It happens all the time in the world of trauma – we take
care of people that most would rather ignore.
Somewhere in the depths of this city a cycle of gang-related
violence led to the death of several innocent women and children. The suspected murderer was the target of a
police raid, and when that raid got violent his motionless body came into our
trauma center. His airway was
controlled, his brain was scanned, his pressures were normalized…within a week
he was finally talking, and within two weeks was read to leave.
This patient was under police custody, and so there were
guards outside his room. Armed
guards. And it was always odd walking
past them to see our patient. It felt a
little like we were crossing a picket-line.
The police exist to protect us, or so we’re told, and here we were
trying to take care of someone they were trying to put away. We literally had to ask them to step aside so
we could see our patient. They would
always look at us as we entered his room, and if to ask us why we were taking
the time. One day the guard was looking
down at the patient’s mug shot – the guard was smiling and shaking his head,
saying how he’d “been looking for this one for years.” I remember being
struck by the word “years.” The patient
was only a teenager – how long could the police have been searching for
him? More recently when we exited his
room and the door closed, the guard uttered “I don’t know how you all do it;
this is a really bad guy – really bad.”
If I told you what this patient had done, and why the police
cared so much about it, I’m willing to bet that you would agree that he did
something absolutely terrible. The worst,
repulsive thing imaginable. But we had
no choice. He was our patient, and we’re
under oath to take care of people, just as the police are under oath to protect
and serve. There’s just no other
option. Patients are patients, people in
need are people in need. It’s rather
simple, really.
And so there we found ourselves each day, police and
doctors, looking at each other with vastly different motives. I’m not certain if there was mutual respect
or not.
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