Interning In The Surgery Department

When I was an intern in surgery department, I remember this guy in the late 50s came to the ER at 2 AM complaining about some vague abdominal pain. His medical history was free of any events except for absolute constipation for almost a week. Me and my senior was thinking of intestinal obstruction and proceeded to do lab investigations for the patient and x-ray. The x-ray showed massive abdominal distention so we decided to prepare him for abdominal exploration. After blood samples were withdrawn, and while we are waiting for the results, the patient asked if he could sleep a little on one of the beds in the ER. He was calm and there was nothing that require attention so we thought why not? One hour later the lab technician called us … I remember the conversation we had

• Hey you have a patient named ________ ?
• Yes, he’s in the ER
• What is he doing at the surgery ER? His blood glucose is 600 g/mol!!!

*CLICK*

I hung up the phone and ran toward the patient – he was having a DKA (diabetic ketoacidosis) and we didn’t know. When I reached his bed he was dead. We tried to resuscitate him, called for help but it was too late. He didn’t mention anything about his blood sugar when we asked him. We failed to see that a patient with DKA could be presented by abdominal pain. I will never forget the look of his sons. He came to the hospital looking so good, walking on his feet and died within an hour because we failed to do a basic test that wouldn’t take more than 30 seconds.

I couldn’t sleep for weeks …