At the Horizon of Life & Death (Defenseless Warriors-1) by Pankaj Kumar

Author:Pankaj Kumar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Medical negligence, Medico-Legal, Hospital death, Choosing medical career, medical education
Publisher: Pankaj Kumar
Published: 2021-11-05T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Critic versus Warrior

Dr Wilson continued to impress everyone with his wonderful ability of performing difficult surgeries.

A sixty-year-old petite woman was brought to the hospital by her son. She had been unable to eat food for many months, had suffered severe weight loss and was looking cachexic. Ultimately when the Endoscopy and CT abdomen were done, the exact diagnosis of a deadly disease was confirmed.

She was suffering from Cancer of the Stomach.

She was very weak, fragile and weighed hardly around 40 kg. Her son had consulted at least three surgeons and all of them had refused to operate her, citing the risk to be too high. Considering her poor diabetic control, low albumin, age and advanced stage, the chances of her survival were quite dismal.

“We have consulted other surgeons too and they also told us about the low survival rates at this stage and high risk,” her son said.

“Survival rate for a couple of years will be around 10%, surgery itself will be risky,” Dr Wilson told the son.

A lot of discussions went through and the final decision was to operate her after good pre-surgical care-preparing her by improving her albumin and control of diabetes. Dr Wilson believed that optimizing these factors may be helpful to minimize the risk.

Anand sometimes wondered about his approach for accepting the challenge. Difficult and complicated surgeries, poor chances, refused by other surgeons- all such factors seemed to spur him further. If the guidelines said that surgery could be done, Dr Wilson used to accept the given surgical task.

One afternoon, Anand was working in the ICU. Dr Wilson walked to him and asked him to have a look at the patient in the ward.

“I will do the surgery and send the patient in your area for post-operative care,” he said and smiled.

Anand went to see the patient.

The patient was pleasant to talk to. She asked with a smile “Will I survive doctor? I want to live for a few more years.”

“Yes of course. We are taking all precautions. Have faith in God,” Anand said, holding her hand.

“I have a lot of faith in doctors. God has given me cancer and you people are trying to cure it,” she said, looking at Anand.

Anand smiled and thanked her.

In his mind, he appreciated her wisdom, correctness of the thought and words that she had uttered. Otherwise in the present era, people thank God rather than the doctor.

“What a wise soul,” he thought.

When coming out of the room, her son walked along with Anand.

“What is your opinion? Will it go successfully or is it a very risky one?” he asked Anand.

“I think you already had discussions with Dr Wilson. Whatever we are doing has chances of success around ten percent,” Anand didn’t want an elaborate discussion.

“Actually we have discussed at many places, and they say she may not tolerate surgery as she is very weak,” the son looked a bit anxious.

“I know. But if we do not do anything, then chances are zero percent. You need to sit with family and discuss it.

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