Unfiltered Story #314610

My father is a doctor, but his real passion is in performing medical research.

In his early days as a surgeon, Dad made a mistake, and wound up leaving a needle in the body of a patient. This needle wound up in the blood vessels, and somehow managed to circle the body without any ill effects.

Thankfully, a follow-up appointment found the needle, and Dad was able to extract it without any big issue.

Luckily, the patient was rather religious, and was all “It’s God’s will. Inshallah.” And didn’t press any charges, so Dad got off with just a warning.

Afterwards, Dad expressed his interest in writing a research paper on the whole subject, upon which his boss promptly took him aside.

Boss: “What are you thinking?! [Dad], you just made a mistake that could have killed a patient! You could have gotten arrested, and gotten the hospital sued for malpractice! We’ve all dodged a bullet with that patient, and now you’re thinking of showing the entire world your mistake in a research paper?! No, what you will do, is keep this quiet until the day you retire, or God help you, for no one else can save your career.”

Which was what my Dad did. He kept the whole affair quiet, and eventually retired three decades later as a head of department.

He still wishes that he could have written a research paper on the accident though.