" It turns out they had somehow got her records confused with someone else's "
A problem is that once something goes wrong with a patient record, it can be very difficult to trace the original source of misinformation, and to correct it. A friend suffering a uti that was getting progressively more difficult to sort out was informed, eventually, that the hospital couldn't administer penicillin because he was allergic to it. He told them that, in fact, he wasn't allergic - so they then administered the appropriate antibiotic which put paid to the infection. But, after that, any time he went into hospital, he was told that he was allergic to penicillin - they still hadn't got to the source of the misinformation.
You always have to be alert; I was especially gratified that at every step of the way when I went in for a nephrectomy they would ask me "what do you think you are here for?" followed by "which one?".
When the registrar marked me up, he realised that his black marker pen on my abdomen might show through and spoil my polo shirt if the ink hadn't fully dried; so he put a big arrow on my left arm. When I went back into the waiting room, my fellow patients assumed that I was having my arm amputated :-(
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