On the Rez ( Reservation) Part 3 Our conversation was suddenly interrupted when the on call doctor, David, came running up with a very anxious look on his face. David was a pediatrician, a long term physician with the Indian Health Service. With agitation, he told us that one of our patients had an aneurysm which seemed to be rupturing. The patient, a 67 year old Assiniboine Indian, had a known abdominal aneurysm, and that night had been stricken with severe abdominal pain, a precipitous drop in blood pressure and weak distal pulses. Get Steve, the pediatrician barked; Steve being the only one with surgical training. I explained that Steve was in a bar and would be in no shape to operate. Get him anyway. I argued that Steve was already semi-drunk when I left him, and he was undoubtedly in worse shape now. Dave then asked Chuck to haul Steve back to the hospital. About fifteen minutes passed and then, coming toward us, made visible by the dim street-lamps, we could see Steve staggering in our general direction. With slurred speech, barely coherent, Steve expressed his eagerness to operate on the poor, ailing Indian. Operating on a rupturing abdominal aneurysm can be a risky and difficult procedure in the best of circumstances. With an emergency room poorly equipped for surgery, a drunk surgeon assisted by a dermatologist, and no easy means of blood transfusion, our patient would be doomed if we allowed Steve to operate. In his intoxicated state, it was easy for us, with the help of the hospital security guard to hold Steve back and prevent him from fulfilling his ambition. Somehow, by pumping him with fluids, maintaing his blood pressure and good medical care, miracle of miracles, our patient survived the night. He was helicoptered into Billings the next morning. Later in the day, we were elated to hear that our patient had been successfully operated on and was doing fine.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Jun 2013 04:56:22 +0000
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