F/U

I received this comment regarding my last post on abscesses:

"Anonymous" said:

"You don't seem that curious about how the lidocaine got on the shelf. Do you think patient could have an addiction? Could she be coming in for treatment to get the drug? Is there someone in the hospital supplying it? Did you mention the incident to anyone? What did you have to do that took you out of the room briefly? Is there a protocol for dealing with a patient who just "ain't tellin'"?
Too many questions?"

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OK, let's run down the list.

1. I know how the lidocaine got on the shelf: she took it out of her bag.

2. This patient likely had multiple addictions, and probably more serious ones than a jones for lidocaine.

3. I have no idea who in the hospital supplies lidocaine in those quantities.

4. If you read carefully, you'd see that I made the physician aware of what had happened. There was also a nursing student working with me.

5. I had to get a larger packing strip to fill her enormous abscesses.

6. Thumbscrews.

What are you implying here? Negligence on my part? I'm a medical assistant. My job that day was to do the menial dressing-change-related tasks and report any abnormalities to the physician, always keeping the patient's best interests in mind. I am not a detective, drug counselor, or interrogator, and acting as such would have been inappropriate.

No, I wasn't too curious about how she got the lidocaine. Just as when I find a crack pipe in some guy's pocket, I'm generally not too curious about how he got it, unless he's here for OD'ing on crack. if that's the case, ok; we'll talk about crack. But if he's here to get his dressing changed, then dammit, we talk about the dressing-change. If his crack problem comes up in the course of the dressing-change, we might offer him somebody to talk to about that, but I'll bet you dollars to donuts he won't take us up on it. And even then, it's the doctor who offers that. Not me. I'm a medical assistant.