Read Online Tales from the Emergency Room by FAAAAI MD William E. Hermance - Free Book Online Page B

over the years, I have often thought of this brush with the law.
    No MD License Plates
    In January, 1962, while I was still working in the ER, a monumental snowstorm swept down upon New York City. I remember especially how quiet the area around the hospital became for several days. There was so much snow that the City actually closed. No unnecessary vehicles were to be allowed into Manhattan. And, I had to get to the hospital! However, I did not yet have my New York State License and therefore I did not have MD plates (my father always maintained that MD stood for “muddled driver”). I would be wearing my hospital whites driving into the City but I did not have a good way of proving that I actually was a doctor. Finally, I took my framed medical diploma off the wall at home, put it in the trunk of my car and set off through the snow from New Rochelle, NY. I actually made it into upper Manhattan before a police officer stopped my car. I explained the problem but he looked skeptical. So, I got out, opened the trunk and produced the diploma. He looked it over closely and broke out laughing. He let me continue on my trip, warning me that I might be stopped again. I wasn’t and I arrived on time at the hospital. Having driven around in the snows of Rochester, NY for eight years, I also arrived without a weather-related mishap.
    The Speeding Ticket
    Some people are just naturally thick, hopefully only occasionally like me. On my way to work while I was still in the ER, a New York State trooper pulled me over on I95 near New Rochelle because I was speeding. By then my car had MD plates and I was dressed in my hospital whites. After the usual license examination and talk about my transgression, the trooper asked me where I was going so fast and why. He asked me two more times and finally gave up and wrote me a ticket. I swear it was weeks later as I was driving my usual route to the hospital (within the speed limit) that I suddenly realized that he was trying to get me to explain that I was on my way to an emergency call at the hospital so that he could give me a warning and not a ticket. I really couldn’t blame him for ticketing somebody so dense. He probably remembered my name in case he ever had health related dealings with me.
    The Fishing Expedition
    In the ER there was a black bag in reserve to be taken along on ambulance calls. There was also a reserve vial of Demerol to be used for pain control if needed. The Demerol was, for security reasons, not kept in the bag but handed to the doctor on his way to the ambulance. One very hot midsummer night not long after I began in the ER a call came in for a woman in labor. The patrol car collected me after I had placed the Demerol in my white jacket pocket and we proceeded, along with an ambulance, to the tenement to see the about-to-be mother. The apartment was on the fourth floor in a walkup building and, on my way up the stairs, I realized that there was a police officer on every landing. (Later I understood that this was for my protection.) The apartment building was very old and the rooms were immense with high ceilings. All of the windows were open to the courtyard because of the summer heat. Save for the improvised labor room, there was only one piece of furniture to be seen, a straight-backed chair next to a window. I draped my jacket over the chair and went to examine the patient.
    Her room was draped with white sheets and she lay in labor on a mattress on the floor. There were children everywhere, some peering over the sheets, very interested in what was going on. The woman was howling. I conducted an exam and decided that there would be time to transport her to the hospital for the delivery.
    When I went to retrieve my jacket it was nowhere in sight. As I looked around, an officer handed me my coat with the narcotic vial still in the pocket. The officer patiently explained to me that the chair on which I had hung my jacket was near an open window, that the apartment