Abstract

He tells everyone in the room to leave except you. The others on your team—the attending, your cointern, and two medical students—all file out quickly. The heavy door closes behind them. The bolt clicks. It's your third month on medicine, your eleventh hour on call. He sits at the edge of the hospital bed with his back to you. His torso is wrapped in a thick spiral of bandages discolored by blood in various stages of drying. "If you want to take a look," he says to you, his voice remote, "you'll have to cut them off yourself."You start cutting the bandages away from his chest. His wife sits in the corner of the room. She wears large, dark sunglasses that obscure much of her bony face. She says nothing. When you're ..