Needle Sticks and Exposures - One Reason I Hated Medicine
I stayed away from procedures. I never, ever volunteered to do anything and would always do the bare minimum to pass on every single rotation. If the procedure was to be done on a patient with a known STD or blood-borne illness, I refused to do it.
You see, it honestly wasn’t worth it for me to risk a needle stick while performing an invasive procedure on a HIV/HepC+ patient. I don’t care how low the reported risk is — the honest truth is that there is still a risk. The risk of contracting HIV from a needle stick is higher than people winning the lottery, and people win the lottery nearly every day.
I’m sure most of you guys have seen something like the following:
A 42 year old HIV+/HepC+ male with chronic alcoholism and a history of current IV drug abuse.
- Point 1: If it wasn’t for his or her poor lifestyle decisions, they probably wouldn’t be here in the first place.
- Point 2: If I wanted to take the risk of contracting whatever it is that the patient has, I sure wouldn’t do it working 14 hour days and being abused in some shitty hospital.
It just wasn’t procedures, either. I absolutely detested the OR. I hated it with every fiber of my being. My hate stemmed not only from the asshole residents and attendings that I had to spend hours with, but also from the fact that blood was most likely going to be shooting and splattering about the fucking place at some point. For example, we once had a HepC+ guy on the vascular service who needed a femoral popliteal bypass done. He was a chronic alcoholic with near end-stage liver disease, and by the looks of him had lived quite the “exciting life” at the ripe old age of somewhere in his mid-40s. I hoped to God he would leave AMA before we had to take him to the OR.
I’m just not built to take care of people who don’t take care of themselves — and those were exactly the kinds of patients seen at training institutions that take care of the indigent population.
I’m glad I got out when I did. Fuck Hippocrates, let Darwin sort ‘em out. It’s survival of the fittest.
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Bryan said
March 29 2008 @ 2:36 pm
I’m glad you quit.
Eric said
March 29 2008 @ 3:13 pm
“Fuck Hippocrates, let Darwin sort em out.” Brilliant line. And great post.
bronx43 said
March 29 2008 @ 9:26 pm
Haha, should have added “bitch” to the end of that last sentence. Excellent post. I don’t think it’s even possible for an ER doctor to not become nihilistic and angry by the end of the first month.
ROTFLMAO said
March 29 2008 @ 11:24 pm
Are you in therapy for your anger? Are you doing therapy for other former med school students? I keep expecting a revolt at all the medical schools nation-wide, lead by “Hoover.”
As usual, another fabulous post. Your dedication page in your best seller will be a tell all! Doctors will have it on their waiting room coffee tables with quotes cross stitched and hung above pretend fireplaces. You will sound like Homey the Clown in your book, but it will be great.
Anon said
April 1 2008 @ 5:31 pm
What, no April Fool’s post about deciding to return to medicine?
Hoover said
April 1 2008 @ 8:52 pm
Haha, I honestly thought about something along those lines =)
Not this year, though.
dientamin said
April 4 2008 @ 3:12 pm
Hey Hoover, I just wanted to tell you that you were the icing on the cake — after hours of reading on SDN and talking to medical professionals — in my decision not to go into medicine. After I wrap this quarter up (currently on a pre-med track), I’m going to switch to nothing but computer science classes, in hopes of becoming a software engineer.
Thanks a ton!
bronx43 said
April 4 2008 @ 9:38 pm
Wow, great to that Hoover has saved one more potential victim of medicine.
Hoover said
April 4 2008 @ 10:40 pm
dientamin,
Very cool. Follow your heart and you’ll go far.
bronx43 said
April 4 2008 @ 11:25 pm
Hey Hoov, not to rush you or anything, but how is the forum coming along?
Hoover said
April 4 2008 @ 11:37 pm
Hmm, I was messing around with it some tonight but honestly it’s coming along slow at the current time. I’ve been busy pounding out some new projects for my company, and they have me pretty occupied right now.
The designer for the forum I had contracted with fell through, and I haven’t looked for another one yet. The forum is on my to do list, and I promise it’ll be up soon.
Phreno said
April 5 2008 @ 5:48 pm
Love the blog.
Which forum software you using? Maybe i can give you some pointers.
Anne said
April 8 2008 @ 9:47 pm
Well this is a sweet little blog. Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately, you and I seem to have similar characteristics. . .
P said
April 10 2008 @ 1:58 pm
please read this thread…. http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=512931 …. it has comments on this blog entry!
bronx43 said
April 10 2008 @ 2:56 pm
Ah, SDN…the temple dedicated to the worshipping of the medical profession. Beware! Any dissenters and heretics shall be crucified. *And subsequently treated for wounds if they can present adequate insurance coverage.
Med School Hell » Volunteering is Overrated said
April 13 2008 @ 11:43 pm
[…] previous post on needle sticks and exposures was awarded a shiny new post over at SDN. Some questions for me were posed in the discussion, and I […]
Midas said
April 25 2008 @ 12:20 am
SDN dorks. I think any infectious disease cases should only be dealt with by those wearing full biohazard suits. Anything less your reasoning about increased risk holds true.
DOmer said
June 14 2008 @ 12:33 pm
I agree Midas, and they should invent puncture-proof kevlar glove linings that go all the way up to the mid-arm to protect us. I’m being serious too.
Steve said
July 8 2008 @ 1:06 pm
As the first poster said, I’m glad you got out. A lot of people in a lot of professions, not just medicine, take a reasonable amount of risk in their jobs everyday. Don’t hate on the profession, just accept your inability to handle it.
Dinesh said
July 19 2008 @ 2:02 am
Man, I think you’re being pretty harsh on those patients. I used to feel that way too, but then I started to be less judgemental when I realized that a lot of these people have gone through hell, and that’s why they are addicted to drugs and making poor lifestyle choices. I had one patient who was HCV+ because of sharing needles while injecting heroin. I later found out that she had been abused in every way possible since the age of 5. She was a homeless runaway who had been raped several times on the street, beaten, slept on cold streets, etc. You need to grow up and expand your worldview. You complain about having to take some abuse in the OR, yet you can’t relate to these people who have been through things way worse? I am also very glad that you left medicine, since you probably would have turned out to be one of those asshole attendings that have no perspective on what other people are going through.
Ellie said
August 2 2008 @ 10:12 pm
Steve, you freak, who else risks getting fucking AIDS as a result of their job, being forced to work 30-40 hours straight and become so exhausted that they get clumsy and the risk of getting AIDS from your job goes up, all for the illustrious wage of 40k a year? Hoover, what options are there for a junior doc who wants to get out of clinical-I hate it so much I almost can’t get up in the morning/evening! I’ve thought of Pathology-do you know what that’s like at all?
Love the blog by the way!
Ellie
Yannick said
November 12 2008 @ 6:09 pm
“Steve, you freak, who else risks getting fucking AIDS as a result of their job, being forced to work 30-40 hours straight and become so exhausted that they get clumsy and the risk of getting AIDS from your job goes up, all for the illustrious wage of 40k a year?”
Cops and Corrections officers get exposed to diseases, also all the other staff in a hospital (nurse’s, PA’s, RT’s, security).
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