Today in class, we discussed Blake in Clay’s Ark and his tendency to act as though he has the “God Complex”. The “God Complex” is when one tends to believe that they are above all else due to their place in society, their overfed ego, or their need to solely do what pleases them in life. Many quickly made the relation that Blake feels this way because he is a doctor. From many of my personal experiences, doctors tend to believe that they are above many others because they are educated and perform noble tasks daily. Although most doctors are right in feeling this way, I find that it is not applicable to every Doctor. I have had multiple bad experiences with Doctors over the course of my lifetime; my friend has one that takes the cake as being the worst story I’ve been told about an error made during a medical procedure
My friend’s aunt was getting ready to have knee surgery and she was being placed under anesthesia. Apparently, it’s relatively common for one to vomit while being put under or while coming out of the anesthetic. This happened to her aunt and the vomit became stuck in her lungs. Shortly after her surgery, she became very sick and suddenly had a difficult time breathing. Her daughter, who was an anesthesiologist, asked the hospital for her mother’s file so that she could search for reasons as to why her mother was suddenly having these complications that she had never experienced before. She read that the vomit in her lungs was recorded, but that attention was never drawn to it and it was never cleared from her lungs. Obviously frustrated and distraught, she angrily accused the hospital of malpractice and demanded that her mother’s situation be dealt with properly so that she good breathe normally again. Her daughter was then escorted out by security and asked not to reenter the hospital. Two weeks later, her mother, (my friend’s aunt), passed away from suffocation because of the fluid in her lungs. The doctors did not want to listen to another because they firmly believed that they were right and because of this, someone had to die.
Doctors do have years worth of practice, education, and experience; however, this does not make them immune to error. During my reading, I found that Blake believes that this may be true in his position with the disease. He believes that because he’s a doctor, he can fix nearly anything even though he has no real understanding of the disease. Humans make mistakes and no one is ever 100% knowledgable about anything. Even those who save lives everyday are still vulnerable to accidents or being incapable of fixing someone.