Know your body

There's very little people should know more about than their own bodies. It's your body. You should know every little thing about it, including what's wrong with it. If you've had surgery, you'd better damn well remember what was done, who did it, and when. Seems pretty obvious, right?

Wrong.

I had a "gentleman" who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got shot in the abdomen. We stripped off his clothes to assess the damage, and to my surprise and chagrin he had a long vertical midline scar on his abdomen.

Uh oh. Signs of man. Surgical archaeology.

"What's this scar from, sir?" I asked him.

"Oh that's from the last time I got shot."

Of course it is. "And what did they do in there?"

"Fuck, I don't know, doc. They fixed me up. They didn't tell me shit."

Right. After a big surgery like that, you didn't think to ASK WHAT THEY HAD DONE?? You must have been in the hospital for at least 5 days, and you must have seen the surgeon for at least one postoperative office visit to get your staples out, and you never thought to ask the guy what he did while he was rummaging around your abdomen?

He had a few holes in his small intestine which I once again "fixed up". I could tell that he had had a portion of his small bowel removed during his prior surgery, but that was it.

I made sure to tell him what I had done in the OR at least 3 time before he left the hospital. And again at his postoperative visit.