There’s an ugly undercurrent that sometimes shows up in the emergency department: indeed all over the world of medicine. I’ve seen it in doctors and nurses alike. It’s a meanness, a smallness, a kind of moral judgment that can lead us to make poor medical decisions. Or it can simply make us poorer in spirit.
I remember the day I had a young man who was in custody. He was 18, handcuffed and in a jail jump-suit. I don’t remember what was wrong. I just remember that he looked young and scared. Someone had brought ice cream to the staff. My patient was hungry.
“Hey, give him a sundae, OK?” I asked the nurses to share with our young prisoner. There was plenty of ice-cream. “No way, he’s a jail-bird. Why would I do that?”
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