Fascinating tale by Arnie Relman on his harrowing adventures as a patient after he fell and broke his neck. What I find baffling is that, despite being taken to an Emergency Department, he was apparently not cared for emergency physicians. He praises the anesthesiologist who intubated him, the surgeon who performed his tracheostomy, and the cardiologist who arrived in the ER just in time to advise the team on their management of the cardiac arrests and the treatment of my rapidly changing heart rhythms and blood pressure. Granted that Relman is from a generation when the ERs were run by interns and misfits, but I still find this a disturbing read - that the former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine (1977–91) doesnt acknowledge that emergency physicians were involved in his care.
Posted on: Sun, 19 Jan 2014 22:49:29 +0000