Who was the Asshole in the ER
people are [ __ ]
trust me i’m a doctor i know i’ve seen
over 50 000 patients in my career so i
can say it with confidence
it’s really easy to be an [ __ ] let me
explain
every friday night in the emergency room
it feels like there’s a full moon out
the results of bad decisions come
pouring in all
night this one friday night in the
summer of 2017
i’m the only doctor on duty the
ambulance report for the patient in room
13 is pretty typical
chad has been drinking chad got in a bar
fight
chad fell down hit his head now has a
big laceration
and he’s been fighting us the entire way
in
great so i have to babysit this guy who
can’t handle his alcohol
all the way till the morning but not
only that i have to suture up his wound
now
don’t get me wrong i love suturing it’s
one of my favorite things to do at work
it gives me time in an otherwise busy
day to slow down get to know my patients
maybe tell a joke or two when they’re
sober
i start suturing he pulls away i say
stop moving
his response i’m sorry i’m trying
but he’s bobbing and weaving the whole
time it’s like asking my cat to behave
i can beg and plead all i want but i
know at the end of the day my cat is
going to do whatever he wants
while mocking me the entire time
in the middle of everything another
patient comes rolling by
like i need any more of this
i walk out of the room fling off my
gloves and expect another drunk
but i don’t see a drunk i meet frank
frank’s 80
and he’s coming with shortness of breath
and frank
is the nicest guy i’ve ever met and i
spend a lot of time with frank and at
the end
i tell him everything’s gonna be okay
and i’m leaving his room and he goes hey
doc
thank you for taking care of me
and in that moment i’m feeling better
but i walk out in the hallway
and look at room 13
at chad and i think
why can’t you be more like frank why do
you have to be such an [ __ ]
i storm back into his room you’ve wasted
enough of my time
i have other patients sicker and nicer
patients and you don’t deserve any more
of my time
that’s exactly what i’m thinking as i’m
stitching up his wound as fast as
possible
and that’s when his fiancee walks in
what’s happening
drunk bar fight fell down he’ll be yours
soon enough
drunk but he he told me he wouldn’t be
drinking tonight
i don’t know what to tell you you can
see for yourself he’s wasted
and she walks over to him and lets him
have it
she starts screaming i can’t believe
you’d be so irresponsible
i gotta say it felt pretty good to hear
him get eviscerated
justice served it’s just a shame he was
wasted though
he wouldn’t learn his lesson from this
some people will never change
i’m walking back to my computer and my
phone rings
the radiologist he says you’re patient
in room 13
he’s got a lot of blood on his head ct
he’s not drunk internal bleeding in his
brain has caused him to act this way
chad hadn’t been in a bar fight he’d
actually tripped and fallen
he hadn’t been mocking me i’ve been
mocking him
he’d been listening to me as well as he
could i hadn’t been listening to him
or his fiancee he hadn’t shown bad
judgment
i had he wasn’t the [ __ ]
i was
unfortunately chad would be okay
he’d leave the hospital after a few days
but i wouldn’t be
i spent the next few weeks hating myself
for celebrating someone else’s suffering
but i couldn’t help it i spent my entire
career seeing people’s stupid decisions
and thoughtless actions ruin
their lives i was forced to feel this
way
at the same time i was rereading one of
my favorite books how to win friends and
influence people
by dale carnegie in it he quotes abraham
lincoln
don’t criticize them they are just what
we would be under similar circumstances
life is difficult and when it gets
really uncomfortable our default is
tacked in a way that is not our best
that goes for you and for me
it’s the default it’s easy and it’s
natural and it’s okay
but i didn’t like the person i’d become
and i knew i had to find a better way
through reading reflecting and
practicing i developed a seven-step
process to help me
when life got really uncomfortable the
first hurdle though is recognizing those
moments
luckily my body is smarter than my brain
so i rely on it a quick twitch on the
right side of my mouth
tightening in the muscles of my neck
clenching of my jaw
they all tell me the same thing that the
outside world isn’t aligning with my
inner expectations
and in those moments when i want to yell
when i want to criticize when i want to
worst yet
physically act that’s when it’s time to
pause
and breathe now sometimes
pausing and breathing isn’t enough but
that’s why i’ve developed those seven
steps
they’re not easy they take practice and
i’m still getting better at them
but they’re helping me become the type
of person i want to be for my patients
my friends my family and my colleagues
i started this talk with the words
people are [ __ ]
i now start every day with the words
we’re all the same because we all have
that default
to not be our best when life gets
uncomfortable
but we all have that ability to use and
recognize those moments
to try to become better
i’ll leave you with this to do the hard
work
to be our best we must first realize how
easy it is
to be the worst that we see in others
are you willing to do the work thank you
you