I had the opportunity to work with our Chief of Pediatrics this evening, and I asked her if she been told of my heinous crime of seeing the patient with a breast mass who had no insurance. The young woman was, in fact, her patient and had stopped coming to see Dr. F two years ago when she lost her insurance. Dr. F said, "Oh, just continue doing what you think is right. You have such a developed sense of what needs to be done. Can you imagine if you sent her away?" I told her what our administrator said to me and she said, "Um, yeah send her away as long as she is not his daughter." I said, "Hopefully in two years or so this lack of insurance won't be such a conflict. Everyone will have some coverage." We laughed.
When I was trying to eat the Chinese food (ugh, choke, gag, shiver as my family has seen me do) that was bought as my dinner, Miss NB and I chatted about her day. Since she is frequently in the NICU of the hospital where the tiny, extremely pre-term baby was born from our practice, I asked how she was doing. NB got red in the face, and tears came to her eyes. "Mom the baby died yesterday afternoon. She was just too early to make it." Such sad news.
We are all involved in complicated scenarios as caregivers. Tonight I read the riot act to parents who let a heavy door, that was off its hinges and leaning against a wall, fall on their crawling infant who was unsupervised. He amazingly escaped serious injury with only a few contusions but I spelled out the worst case scenario for these young parents. This family needs to be watched closely. This was not the first "accident" in the baby's short life.
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