Medical Life
“As a rule, Medi-Cal patients are the most demanding as a group of patients. They pay nothing for their services, and they expect everything. They are the group that’s most likely to complain about everything.”
The father who abandoned Rashaad and his mother when Rashaad was three months old was watching that channel in a neighborhood bar. Hours later, Melvin Green showed up in the pediatric intensive care unit.
Boyer’s and Bailey’s bodies lay quiet in the sun; time hadn’t passed for muscles to stiffen, and limbs were still limp. Bailey — six or seven holes in his neck and torso — had gurgled …
"American is being held to a higher standard than Hartson. Hartson was required to arrive at the scene within ten minutes of dispatch 90 percent of the time; American must arrive on scene 93 percent of the time."
"I know how it can be frightening to some people. It’s not frightening to me. If the sharp instruments are dealt with in the proper manner, you won’t get hurt. I’m not going to catch AIDS by touching somebody."
The patient's bald head was visible beneath a tangle of tubing monitored by Dr. John Ahlering, the anesthesiologist. He would be answering most of my questions in a quiet voice during the procedure.
Her name was Jessica. Chubby arms and thighs, the skin electric with the immense energy of growth. No obvious illness, no dehydration or apparent pain here. Chewing on the stethoscope tube. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
Mr. Ellington is furious. He’s just been talked to about the dangers of smoking in the presence of running oxygen. Fortunately, he’s out of cigarettes, but he’s demanding more and is ready to “blow this joint up.”
"The pre-med nerd sits in the front row in his classes and asks questions all the time to display his knowledge;' explains Hu. "Usually he already knows the answer. He takes furious notes and carries a tape recorder."
‘‘We only joke about the ones where there was nothing we could have done that would have made any difference. That makes them fair game for humor. If you had someone you really worked hard on,...."
Bruce Harrison (the resident) once presented to Dr. Caton a heroin addict who had seen a friend shoot the addict’s wife to death in an argument over a color television. The addict, promised revenge on the killer.
A resident with a slow Texas drawl regales the group with gossip about DeBakey, the famous Houston cardiac surgeon. “He is such an autocrat, a bastard, he makes the chief of this surgery department look like a pussycat.”
“A little tootsie trouble, I see.” He waited patiently as I struggled gingerly with my shoe and sock, then glanced very briefly at my exposed appendage. He didn’t touch it. I would have hated to do so myself.
The police officer pushes his prisoner, locked in a wheelchair, through the Emergency Room doors. The man, a well-dressed scuffler, sits with his head on his chest and says nothing as the officer checks in …