Every emergency medicine physician has a case that lingers long after the shift ends — the patient who appeared stable, said they felt “a little better,” but ultimately wasn’t OK.
We carry those cases with us long after the shift ends. Usually, the reminders are secondhand in the form of a colleague mentioning a patient we discharged who returned with a new diagnosis or was admitted. We shake our heads, replay the encounter and move on a little heavier.
But sometimes, the story ends much differently. For example, in the rare, devastating cases like Sam Terblanche, a