Good luck on that one, Lord
I've been on ortho surgery for the past two weeks (more on that later), but I was given the chance to remove the sutures off of the amputated fingertips of a schizophrenic homeless man who had many many other health problems. His fingertips were amputated because he'd gotten frostbite a few months ago. He was somehow consented to take two of them off - but 8 black necrotic dead fingertips remain.-------------------------------
Attending: Sir, your fingers are healing well, but you have some other fingers that need to come off. Can we do another surgery to get the other ones?
Pt: No, just take the stitches out of my fingers. They are hurting me. I have so much pain.
Attending: In your fingers?
Pt: From that nurse who tried to poison me this morning. The pain in my legs and my head.
Attending: So you don't want us to do surgery. Those fingers aren't going to heal.
Pt: No, I saw these people, selling the God cream. You know the holy-rollers. Go door to door. I'll get that cream, and it will fix this. (waves those fingers again where you can see the dead bone sticking out of them)
Attending: You don't want surgery. You want to go with cream?
Pt: Yep. Cream will fix this.
--------------------------------
After I removed the stitches the attending came back in and tried again. The patient was very clear that he only wanted cream for his fingers and only the cream sold by those God people. He insisted God would be fixing his fingers with the magical cream. (He also went on at length about his voices and all the people out to get him)
I'm pretty sure his chart says something along the lines of 'Pt opts for non-operative treatment.'
posted by Allie @ 5:45 AM
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