Wednesday, April 25, 2007

MAD MAD DOGS WORKING IN A MAD MAD WORLD

  • I was oncall at the Male Medical Ward during my first year as a House Officer & was having a really busy night. The staff nurse woke me up at 5.30 in morning to review a patient who had just been admitted. I had just gone to bed for less than half an hour & felt really groggy. I must have looked horrible because the first question the patient asked me was, “Are you okay?” & he was having a heart attack at that time!

  • SSH, a colleague & a good friend of mine, was seeing patients at the Gynae Clinic when she was post-call one morning. She was so tired that she actually fell asleep while talking to a patient. She woke up only when her forehead fell onto the table.

  • On another occasion, SSH had written her own name on the “Patient’s name” column of the discharge summary meant for a lady who had just delivered a baby.

  • On at least 2 occasions, I’ve written my own name as the “Procedure to be performed” on the Operation Consent Form.

  • I was on-call with a new Medical Officer, CY, when a patient in the Male Surgical Ward suddenly collapsed in the middle of the night. We resuscitated him for an hour & managed to revive him. Unfortunately, about 2 hours later, he succumbed to his illness. That was around 4 o’clock in the morning. We were all very tired. CY was writing the Death Certificate when he suddenly jumped up and startled everyone…...He had written his own name as “The Deceased”.

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