Grudge

There was this incident 2 days ago…. I overheard the conversation while I was called to the ward. I decided to dig the story and finally get a good picture.

There was this patient admitted by LEM 1+ weeks ago. A bed-ridden patient admitted for fever. No obvious infection focus was noted and the patient was admitted to the chest physician. Antibiotic was shifted from parenteral to oral as no obvious focus was noted. However the fever persisted and later parenteral antibiotic was restarted. About 1 week after the admission a swelling over the pustule was noted over a swelling at the right inguinal region and the testes appeared to be swollen. The surgeon was consulted and testes incarceration was impressed. However the family had declined surgery.

After the consultation the surgeon had however commented (the nurses had used the word “bombard” instead) in a very loud tone with his nursing specialist at another nursing counter regarding the consultation[?delay of noticing the infection focus]. The conversation was of course overheard by the chest physician. Later that day, the nurses had described that the chest physician had shown a very long face….

The comment was done purposely in a very high tone – the surgeon had apparently wanted the chest physician to hear it.

I had shared the story with Lem and he told me that their grudge had started many months ago. The chest physician had not only once commented about the management of the surgeon over medical condition, however the main insult started over a referral patient. The chest physician had a patient referred for surgery but did not transfer the patient to the service of the surgeon after the surgery. The surgeon had told his nursing specialist to ask about the transfer of the patient. However upon request, the chest physician had told her in a sarcastic way (by using Taiwanese) – “ you can clasp the patient over [with chop stick] as your side dishes”. This was an impolite way to say it…

No wander the surgeon wanted to humiliate him publicly at the nursing station.

Indeed, the chest physician is overloaded with patient – he had too many patients under his service. From time to time, he would have patients(especially nursing home resident) re-admitted after 1-2 days of discharge. One of my senior(Malaysian current head of internal medicine dept in another hospital) who had worked with him had warned me about him prior to his arrival – a calculative person who tends to avoid anything which is not profitable to him…. I had stopped to admit irrelevant patient to him months ago after re-admitting those patient and wiping his ass in the midnight ( inserting CVP to patient who was in shock since afternoon as the only thing he does was hydrating without CVP).

During yesterday morning meeting, the chest physician was still in a low mode –

I would be very upset seeing a patient died slowly with his scrotum gangrene slowly...

I hope their paying back game ends here....