Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Compassion In Medicine, Lawrence M. Wyner M.D.

Surgery

“Doctor, you know this patient’s HIV-positive.” The scrub nurse’s words hit me like a ton of bricks. I had been called into the operating room to assist one of my colleagues, a good friend and a good surgeon, who had requested my help after he had inadvertently gotten into the bladder during a hernia repair. I scrubbed in and took a look – the bladder neck was almost completely detached from the bladder. A small papillary tumor was visible just lateral to the left ureteral orifice. I snipped off the tumor with the Metzenbaum scissors, fulgurated its base, and proceeded …