Is the beat of one heart more valuable than another?
Seven years of medical training taught me the value of each individual life, and to serve each patient as if they were all innocent beings. I had saved as many priests and aid workers as I had rapists, murderers and thieves. To me this felt unjust. In reality, one patient can be more worthy of life than another, can they not?
The thought disappeared from my mind as the next bed broke through the ED’s doors.
“Single mother. Pregnant. 38 weeks. Car crash.”
The woman’s bedside was quickly met with examining doctors, each with their own agenda. The blood drained from the woman in a dull pool of liquid as those around me prodded fingers and flashed lights. Cognitive and internal harm were both apparent, but yet to be confirmed. The woman’s eyes remained closed as if she were asleep, oblivious to her dire state.
Tending to her external abrasions I could not help but think of the baby’s fate. The woman was hurried to radiology where the following scans revealed what was most feared, yet already predicted by the experienced doctors around me. Hemorrhaging of the brain. Such vital surgery required to save the mother would endanger the infant’s life. The alternative was to perform a lower segment C-section. Whilst the baby could be delivered, the loss of blood, coupled with an acute hemorrhage, would result in the mother’s death. It became apparent upon the faces of medical staff a decision had to be made. Before the clock would strike midnight, one life could be taken in the greatest sacrifice.
The next round of workers allowed me 10 minutes to collect myself and refocus before returning to the ward. A warm coffee, kicking the fatigue of an 8-hour shift helped me mull over the decision ahead. A punch of aroma drifted from the stained mug and took my mind momentarily from the stresses of life. I was three years old again and in the comfort of my mother’s lap. Raised to my lips her morning coffee, a once innocent pleasure I shared in the comfort of her embrace. Demands of the ED soon turned this pleasure into an addiction, and a necessity to survive. Coffee never again tasted as sweet, yet it allowed me to cherish the small moments my mother and I shared before her passing. The mug trembled in my clasp as I gradually returned to reality.
I was called back to make the decision. Nurses and doctors fluttered around me like angels, waiting for their holy command. I could feel my heart beating in my throat, in the next minute I would be accountable for the death of either a mother or a child. I held the burden of choice, and the power to command death or life. A motherless child, or a childless mother, that was the ultimatum. My feeling of empathy towards the innocent child forced me to act on instinct, despite the mother’s higher survival rate. She was administered an anesthetic and prepped for surgery.
I sat in the cushioned thrown in the corridor outside of surgery, looking for solace in the calming blue of the walls. I could not bring myself to be in the room. The silence of the night echoed through me. My fingers trembled around my mug as I was, for a second time, consumed into the swirling abyss of cheap coffee mix. I was a first year, lacking in confidence and about to loose my first patient. I sat down in the exact corridor to evaluate my life, although the thrown was not yet there. The rows of seats outside the theatre were my escape. I struggled with the concept that my life, and work, would soon become defined by my losses, and whilst I could shrug it off and carry on with my routine, it would always linger around me. Death did become a large part of who I was, and change my outlook on life. Thankfully it encouraged my appreciation for the living, and my efforts to save every life. By in large, it was every loss of a patient that made me a better doctor. I supposed at that moment the loss of the child’s mother could impact its own life similarly. Maybe growing up without parents could better the child’s appreciation of what a life is worth. My hands stopped trembling, and I let the cup down gently. The decision I had made had surely been the right one.
The surgeon opened the doors and a blinding cold light hit me. After readjusting my sight I looked to him for answers. His spotless white coat leaned over me, as a fiery halo was cast behind him from the surgery light. His dull expressionless face and his absence of words told me all I needed to know. His brows tightened rather disapprovingly at me, as I slouched in my thrown. I had made the decision the baby would live, and the mother would die, and that’s where my immorality lay. It was never a decision. Death was never an option, only an outcome. I should have followed the rules, I should have tried to save both lives rather than holding one above the other. As my clock ticked past twelve, time went on, and these only became haunting thoughts of my immorality, ghosts of poor judgment. In my uniform I had played an immortal, I had become an entity who decided the fate of mere mortals.
The next bed broke in through the doors. The next body lay there for me on a plate. This time it was not up to me to determine his fate, I would only do my best to serve him, and left my prayers with God.
Word count: 969