#13 Relax its negative.
I do HIV testing in a hospital and last night I was not able to sleep, hence the next morning was I was super tired during my work hours. A guy came for a test, we had a pre-counselling session, after his test was conducted I told him to wait for sometime till the result were out. After sometime the guy came back to collect his results, I made him sit and the very fist thing came from my mouth was "Your reports are positive" I saw a terrifying look on his face, and just seconds later I realised that I made a huge mistake. I said "Oh no no no, I meant to say its negative." That look on his face was so terrifying that I almost gave that guy a heart attack!
#12 Illiteracy and embarrassment.
It was 3am in the morning, and I was called to the ER to admit someone. This person just a few weeks ago had his gall bladder removed, and now had an infection at the surgical-site. When I asked them that did he took his post operation medicines that were prescribed, he was not sure about it. It made me more frustrated, because I came to help him breaking my sleeping and he was not uttering a word from his mouth. I decided to use a "pregnant pause" interview technique, and just shut up. There was a moment of silence in the room. The guy then looked down at his feet and started to cry, and said "I can't read, and never could." hence he was not knowing that he had to buy medicines for himself, He was so embarrassed about it that he didn't ask the doctors about it.
In many parts of rural and urban places illiteracy is a major problem. And that's what happened with this guy.
#11 Doctor who forgot to check blood sugar.
I was a new paramedic, when this incident occurred. We got call from a house regarding an unknown problem, so we visited that place. When we reached that house, a patient was lying on bed, he was totally unresponsive. It was his friend who found him like this. They were supposed to go out that night, and when this guy (patient) didn't called him, he came to his house and found him like this. When we looked around we didn't find any pill bottles, also his friend didn't knew anything about his medical history. So I decided to take him to our hospital, I called the ambulance and on the way i started an IV, did an ECG, drew blood work. When we reached at the hospital the nurse asked me "What's his blood sugar level?" I just completely forgot to check that. When we checked it, it was very low and that's why he was lying unresponsive. This problem was completely treatable, and their was no need to take him to the hospital.
#10 Concentrate on one thing at a time.
I'm a pharmacy technician, there was one time when I was very much stressed and was just rushing to finish off my work. In a hurry I used prednisone 50mg, instead of 5mg. The pharmacist didn't catch the mistake which i made, while putting my stock bottles away, I saw the mistake and realised it before it was too late. I was lucky that the bottles had not gone out yet, so I corrected it and made a promise to myself that I will be concentrating at one task at a time without rushing it. After few months someone made the same mistake and no one realised it and the patient ended up in the hospital for few month.
#9 I'm a doctor.
The rural emergency room called for my first ever clinical rotation where I came across a woman whose experience was a nightmare for most women- a miscarriage, not for the first time, but second. To add up to this stress, her husband was not around her. She too was new to this town where no face seemed familiar. We had to tell her about the diagnosis. After hearing about it, she couldn't speak a word but her teary eyes spoke a lot. But further arrangements called us. No apologies and no comfort by the doctor stepped in which I wanted to do.
I went to her room to give her the appointment time, she was broken. Of course it wouldn't have taken more than a few seconds to talk to her, comfort her, call someone, or simply offer her some tissues. I knew these loving gestures would help her, but I did not do it. Unfortunately my fear of not knowing if too many emotions oozed out or slowing down the doctor , stop me from being human. But of all it, I do what my gut tells me. From soothing babies of exhausted parents, to picking up broken down families, to having fun discussing heroes from comics with kids getting painful stitches, because that's the kind of a personality I own and a doctor I want to become.
#8 Just trying to prove myself.
I was working under a oncologist, while doing follow-ups, I usually used to get fucked up while prescribing the drug, but I was lucky that, I was been supervised all the time. To prove myself I decided to ask something smart to the oncologist. We were consulting a women who had a mastectomy surgery. I asked the doctor "What is the probability of recurrence of the cancer?" I was not supposed to ask that in front the patient. I just sacred the shit out the patient. I fucked up again and felt like a total asshole.
#7 Regret.
