feel that this hospital is so much lively unlike the previous hospitals I have worked with or seen. Luckily, I joined at a time when the sports day and the annual day were just around the corner and I won a few trophies. Winning and losing is only a part of such events, most importantly, I made such good friendship and bonding with many people in the hospital whom I would have never even met during routine days at work.
To garnish the overall last few months here, was an opportunity to be a part of a singing group for a performance on occasion of the 12th anniversary of the hospital. An exceptionally vibrant, full of energy song, ‘Hall of Fame’ was chosen by our CEO. It still gives me goosebumps thinking about how we came about from the day we had just started practicing to where we ended, it surely was an exceptional performance. We still continue to have a whatsapp group where we still talk about our performance and are already planning for another rocking performance next year. (Dr. Chatterjee Sir, if you are reading this post, I want to say that I’m just amazed and in complete awe of your dynamism and energy levels, and that you surely have a fan following. It really would not have been such a rocking performance without all your inputs during the rehearsals.)
I also received an award called the Care Award 2015- for caring beyond THE ORDINARY. It was for the 1st time in the history of the hospital that ‘a doctor’ had received it. I really could not control my tears and the emotions while our CEO read out a feedback email from one of my patient from the large screen on the stage, in front of a strong crowd of 1200-1500 hospital employees and guests, which included my parents.
To conclude, thank you God, and thank you Dr. L.H. Hiranandani Hospital for giving me this platform. I plan a long term career at this organization now, and with everyone’s support, guidance and motivation in years to come, will work with even more commitment and hard work to make the Accident & Emergency Department a jewel in the crown of the hospital.
P.S: Like most of my articles on this blog since 2008, the post was not to glorify my work or achievement. It was to capture in time, my honest opinion, emotions and the feeling racing through my mind, and to express my heartfelt gratitude towards a great hospital and everyone working here for all their love, support, motivation and recognition that I have received in the last 4-5 months. Also, the adrenaline, dopamine within and octane levels were still running high, 2 days after an electrifying hospital anniversary and I thought it is better to pen down the memories than to just smile thinking about it.