Love Is the Best Medicine by Dr. Nick Trout

Author:Dr. Nick Trout [Trout, Dr. Nick]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-7679-3199-1
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2010-08-28T04:00:00+00:00

Apologize profusely and pray she forgives you.

Document the entire event in the medical record, including all communications during the aftermath.

Contact your malpractice insurance company, describe the event, and seek their advice.

Tell Ms. Adelaide not to worry, you will send her the bill later.

Don’t be so ridiculous as to charge Ms. Adelaide for stabbing her in the hand.

Don’t be so ridiculous as to not charge her, since this is tantamount to an admission of wrongdoing.

Later, one or more of these thoughts might have stood a chance, but in the heat of the moment Neil instinctively did the one thing he believed would best demonstrate how perfectly harmless this accident had been.

“No harm done,” he said, plunging the same needle into his forearm, trying to keep the demonic out of his smile.

“Oh my God,” screamed Ms Adelaide, “you’ve given me cat AIDS!”

And it wasn’t this impossibility that suddenly lunged at Neil, it was the realization that he had foolishly but voluntarily shared needles with a virtual stranger.

Personally I have never thought to use self-mutilation as a “get out of jail free card,” but here’s the thing: as unorthodox and unprofessional as Neil’s spontaneous approach to this accident may have been, as easy and justifiable as it would have been to seek alternative veterinary care, Ms. Adelaide remained loyal to Neil. Despite the drama, the eccentricities, and the sharing of bodily fluids, Ms. Adelaide could overlook her personal incompatibility with Neil because his determination to help Arthur, at considerable risk to himself, remained transparent and unwavering. When a pet owner has the vision to see genuine intention, even huge blunders can be overlooked.

And besides, no one else in the practice wanted to handle her cat.

THE second horror story that kept me awake that night concerned a surgical colleague whom I’ll call Mike and a nine-month-old male basset hound called Pickle. Basset hounds are intended to have short bowed legs, but Pickle’s right front leg was not growing properly. It was so twisted that his paw turned out at ninety degrees to his body, the poor dog’s walking gait looking more like a flapper dancing the Charleston.

Pickle was owned by an assertive woman in her early twenties, vocal about the cost of her pedigree “lemon.”

“For as much as the dog cost, I reckoned on breeding him,” she said. “But what with his gimpy leg an’ all I might as well get his balls taken off. I mean, who’s gonna want to pay for some of them genes?”

Mike was confident that the deformity was traumatic in origin and not hereditary, and he went on to discuss corrective surgical options. The owner thanked him but did not want to schedule the procedure. Mike forgot about the case until Pickle showed up unexpectedly some six weeks later ready for his surgery.

For a couple of hours, saws hummed and drills buzzed until symmetry was restored, Mike shrewdly shaving and prepping both front legs to include them in his sterile surgical field so he would have a normal basset leg for comparison.

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