Top-down hierarchies in health care harm patients and health care workers alike
As I lay abandoned on a stretcher in the hallway of my university hospital’s emergency room, I felt powerless in my ability to improve the quality of my care. Nurses bustled back and forth between patient rooms, too busy to give me the attention I deserved. My bladder was getting painfully full, but I was too weak to get up to use the restroom and unable to find anyone I …