I was just a medical student. Called the senior resident when Mr. D wouldn’t wake up. Myxedema coma, likely triggered by the small dose of Ativan I ordered for him the night before. It was 36 years ago and I still think about him all the time.
At least you were kinda trying to do the right thing. We had a resident who insisted we hold a man down for a POC glucose fingerstick just because there A1C from a week ago said the EAG was like 400 and we had a court order for psych treatment.
Like sir. I’m not starting the precedent of restraining this man 4x daily to stab his fingers. He’s probably been living at 400 for months (if not years), a week or two more waiting for the antipsychotics to hit isn’t gonna do all that much more damage. Also idt the paperwork was completely in order to apply medical treatments under the psychiatric court order (not that I was super concerned about a homeless psych patient being able to hire a lawyer anyway but–). You you know what’s gonna really convince this man that both diabetes and hypertension really are government conspiracies to torture him? Restraining him 4x a day to stab his fingers over them.
Anyway he didn’t call the senior resident. ALL the nurses told him no so he called his Attending. at 9pm. ON A SATURDAY.
Holy shit man. I am sorry for your pain. It’s definitely not your fault and insane that you could conceivably be put in a position to do that—and I’m sure no one would let that happen to you today in med school. Not your fault for the patient condition nor the condition that set you up to administer unsafe care.
I was just a medical student. Called the senior resident when Mr. D wouldn’t wake up. Myxedema coma, likely triggered by the small dose of Ativan I ordered for him the night before. It was 36 years ago and I still think about him all the time.
At least you were kinda trying to do the right thing. We had a resident who insisted we hold a man down for a POC glucose fingerstick just because there A1C from a week ago said the EAG was like 400 and we had a court order for psych treatment.
Like sir. I’m not starting the precedent of restraining this man 4x daily to stab his fingers. He’s probably been living at 400 for months (if not years), a week or two more waiting for the antipsychotics to hit isn’t gonna do all that much more damage. Also idt the paperwork was completely in order to apply medical treatments under the psychiatric court order (not that I was super concerned about a homeless psych patient being able to hire a lawyer anyway but–). You you know what’s gonna really convince this man that both diabetes and hypertension really are government conspiracies to torture him? Restraining him 4x a day to stab his fingers over them.
Anyway he didn’t call the senior resident. ALL the nurses told him no so he called his Attending. at 9pm. ON A SATURDAY.
spoiler
she told him no
Thank you for standing up for those without much of a voice to be heard
Holy shit man. I am sorry for your pain. It’s definitely not your fault and insane that you could conceivably be put in a position to do that—and I’m sure no one would let that happen to you today in med school. Not your fault for the patient condition nor the condition that set you up to administer unsafe care.