A 28 year old female patient is sent to an Emergency Department from a nearby addictions
treatment facility. Her chief complaints are anxiety and chest pain. She is concerned she
may have a heart problem. An electrocardiogram is routinely done at triage. The
emergency physician who signs up to see the patient is well-known for his views on
‘addicts’ and others with ‘self-inflicted’ problems who tie up busy emergency
departments. When he goes to see the patient he is informed by the nurse that she has gone
for a cigarette. He appears angry and verbally expresses his irritation to the nurse. He
reviews her electrocardiogram which is normal.
When the patient returns he admonishes her for wasting his time and after a cursory
examination informs her she has nothing wrong with her heart and discharges her with the
advice that she quit smoking.
The patient is returned to the addictions centre. Later that evening she has further chest
pain and a cardiac arrest from which she could not be resuscitated. At autopsy, multiple
small emboli were evident in both lungs with bilateral massive pulmonary saddle emboli.
Comment: this is an example of FAE (see text for details), where the physician
focuses on the disposition of the patient rather than the circumstances that led her into
addiction. She had a long history of physical and sexual abuse. His anger at the patient
further distracts him from his usual practice of reviewing medications and noticing on her
triage chart that she is on a birth control pill.