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That being said, if a surgeon who is supposed to perform a biopsy of your prostate, and decides to do a cholecystectomy while you're out, without first asking you whether you like your gallbladder where it is, sue his ass.
Which brings me to a funny story. One of my teachers knew of a guy who, while in college, had convinced himself that the devil, Lucifer himself, was inhabiting his gallbladder. He went to several medical specialists, and asked them to perform a cholecystectomy (surgical removal of the gallbladder). They refused. One of them went so far as to argue it logically, saying that he couldn't perform that surgery because "devil in gallbladder" was not one of the indications for that surgery. He even got out a medical textbook and showed the patient a list of reasons for cholecystectomy, and "devil in gallbladder" was not on that list.
The patient went home a bit disgruntled, and decided that if he wanted something done properly he would have to do it himself. So he did his homework. He read up on the procedure. He practiced on a cadaver in anatomy class. He procured himself the neccessary tools.
His roommate called an ambulance when they found the poor fellow passed out in a pool of his own blood on the dormroom floor. When they got him into the hospital, the doctors were amazed by how far he had gotten. His initial incision was clean and well made, and he had just begun folding back the liver so he could see in the mirror to make the incisions to remove the gallbladder, when he suddenly and aptly enough passed out from the pain. Did I mention he was unable to get the proper local anesthesia?
So the fixed up his wounds and sent him back home, and my teacher who was a nurse and saw this poor patient, well my teacher's major complaint was that "they should've at least had the decency to lie to the patient and tell him they finished the procedure for him."
Which brings me to a funny story. One of my teachers knew of a guy who, while in college, had convinced himself that the devil, Lucifer himself, was inhabiting his gallbladder. He went to several medical specialists, and asked them to perform a cholecystectomy (surgical removal of the gallbladder). They refused. One of them went so far as to argue it logically, saying that he couldn't perform that surgery because "devil in gallbladder" was not one of the indications for that surgery. He even got out a medical textbook and showed the patient a list of reasons for cholecystectomy, and "devil in gallbladder" was not on that list.
The patient went home a bit disgruntled, and decided that if he wanted something done properly he would have to do it himself. So he did his homework. He read up on the procedure. He practiced on a cadaver in anatomy class. He procured himself the neccessary tools.
His roommate called an ambulance when they found the poor fellow passed out in a pool of his own blood on the dormroom floor. When they got him into the hospital, the doctors were amazed by how far he had gotten. His initial incision was clean and well made, and he had just begun folding back the liver so he could see in the mirror to make the incisions to remove the gallbladder, when he suddenly and aptly enough passed out from the pain. Did I mention he was unable to get the proper local anesthesia?
So the fixed up his wounds and sent him back home, and my teacher who was a nurse and saw this poor patient, well my teacher's major complaint was that "they should've at least had the decency to lie to the patient and tell him they finished the procedure for him."
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