MILWAUKEE, WI – Richard Henning, a third-year medical student, has no idea how close he came to perishing at Memorial Hospital yesterday. At approximately 7:04 a.m., Hennings interrupted a nursing change of shift report and took the medical chart away.
Joanne Clemens, the nurse giving report, couldn’t believe what she was seeing, describing the incident as being “simply appalling.”
“Here I was giving a very detailed change of shift report and out of nowhere, he interrupts us with, ‘What’s the latest potassium level?’ and takes the chart away,” says Clemens.
Clemens had to be restrained by her replacement, John Domers, as Hennings sauntered away with his recently pressed short white coat, a shiny stethoscope around his neck, and a mismatched tie.
“The nerve of this medical student to just take the chart during our report… I was so lit up. The only thing holding me back from physically punching him in the face, was John holding me back saying, ‘It’s not worth it’ to me.”
Hennings added insult to injury by leaving the chart on a different ward and forgetting to place the red order flag back up. His SOAP note also was a record 3-pages long for a 27-year-old patient s/p appendectomy and contained earth shattering phrases such as “will continue to follow” and “pain medications prn.”
“He is just so oblivious to how close he came to dying today,” says Clemens of the near-death experience. “The next time this happens, I am literally going to dump room 120’s C. diff rectal bag all over his white coat.”
