VITAL SIGNS

摘要

"Tell the patient he needs to return to the hospital, Right away." "Why? He says he feels fine." "Tell him there's something wrong with his heart," I said. "He has to come back." Eight hours earlier, at 2 a.m., the patient had come to the emergency room. One of my favorite residents had presented the details of the case. "Forty-eight-year-old Asian man, passed out watching television," she related in her precise Indian-British diction. "Felt a fullness in the head. The family says they saw him shake, turn blue, and come to a few minutes later. No medical history, really, except that he smokes one pack a day." "He was watching TV? Doing nothing else?" I asked, dubious. She was ready for me. "Yes. On his bed at home. I asked him twice." No one just passes out in bed.