And I went through the same period
of shame and recriminations
and felt cleansed and went back to work,
until it happened again
and again and again.
Twice in one emergency shift,
I missed appendicitis.
Now that takes some doing,
especially when you work in a hospital
that at the time saw
but 14 people a night.
Now in both cases, I didn't send them home
and I don't think there
was any gap in their care.
One I thought had a kidney stone.
I ordered a kidney X-ray. When
it turned out to be normal,
my colleague who was doing
a reassessment of the patient
noticed some tenderness in the right
lower quadrant and called the surgeons.
The other one had a lot of diarrhea.
I ordered some fluids to rehydrate him
and asked my colleague to reassess him.
And he did
and when he noticed some tenderness in the right
lower quadrant, called the surgeons.
In both cases,
they had their operations
and they did okay.
But each time,