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Find Me Someone Who’s Been a Medic…
The second time I said it louder, but more slowly and clearly so the man and woman standing at the foot of my hospital bed could better hear and understand me and take quick action.
“Find me someone who’s been a medic in the service, please,” I pleaded from my hospital bed.
I was in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, in the outpatient surgical center awaiting surgery on my torn rotator cuff and writhing in pain. The man was my nurse and after thinking for fifteen minutes had announced to me that I would not be able to have my surgery that day because he couldn’t run the IV in either of my arms. On my right side I’ve had surgery for breast cancer and several lymph nodes had also been removed. It was my left shoulder that required this surgery, so neither arm was available. I’m sure I was loud when I told him to find someone else to do it. He came back with the woman, another nurse who did not know what to do either.
Why did I want them to find someone who had served as a medic while in the military? Simple. If you’re in the middle of a battle or other skirmish and someone is injured there is often no time to do things by the book. Instead, you must take action quickly to solve the problem and save their life. Think fast, keep it simple, and get the soldier off the battlefield and on to a safer place. That’s problem solving…
