Indexing Title: TMEDINA’s Medical Anecdotal Report [04-7]

MAR Title: Patient with second degree burn

Date of Medical Observation: October, 2004

Narration:

Barely a month ago, I had a patient about a year old, who was apparently rushed to the emergency room because of second degree burn. The child, according to the mother, accidentally fell into a tub of boiling water. She suffered scald burns throughout her body extensive enough that made her agonized in pain and leave her disfigured.

 I pitied the child.

 I could never imagine how her burns came to be.  Every mother would look after their children and vow to protect them from harm. Of course accidents do happen, and most often at the least expected time. I could not reconcile the thought, how a baby who could barely walk a step would accidentally immerse herself in a tub of hot water all by herself.

             Suspicious thoughts played around my mind. Was the incident intentional? Did the patient suffer from child abuse in the hands of her own mother?

             As I finished dressing the patient, I started to scribble my admitting history and orders. I noticed that the mother was not bothered at all with what happened to her child. When I was about to call the mother for an interview in the admitting section, they were gone.

I was partly infuriated, partly sad that such story happened in real life. Human monstrosity is a reality that every one of us must be aware of.

 Insights: (discovery, stimulus, reinforcement: physical, psychosocial, ethical)

            One of the lessons that the department has instilled in every one that becomes part of it is to treat every patient as if they were their own relatives. As an aspiring surgeon, I have always adopted this mentality to help me with the strictness of everyday training. This by far, is what helped me in my residency, not just to cope with but to keep abreast each day with tireless compassion and hopeful anticipation.

            As a resident, faced with this kind of situation, I am convinced that we should scrutinize well our patients, and not purely rely on what they presented with. We should be more vigilant.

            At times like this, we could only do as much. As a physician, we should treat our patients in a holistic approach, and not focus much on the disease per se but try to look at the other aspects, this I’m sure constitutes a humane service…

            What could have happened to the poor child? I could have helped her by referring her to DSWD………