In the Burn ICU, we dealt with a “medical expert” who wasn’t a doctor or a nurse, but a distant cousin who once worked as a transcriptionist. She burst into the unit, ready to take over the case.
“Why aren’t you monitoring his brain waves?!” she screamed, pointing at the ventilator. We tried to tell her she was looking at the respiratory rhythms, but she wouldn’t listen. She demanded the patient be put on “Propropanol” (she meant Propofol), accusing the staff of negligence while she stood over a man with 80% body burns.
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The tragedy of the “informed” relative is that their interference often distracts from the critical, second-by-second care needed to keep a patient alive.
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