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It’s hard to imagine that they were impressed with me, but I surely was impressed by them and I think they went away feeling that the good of their relative was uppermost in the minds of his hospital caregivers.
    Another less inspiring incident took place during my psychiatry rotation. Each private room in Wing R had a light next to the door. If it was red it meant that the patient was not to be disturbed. I knew this, but whether the light was on by my patient’s door or I just didn’t notice I cannot say. One afternoon however, I breezed into this female patient’s room with my clipboard intent on interviewing her. The room lights were off as I settled near the head of her bed and was just about to proceed when I realized that something was not quite right. Indeed, there were two people in her bed, both momentarily lying quite still. It was the patient and her husband I came to find out. I don’t remember if I said anything as I made my escape, embarrassment being uppermost in my mind.
    The Sigmoidoscopy
    When I was rotating through medicine I went to watch a sigmoidoscopy with some classmates. The patient was a woman and the instructor was early in his residency. We were there to observe the technique and no one expected abnormal findings. Just after the procedure began the resident noted an “annular lesion” which we all took turns observing. This was a doughnut-shaped lesion which we all knew was potentially a very serious problem. Of course, a biopsy was taken, further enhancing our training that day. A few days later, the pathology report was returned. The diagnosis? Normal cervix. And so, we learned even more, namely to make sure that the orifice through which an exam is being conducted is the correct one.
    Antidiuretic Hormone
    One afternoon the class assembled in the main lecture hall per schedule. Earlier in the day I had had a shot, planned, of antidiuretic hormone, but later it never occurred to me to sit somewhere near an exit at our afternoon meeting. So I took my customary place in the middle of the seats. About 15 minutes into the lecture it became obvious that the hormone had worn off. I jumped up, made my way out of the row and out of the lecture hall as fast as I could to the great amusement of my classmates. Even I thought it was funny and we all learned much about antiduretics and how they work that day.
    Cloudy Serum
    From time to time in medical school it became necessary for us to collect blood samples from each other for later study. One such effort took place when we were juniors and subject to “Third Year Disease”, an affliction in which one thinks one has all the diseases that one has ever studied—or at least the worst ones. After we had drawn blood from one another, the samples were carefully labeled with our names and placed in the walk-in refrigerator for storage. One of my classmates had occasion to go into the refrigerator while the tubes were still there. He casually looked through the rows of tubes and noticed that there was one tube in which the serum was white rather than a clear golden color, the blood cells having settled out during storage. He pulled that tube out of the rack to have a better look and discovered it had his name on it. That was all he needed to see—soon the entire class knew that he had a very serious medical condition. Of course, he didn’t have anything wrong, his finding being a normal variant, quite common and not at all indicative of disease. For a while though, Dwight had a very bad case of Third Year Disease.
    Vitamin B12
    My dear friend George called me one day after I had started medical school. He had been to see his physician who prescribed a Vitamin B12 shot for sciatica (it worked, I know not why). Would I be able to administer the injection he asked. He would be my orange he said, knowing that we sometimes practiced giving injections on oranges. He came to my garret apartment to have the deed done. Well, how would he know that I had not