“This”:http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0440133688/ref=sib_dp_pt/102-4774654-9271307#reader-link is a truly great book. It’s funny, it’s sad, and it’s truer to life than most people would like to contemplate. I did my internship and residency at a large referral hospital in New York City, and had quite a few amazing/disheartening experiences over the years (I spent a total of 15 years at this institution before I moved back to Red America).
I thought I might share a few of these anecdotes over the coming months. Some are short and funny, some long and troubling. I won’t use the real names of people or institutions, but everything else will be true (with allowances for the fact that I am recounting from memory things that happened up to 20 years ago).
*_House of Dog, Installment 1_*
I was on emergency receiving (5pm to midnight shift), and was evaluating an older female yorkie named Buttons that belonged to an equally elderly couple – the Goldsteins. They were very worried, because they had noticed some blood in Button’s stool (remember – in NYC we get to pick this stuff up), and were certain she had cancer. I did my physical exam, and found that Buttons had an abscess of the left anal sac – a fairly common problem, especially in smaller dogs. I took Buttons to the treatment room, expressed/flushed the anal sac, and prescribed some antibiotics. I went back to the exam room to talk to the Goldsteins about what I had found, thinking they would be relieved at the good news that her condition wasn’t life threatening. So I explained that Buttons had a problem with her anal sac, at which point Mr. Goldstein went absolutely ballistic. He was yelling and screaming, calling me some very un-nice names (this was my first exposure to Yiddish), and got so worked up that Mrs. Goldstein started crying hysterically. They grabbed Buttons from the nurse, told me they were never coming back, and stormed out – not even stopping at the pharmacy to pick up the antibiotics I had prescribed. I was stunned, but things were busy and we had to keep seeing cases – so I moved on to the next case and tried to put the Goldseins out of my mind until my shift was over. My plan was to call them the next morning to try and figure out why they were so upset, and to be sure that Buttons got appropriate care, even if it was at another veterinary hospital.
I went in to rounds the following morning, and then got ready to start my 8am clinic duty. Before my first case arrived, I was paged to the office of the hospital director. Figuring it must have something to do with the Goldsteins, I was a little nervous as I headed upstairs to the administrative offices. I walked into the director’s office – he told me to have a seat, and then launched into a “I need to talk to you about a case you saw last night….” speech. Yep – it had to be the Goldsteins. I told my version of the story, at which point the director started to chortle (we will talk about him a LOT in future installments). “So, you told them that Buttons was bleeding because of her anal sacs, eh?” I said yes, and that something about that had made them very mad. “Well”, said the director, “Mr. Goldstein heard that Buttons was bleeding because of anal sex, and thought you were accusing him of sexually molesting the family pet”. Turns out Mr. Goldstein was hard of hearing, but didn’t like to admit it. We got things straightened out, got Buttons on antibiotics, and I took care of her for a few more years. She died at the ripe old age of 16 of progressive congestive heart failure. The last time I saw them was when I put Buttons to sleep back in intensive care, and then brought her up for them to say their last goodbyes. They walked out of the exam room, and then Mrs. Goldstein came back and gave me a hug. Then they left and were gone forever.