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The Patient Who Reminded Me I’m Human
As an untrained E.R. doctor, all I wanted was to make it through the night
My very first surgical case involved a man who had been stabbed in the neck. As a medical student, I was asked to apply and hold pressure to this man’s wound while a great debate raged regarding the status of his carotid artery. When my hand grew tired and slipped, the question was answered. Blood spewed across the room. I had settled the debate with action, not thought, making me perfect surgical material.
Following this baptism by fire, I matched into a urology residency position and made my way down to New Orleans, Louisiana, where I worked at Charity Hospital. My first two years, of the six I spent there, took place in general surgery. I learned to care for all manner of violence and havoc that humans wreak upon one another, and I became intimately familiar with chest cracking, heart massaging, and pronouncing yet another man dead. On most days, there was so much blood in the operating room that it would soak right through my gown, my scrubs, and then into that final, tight-white-cotton barrier. Just another day at the office.
I had kids, a house, and two cars. I was moonlighting on my days off to make ends meet. South Louisiana Medical Center, in Houma, Louisiana, was a Sisters of Charity Hospital. It…
