"Why donât you ask her why she didnât take the medication as instructed on the bag?" said Doctor Su, immediately questioning the patient.
Feeling extremely wronged by the doctorâs blame, the female patient began to describe the complicated process of picking up the medication yesterday: "The instruction on the bag wasnât clear whether it was once or twice a day; I couldnât read the numbers. I asked the pharmacy staff, and they said they werenât sure, and told me to go back and ask the gynecologist. I had no choice but to return to find you doctors."
Upon hearing this, Doctor Zuoliang took out the medication bag to have another look.
The bag probably had mistakes due to the pharmacistâs busy schedule; in their haste, they had swapped the numbers for the dosage and frequency, initially writing it as âtwo pills once a dayâ. Later, realizing the mistake, they had sloppily corrected the numbers with a pen over the original.
The patient, seeing these haphazard changes, surely wondered whether it was 1 or 2, and fearing she was mistaken, could only ask the medical staff again.
At the pharmacy window of a top-tier hospital, the crowd is bustling, and the noise is loud. The pharmacist, busy at the time, couldnât hear what the patient was asking, and assumed the patient was questioning why the doctor prescribed the medication that way. This sort of query, the pharmacist couldnât answer, thus advised the patient to consult the prescribing doctor.
If the patient found her attending doctor to ask, there wouldnât have been an issue. However, at that time, Doctor Zuoliang was busy with Student Xie elsewhere, completely out of reach.
In a rush, the patient grabbed any doctor in the ward to ask, thinking they were all gynecologists and surely one could answer her. Outsiders donât understand why doctors donât manage other doctorsâ patients, assuming all doctors are the same.
Held up by the patient, Doctor Su, eager to get back to her own work, didnât have time to carefully check medical records and prescriptions for a patient not under her care, thus threw a line to the patient: Take the medication as instructed on the bag.
Under normal circumstances, this advice wouldnât be wrong. The issue was that the ambiguous numbers on the bag were exactly what the patient wanted to ask about.
The female patient said, "I asked her later if it was 1 pill or 2. She said 2."
Nine times out of ten, Doctor Su was frustrated being entangled by a patient not under her care and didnât clarify whether the numbers on the bag referred to dosage or frequency, giving a casual response.
Listening to both sides, sorting out the sequence of events in their minds, Du Haiwei let out a long sigh: not knowing what to say. Most clinical disputes arise this way, everyone rushing like sprinters; issues are bound to happen.
If the pharmacist, despite being busy, had paused to ask the patient clearly about their doubts over numbers, there wouldnât be any continuing issues.
If Doctor Su had been more patient to check which medication this was for the patient, as a gynecologist, she wouldâve known the usual dosage of this medication and wouldnât have carelessly answered â2â. Or she couldâve helped by asking a nurse to fetch Zuo Liang, preventing the patient from taking the wrong dosage subsequently.
If the patient hadnât been in such a rush and insisted on finding her attending doctor for inquiries, surely nothing would have happened.
At this point, Doctor Hu spoke first with harsh criticism of the patient: "They all told you to go back and ask your attending doctor. Why did you insist on asking a doctor who doesnât understand your condition?"
So, does this mean the responsibility falls on her? The female patientâs face turned pale.
Feeling distressed for his wife, the patientâs husband held his wifeâs hand and argued with Doctor Hu: "She couldnât find her attending doctor, what do you want her to do?"