Internal Medicine: A Doctor's Stories - Plot & Excerpts
Richard, the on-call nurse, had jotted down a sketchy story: Sylvia Turner, a fifty-seven-year-old woman being discharged from Memorial after treatment for a sinus infection. I looked up from the form at the duty nurse with whom I was rounding that morning. “Sinus infection?” I said. “Is that really an indication for hospice?” Linda laughed. “Is that what he wrote down? Give me that.” She took the referral from my hand and swiveled it around. “That idiot.” She laughed. “He left out the part about the cancer. Squamous,” she added, and tapped the side of her nose. “Ah,” I said, meaning I was sorry for Mrs. Turner. Like leprosy, only worse, runaway squamous-cell cancer whittles its victims away until the tumor reaches something vital to life, and then they die. “Anything else about her?” “Husband says she’s stopped eating.” “Is that a problem?” I asked. With hospice patients, when they stop eating it’s usually a good thing. Linda shrugged. “That’s where Richard ran out of info.
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