Credit my wife with saving my patient

Sometimes you have to act immediately and think about it later. This doctor and his wife didn't hesitate—and didn't miss.

By Meyer B. Hodes, MD
Family Physician/Oceanside, NY

We primary care doctors are supposed to formulate treatment plans with great deliberation. Only after obtaining all necessary information and weighing it carefully and logically do we choose among the available options. Crucial, split-second decisions are for surgeons and ED docs. But it can happen that a sudden emergency forces a drastic therapeutic decision onto even a family physician like myself.

On weekends, I have office hours at my suburban Long Island home, for the convenience of patients living in the area. Early one Saturday morning I came out of the shower to find my wife, Hanna, putting down the phone, scribbling a name on a notepad.

"Who was that, darling?" I asked.

"A Mrs. Ferrara," she answered. "Her child has a bad cold, so I told her to come in before the first booked patient."

"Just a cold, that's all?"

"Yes, but she sounded worried, so I told her we'd fit her in. Is that okay?"

"Sure," I said, "if it's fine with you." My wife, who is not a nurse, fills in as my assistant when I work out of our home. I shaved and dressed quickly, and we went downstairs to the office.

Mrs. Ferrara arrived soon thereafter, carrying her 2-year-old son, swaddled in a blanket. "What's the story with Jason, Ilona?" I asked her. The Ferrara family, patients of mine for many years, had fallen on hard times. The husband had abandoned them, and they were now on Medicaid.

"Jason's had this bad cold, doctor, for a few days. I'm so sorry to trouble you on a weekend, but he had a fever last night, and he won't eat or drink at all."