Sometimes they may drink too much alcohol or have sex with more than one nurse at a time.
In an extremely small percentage of medical cases, a physician’s inaction may contribute slightly to the death of a patient, but too quick action on their part could gain the same result. Medicine is an art and not a science. Every problem is different and takes great patience to understand what exactly is going on.
One time in the past, my ex-mother-in-law developed tremendous nosebleed that would not resolve. At the first hospital she was admitted to, she had five blood transfusions and four surgeries to stop the bleeding all to no avail. My wife was crying and said her mother was going to die. I had her transferred to Johns Hopkins Hospital to the ENT service that was only a mile or so from where me and my wife lived so I could keep closer tabs on her.
After the transfer and another week in the hospital with four more surgeries and four more blood transfusions, I came home from work and my wife said, “you have to help her!” I pulled out my Harrison’s Textbook of medicine and read all about “Epistaxis” (Nosebleed). After reading for a 20 minutes or so, I told my wife to get her coat because I knew what was wrong with her mother.
I had a good relationship with her mother. When I walked into her hospital room, I pulled two tampons out of my pocket, told her to stuff them in her nose, get dressed and let’s go drinking! She laughed and wanted to go very badly. Then she asked me what was wrong with her. I smiled and said you are having vicarious menstruation from the sinuses (a menstrual period from her nose), because of the aspirin and female hormone replacement she had currently started. While they stopped the aspirin because of her bleeding at the first hospital, the doctors had not stopped the exogenous hormone replacement therapy.
I summoned the head ENT physician from his Ivory Tower to discuss her case. I told him my diagnosis and he laughed saying there is no such medical condition. With that I nearly threw him out an eighth story window. He was a little bastard and I had him in the air. My wife stopped me from throwing him out the window. I put him down and he called security (what a baby!).
Security came to the room immediately to arrest me. I told them to get the head of Johns Hopkins Hospital in there immediately before I hurt everyone involved (in those days I was a rather stout fellow). They called the head of the hospital in. He was one of my best friends at that time. We discussed this issue with the ENT doctor. The ENT doctor said this condition does not exist. Next, my buddy looked at me and asked me if I was 100% percent sure of my diagnosis. I said, “yes!” He then told the head of ENT to do exactly what I said or he would be fired on the spot. The head of the hospital liked my mother-in-law a great deal as well.
The ENT physician gave the order to stop the estrogen. My mother-in-law stopped bleeding the next morning and was released the by the next day’s lunchtime. Everyone involved in the situation except for security and the ENT doctor went out for a very expensive liquid lunch at the Center Club in Baltimore all on my banker father-in-law. I even invited a couple of extra of my family members to the affair because it was so unusual to see my tight-assed father-in-law with his wallet out.
Here is a case where the physician’s inactivity could have potentially caused my mother-in-law’s death; however, if the appropriate quest had been asked, two weeks in the hospital could have been avoided. I knew all of the information, because my dear sweet ex-mother-in-law would do nothing without talking to me first. Thank god!!
