"Oops!" Now that is the four letter word you never want to hear a Doctor say, when he's rewiring/replacing a Central-IV line, in your ICU patient. This is the tale of a real John Doe, who fortunately survived one of those really big "Oops" moments.

The Missing IV Caper

It's not that I'm complaining
I won't say my care was shoddy,
But there's an IV catheter
Lost, somewhere in my body.

I've had several consultations
The doctors shrug and wonder,
They scramble for some research
For solutions to this blunder.

I've been CT- scanned and echoed
They even split my arm,
I thought the basic tenet was
Physician, do no harm.

So when they came this morning
With the fiber optic pliers,
I screamed, "Not another inch, boys"
Let's call Jacoby and Myers.

It's a litigation nightmare
As the accusations fly,
The defense will try to drag it out
In the hopes that I will die.

Then they'll probably pay the coroner
To falsify the paper,
To exonerate the guilty
In this missing IV caper.

Fibril_late; 10/93