Priorities

A young woman came in on New Year's Eve with medium-sized pieces of a beer bottle embedded in her neck and back.

I quickly assessed that she was relatively stable, though bleeding, ordered a few images, and asked her what was bothering her.

"My neck hurts a little cause there's glass in it or something. And I have these bumps in my butt crack. They're itchy. It's probably herpes from my a**hole husband. Can you look at those?"

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Hours later, after consulting ENT, trauma surgery, and the CT scanner to very thoroughly confirm that the glass hadn't nicked any minor structures like the carotid artery or the spinal cord, I sewed her up (23 stitches), bandaged her, provided a life-saving tetanus shot, then helped her find a battered women's shelter to stay in, set her up with social work to work on getting a restraining order against her husband, and finally got her discharge stuff ready.

I turned to leave.

"Doctor. What about them bumps I got?"

(I'm so sorry, ma'am, I was every so slightly distracted by your gaping neck wound and trying to safely sneak you out of the hospital with your abusive husband literally in the room across the hall).

Well, I did take a look.

Discharge diagnoses?

1. 4 cm zone II neck laceration

2. 7 cm back laceration

3. Anal Herpes