“Your baby is still ALIVE” – The lie I told to my patient

by Lacy Windham

The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do as a doctor is lying to my patient.

I lied to my patient and told her that her baby was still alive.

I was seeing this patient in my clinic who was struggling with breastfeeding and postpartum depression. Her baby was about five months old.

She really wanted to stop breastfeeding, but felt too guilty to actually stop. She was conflicted, and I ended up consulting with her several times over a two-week period.

The following weekend she and her family were involved in a horrific accident. I was called to the ER to evaluate some of her injuries. I recognized her name immediately because I’d just seen her in the office.

I walked into the emergency room and started my assessment. When I realized her baby had also been involved with the accident, I couldn’t help but ask “Is the baby okay??”

I breathed a sigh of relief when she peacefully nodded yes.

She was banged up (in serious injury), but thankfully it would all be good in the end.

I stepped out of the examination room to call the operating room (OR) team and to find consent forms.

I saw a nurse practitioner, a friend of mine actually, weeping while she typed on the computer.

“What’s the matter?” I asked her.

She looked at me with red eyes.

“Why are you crying?”

“We lost her baby,” she said, gesturing to my patient’s room.

“No, not my patient,” I responded confidently.

“Yes,” the nurse said. “Hers.”

“Not my patient,” I said again, louder and sterner this time.

It was a genuine moment of disbelief. Or maybe, if I could believe something hard enough, it could be true.

They had decided not to tell her yet. She was going to need several surgeries starting with mine. They didn’t want to tell her until she had completed them.

A few minutes later I returned, shaken, to my patient’s room. I signed surgery consents with her and spoke of the risks of surgery. I felt like my every look and movement betrayed the truth.

“Where is my baby?” she asked curiously.

“In a room nearby,” I said. And perhaps it was even technically true, but my reassuring demeanor was a lie. It was the first and only lie I’ve ever told to a patient.

I watched her drift peacefully under anesthesia for her surgery. But all I could think of as she did so, was that it would be the last contented moment she would ever feel…for months to even a lifetime.

I felt miserably sorry for her.

***

Lacy Windham is an obstetrician gynecologist.

Share this post with your friends:

14 Comments on ““Your baby is still ALIVE” – The lie I told to my patient”

  1. Your style is very unique compared to other people I have read stuff from.
    Thanks for postiing when you've got the opportunity, Guess
    I'll just bookmark this web site.

  2. Wow! Thank you! I permanently wanted to write on my website
    something like that. Can I take a fragment of your
    post to my blog?

  3. I constantly spent my half an hour to read
    this blog's articles or reviews every day along with a mug of coffee.

  4. Hey! Someone in my Myspace group shared this site with us so
    I came to give it a look. I'm definitely loving the information. I'm book-marking
    and will be tweeting this to my followers! Excellent blog
    and terrific design.

  5. I'm really enjoying the theme/design of your website.
    Do you ever run into any browser compatibility issues?
    A handful of my blog visitors have complained about my blog
    not working correctly in Explorer but looks great in Firefox.
    Do you have any suggestions to help fix this issue?

  6. I want to to thank you for this good read!! I absolutely loved every bit of it.
    I've got you book-marked to look at new things you post…

  7. I'm extremely impressed along with your writing talents as neatly
    as with the layout on your blog. Is that this a paid
    subject matter or did you modify it yourself? Anyway keep up the nice quality writing, it is uncommon to look a nice blog
    like this one today..

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.