Hello, today I want to tell you about my experience on December 20, 2014 when I was on 12 hours on call at one of the main clinics in the state where I lived in my beloved Venezuela.
My on-call partner whom we will call Dr. P. He was an experienced neurosurgery resident in the 5th year of his career (months away from graduation) at the main public hospital in the city.
It was very enjoyable to be on call with Dr. P, and we came to an agreement that I would take care of the diabetic patients, hypertensive patients and all cardiology emergencies, and he would take care of the polytraumatized, burns and gunshot wounds, we were a great team.
When it was 11:59 pm and we were about to share the rest shifts, 4 young men came through the emergency door shouting: "I was in charge of the asepsis and of placing the foley probe in each one (for the penis) and of the preparations for the operating room, since they had been victims of the underworld, in an attempt to rob the vehicle where they were moving, they accelerated to flee and were shot, 2 of them presented important wounds by firearm projectile in the abdomen, one young man had wounds in the abdomen and the other one in the chest.
One young man had wounds in the thorax presenting hemothorax (his lungs were filled with blood preventing him from breathing) and the last young man had no serious wounds.
We quickly called the surgeons on duty (they were 2 seniors) and while they were on call, Dr. P and I prepared the preoperative orders.
Dr. P. nicknamed me "Professor" and said to me: "Professor, the police are on their way because this was a violent incident" to which I answered ok, one of the patients listened and waited for Dr. P. to leave the room and called me.
Dra. When I came to the call he grabbed me by the chest pulling me by the top of my uniform with his bloody hands and took a thick and heavy gold watch with small precious stones and said to me: "please keep this watch for me, it is very valuable", and introduced it between my breasts, begging me not to allow the policemen to take it away, since I would be admitted to the operating room and I had no family in the clinical center, I found his request suspicious to which I responded by telling him: my responsibility in the guard is to save your life and that of your colleagues, I cannot accept your request and I took the watch full of blood from my breasts and gave it back to him with a firm, respectful and tenacious voice.
He understood the message conveyed and took it and put it in his pocket, with a fixed look in my eyes.
After what happened I shared the story with Dr. P. And with his great humor he answered me:
Professor out accepted the watch was of great monetary value and smiled.
Moral: in all circumstances keep your sanity, values and principles learned at home, put them into practice in a bizarre way in any occasion.
If you want to know the outcome you can leave it in the comments!