“She needs to have it removed.”
“But she’s not dehydrated. She doesn’t have any tenderness or Murphy’s sign. She doesn’t have an acute abdomen …”
In fact, A.D. didn’t have any of the emergency symptoms they taught us in medical school.
“She must have colicystitis. She should have her gallbladder taken out.”
“Well, what’s the likelihood that if she doesn’t have it removed, that her gallbladder will recover?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
At first I thought he was joking. I suppressed my chuckling when I saw he wasn’t kidding. “You’re a GI specialist …”
“You don’t understand… I wouldn’t know if she’d recover because I’ve never seen anybody with these symptoms who I’ve sent to have their gallbladder removed who hasn’t had the surgery.”
“What?”