I worked as a medic in the military for 16 years. One soilder came to me for the treatment. It was a Physical therapy and the patient seemed to be depressed alot. He had a very bad nerve damage along with other injuries. For example if he bent down to touch his toes he used a get a sever pain in the back.
After spending few days of treatment, the paitent was making progress, that day I was more focused on the therapy and was really very happy that he was showing improvement. But, when I looked at him he was not really very happy about it and was constantly making comments about how it won't matter to him. At the end of the session, I told him to meet me next week, he didn't say anything and just left.
After a weekend, he hung himself. I still wonder if I paid attention to his comments, I would have probably made him feel comfortable and he would have been alive. From that day, I now pay attention to friends mood swings and signs of depression. Just wish I had done the same 16 years ago.
#6 What should have happened?
I was a student in a medical college back then, one day was left alone in a emergency department of a small hospital. I admitted an old man who was suffering from upper abdominal pain on the right side. It was not that serious after all. I scheduled an ultrasound and then called a surgeon to check him. The surgeon agreed with my diagnosis. After 30 minutes the patient suddenly died. We tried every possible way to get him back to life but it was all useless. This incident took place long years back but still it bothers me everyday. I'll never trust a simple upper abdominal pain again.
#5 Think twice before you speak.
I'm a very big technological freak, it was the time when I heard LVAD, and after listening to it I said "Wow that's really cool." LVDA is a left ventricular assist device used for heart failure patient, that continuously circulates blood in a parallel circuit to the left ventricle to keep the patient alive.
The patient was also a jokester he replied "It's really cool if it's not inside you." I apologised to him and told him that I meant the sound and the technology. It made me realise that day, that I should think twice before saying anything in such situations. It was a cool technology I agree, but I should have understood the paitients pain too.
#4 Use your words carefully.
Being a nuclear medicine technologist in the PET Dept, dealing with cancer patients is my forte. Prior to each test, I usually ask the patients about why they are having the test done and confirm with their knowledge of the required vital information. With many usual days, a day which taught me a lot came across. A lady complained of having a lump in her breasts; wherein she was then asked to go for a mammogram, further a biopsy. The reports were unfortunate, suggesting a stage four invasive ductal breast cancer. After confirmation of this information with the patients papers, I said something which I shouldn't have, "sounds good". Immediately after saying it, her agitated and irritated voice said "no, it's actually pretty fucking terrible" and then she broke down in tears. I regret having said those two inappropriate words and would never utter them when a patient tells me his diagnosis
#3 Be careful net time.
I will remember this incident for life long, it was my very first mistake as an EMT. We had a patient in the back of our ambulance in a gurney, and he was suffocating so was in a need of oxygen via cannula. Basically the gurney O2 tank is smaller than the tank on the ambulance, so we swtiched the pipe to over the gurney to the ambulance tank. There was a small hose attached to the ambulance wall which supplies oxygen to the patient. As this was my first time, I forgot to switch back the hose to the gurney after removing the gurney from the back. I choked the shit out of his face when the hose tightened. That guy thought he did something wrong. He then started laughing when I told him the incident.
#2 Total confusion.
I was taking care of a man with a liver failure, who's liver cannot be transplanted for some reason. He was having certain brain malfunctioning which resulted him in confusion. We were having a talk, and I gave him a cup of water to take his pills. He took the pills in his mouth and took a sip of water and said "That's piss." When I checked the cup, it was really a piss. This happend because he got confused between the cup and his urinal, and used the cup instead and forget about it. After this incident I always check before handing people cups from their bedside tables.
#1 An unintentional mistake.
A few years ago, I used to work as a medical assistant in an interventional pain management clinic. My senior doctor told me to put a grounding pad (a sticky pad like they use for EKG's) on the patient's leg during a radiofrequency (RF) nerve ablation procedure. Before putting the pad some kind of lotion was applied on the patients leg, so that the pad was able to stay at its place. The pad ended up partially coming off right as the high-voltage RF was being applied, causing a small burn on her leg. Luckily there was no lasting damage done and the patient was very understanding, but I still feel terrible about it, because it was the first time that because of me the patient got hurt.
