Here's a suggestion for the people who think up the routines for patient room visits by medical staff. Step back for a second and try to consider things from the patients' perspective.
What am I talking about? "My person" is visited by many people every day, a large number of whom ask precisely the same questions. Not sort of the same questions but precisely the same questions. Among those who pose these questions: doctors, nurses, fellows, residents, interns, and medical students.
This process is both the way that staff learns what's going on and also provides necessary education for the students. I respect this. But when the questions begin by waking patients up to ask them, only to have another person come in, say, 15 minutes later to ask the same thing, then something is not quite right.
A few days ago, my person respectfully asked that the medical students at least come in with the residents so that there were fewer interruptions in the early morning (by which I mean 5:30 am). Thus, a note was taped to the door saying something along the lines that medical students should consult the nurses before coming into the room.
I'm not sure what happened but my person, who's had very little sleep in the past few days due to protracted testing late into the night plus the beloved dawn interrogations, was trying to take a nap this afternoon when a medical student knocked loudly and came into the room. I don't believe this person did stop at the desk to ask for permission because she made quite a bit of noise, even as I tried to fend her off. Regardless, she started to ask the very same questions that had been asked barely 45 minutes earlier...even as she could see the patient was sleeping.
Perhaps she was embarrassed. I don't know but she made a clatter leaving, both in the way she closed the curtain and the way she shut the door. I'm sure she's a very nice person, I'm sure she needs to learn, but someone needs to think this through a little better. She doesn't need to learn more than my person needs to sleep.
My solution was to ask the nurse to put a note on the door saying simply: "Patient sleeping. Do not disturb." I removed it promptly when my person woke up.