There was this lady who was at a meeting in a church nearby. She had collapsed and weakness was noted. The church member had rushed her to our setting and my spot diagnosis after initial assessment was intracranial hemorrhage. However her blood pressure was not elevated on presentation and my spot diagnosis was wrong. Her CAT scan was normal and ischemic stroke was impressed. She is definite a candidate for rtPA and luckily our neuro-surgeon was on call. He saw her and the assessment for rtPA was completed within 10 mins. However it took a longer time for the explanation and discussion with the patient for consent.
The family had decided to proceed with the tPA infusion and I had done the preparation job and within 1 hours time, the patient was sent to ICU for further intervention.
30 minutes later, one of the patient’s daughter had come to ED and asked me, “ We were barred outside the ICU and I wanted to know if the tPA had been given ?”
Hearing the question, I was a little irritated. I told her, “ Of course, you are kept outside, we won’t be able to work if all the family flooded the ICU.”
I further told her that, “ of course, we are doing our job and we treat our patient as a human being and not stock on the production line. We would grieve and felt sad if our patient had complication due to our negligence. The question you raise had insulted our attitude toward our job…”
I looked her in the eyes and reassured her that we would do what ever is needed…..
Well, I had to tolerate such rude family….
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