The Most Selfish Patient In The World

It has been one crazy December. We have been super busy the whole month. Every day we've been working from sunrise to well past sunset. I've neglected my own health by skipping my usual gym workouts. I missed several social gatherings because I was still at the hospital. And I have totally neglected this blog for weeks. Of course this is nothing new and follows a well established seasonal pattern of operating room bookings. Hopefully all this hard work will pay off in the coming weeks. Ka ching!

So it was during this December madness that we had an unexpected cancellation. You have to remember that patients have been trying for weeks to get an operating time before the calendar rolls over to 2015. Surgeons and hospital staff have all been working overtime to help their patients get their procedures done before their insurance deductibles reset on January 1. But one morning, the first case of the day, we waited and waited for the patient to come to the hospital. When he hadn't shown up at the registration desk by the appointed time, we finally called him at home.

As it turned out, the patient was still in bed. He said he didn't feel like having his operation today. It was Christmas break and he didn't want to get up early, instead preferring to sleep in for once now that school is out. And that was his whole excuse. WTF?

This incredibly selfish patient had secured himself a coveted first case time slot for a procedure then backed out because he didn't want to wake up early? He had known for weeks the procedure would be done during his holiday break and he didn't think he might not be able to drag himself out of bed? Dozens of patients have been trying to get their cases squeezed into the schedule and this jerk just decides to blow off his allotted time because he was too freaking lazy? And all the hospital staff are left standing around and costing facility money because suddenly there is no case to foot the bill? What an incredibly lame piece of...work this person is.

Nothing left to do but go to the break room and eat more holiday cookies. The skinny jeans will just have to wait until I get back on the treadmill in January.