HELENA, MT—Dr. Otto Hare, the on-call physician last night at Helena Health Center, apparently decided to leave the hospital mid-shift—in the midst of admitting a new patient—against said patient’s advice (APA).
Said the abandoned patient, “It was nuts. I was in the middle of telling the doc about how I fainted at my daughter’s wedding when suddenly, Dr. Hare stops me mid-sentence and says, ‘I’m sorry, sir. It’s not you, but I just don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to treat you or anyone else here. I must leave!’
“So, I tried to reason with him,” continued the patient. “I strongly advised him to stay. I went over the risks of him signing out APA—my condition worsening, his other patients getting sicker, being fired from his job, and potential malpractice lawsuits. I went over the benefits of him leaving—none. Believe me, he was fully informed of the stupidity of leaving against my advice.”
Despite the patient’s sound advice, Dr. Hare hastily signed the APA form, dropped his white coat and pagers on the ground and stormed out of the building. He has not been seen since.
It remains unclear why exactly he chose to sign out APA, considering the grave consequences of his decision. Attempts to reach him via phone, e-mail and in-person have proven unsuccessful.
Shockingly, this wasn’t the first time he has signed out APA. When hospital executives reviewed Dr. Hare’s files this morning, a troubling pattern of signing out APA at former places of employment emerged. He had apparently signed out APA in all sorts of situations—in the middle of ICU shifts, in the midst of serious family meetings, while running a code, and one time, he even bolted in the middle of operating on a patient!
The hospital executive who hired Dr. Hare was rightfully questioned as to why she didn’t challenge him about this bizarre behavior during his job interview. “I just didn’t have a chance to ask him,” she embarrassingly admitted, “because he suddenly just left in the middle of the interview.
