Kirkepiscatoid

That it may please thee to forgive our enemies, persecutors,
and slanderers, and to turn their hearts,
We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.

Well, this one is sort of not feeling really connected to me. I don't really have "enemies." I don't really have "persecutors." Ehhh...slanderers? I don't do enough these days to get me in trouble. Most of what people talk about me behind my back is pretty much at least partly true. Annoyed with me? Yeah. Pissed off at me? Sure. Fed up with me? Uh-huh. But I'm just not important enough or powerful enough or in control of enough to have enemies, persecutors, and slanderers.

Hmmm...I think the closest I can get would be is my paranoia of "The great unknown case I'll screw up and get sued and go down the chute for the million dollar lawsuit, and my malpractice carrier will drop me and if I'm un-insurable, well, that's the end of my career."

I think it's a lot like the advice given in the old movie "All's Quiet on the Western Front:" You'll never hear the bullet with your name on it. The case that is probably out there to get you, you'll never know it's there.

I have a small handful of cases I still go to bed at night and wonder if they could do me in. I have had a tiny handful that could have, but by the grace of God it didn't happen. This is something that is very hard to talk about outside of the doctor's lounge. Non-medical friends do NOT want to hear you EVER screwed up. EVER. Any physician who tells you they never screwed up a case is lying, or is a space alien. Mercifully, most of our screw-ups are minor. But it is part of what drives our medicolegal climate. We are not allowed to admit our humanity, because someone potentially got hurt or died. So to the bulk of the world, I carry those cases in my heart as sharp swords silently piercing me through and through.

The first thing you have to realize in my job is "I am not a diagnose-atron." I will never be 100% accurate. (Since Doxy likes my invented word "retrospectoscope", I get to use it again here in a minute.) Being distracted is the killer. I have to be anal retentive to the point of nauseating about things like "this slide belongs to this jar which belongs to this patient." Screw that one up, and give the wrong patient the wrong diagnosis, you are at the point of no return.

Most of the screw-ups in my profession are retrospectoscopic screw-ups. The original biopsy had the finding but it is very subtle, and is not "noticeable" until a later biopsy shows it in spades. I had a case like that once. Some are "multiple screw-ups" where more than one person, in the chain of command, messed up a little bit and you are one of many holding the bag.

But, as I have told my priest, "It's hell to sit in God's chair when you know damn good and well you are not God." Be found out for one and you are suddenly incompetent at best and a murderer at worst.

So, yeah, I guess I do have persecutors. They are little glass slides and little paraffin blocks of preserved tissue that have the power to do me in. I pray every day to make them few and far between, and for the ones that exist, that they do not cause great harm, not just to me, but for those who could be victimized by my humanity and fallability.