A. Sh’rvnr! MacDonald D.FC., MI). C..M.

zero eight for drunken driving. I always tried to wash out their stomachs, a procedure which I had done dozens, if not hundreds of times, especially when I worked at the TB Hospital in Halifax where I had to do three gastric work- ups on anyone showing a positive TB test. This meant that there had always been several outpatients in the clinic each evening. I did the washing of his stomach in the ordinary way, but he seemed to be getting sicker, so we put him in the sick room. I called one of the Intemists, who decided to put down a tracheal tube, but was unable to get it down into the lung. He called the Ear, Nose and Throat Doctor, who came and put down the tube, and through all of this the patient had a cardiac arrest but this was corrected. As the Doctor on Call arrived I quickly passed him the patient, thinking I hadjust done a good Samaritan deed. By the grapevine, I heard that he died several days later.

One of the Internists, who figured that he knew all, asked me to present this case at ward rounds and like a sap, although I never saw him during his treatment after the first 20 or 30 minutes in the Emergency Department, I reviewed his files and presented the case. No questions were asked by any of the doctors present. A couple of days later I was called to the Administrator’s office, telling me that I had lost my privileges in the Outpatient Department because I did not put a tracheal tube down before I washed out his stomach, which I had never done before for such a procedure, although I inserted such tubes for other reasons. In my 16,000 odd cases I have assisted in the OR, I see the trouble which can occur with patients asleep. Here they were demanding me to do it on a drunk patient, where the Internist had to get the Ear, Nose and Throat man to per- form it.

I was so taken aback that I called a lawyer who spoke to the Chief ofStaff, and all I ever heard of the call

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