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Jeffrey P. Bishop, MD

JAMA. 1998;280:1960.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

All residents have a story about a patient situation that got under their skin. Mine occurred at 4 AM when I was the resident in charge of medicine in the emergency department (ED). I had patients in all three of our cardiac booths, a psychotic patient waiting to have medical causes ruled out, and six of our nine monitor beds occupied by patients with chest pain, congestive heart failure, and drug overdoses. A young woman came into the ED hyperventilating; she was certain she was dying because she had carpal-pedal spasms. I put her in our nonurgent waiting area. After about an hour, her boyfriend, who I learned had induced the hyperventilation during a heated argument, came to me asking why his girlfriend had not yet been seen. I replied that I was taking care of the critically ill patients first. He then informed me that . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine
University of Texas
Southwestern Medical School
Dallas

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