Textual Analysis: First, Do No Harm

Patrick Patrick Dismuke was a young African American boy, at the age of fifteen when the story starts, and a regular patient at Hermann Hospital. Patrick was born with a severe case of Hirschsprung’s disease, a disorder of the digestive tract, and was unable to digest his food. Throughout Patrick’s life, he spent more days in the hospital than out and came to be quite comfortable with the environment and staff at Hermann. Due to his disease his only way of nutrition was through a feeding tube, unfortunately these tubes often got infected. Since Patrick’s immune system was also weak, the infections were almost as bad as the disease itself. The doctors were forced to put the boy through surgery
When patients like Patrick and Armando were admitted to the hospital, no one was able to pay the bulk of medical bills and the hospital goes further into debt.
Memorable Moment First, Do No Harm is full of captivating stories of real life events, all of which are hard to forget. Perhaps the most shocking aspect of the book is what was said by one of the nurses when Armando was brought into Hermann. The nurse was angry at the fact that he survived and said the only reason he was admitted in the first place was because he was an organ donor. The fact that a hospital would admit someone with the hopes of them not surviving is scary. If more people knew this is the attitude that medical staff had, surely they would be more hesitant before going to a hospital and be more skeptical of their doctors. From a patient’s perspective, hospitals are supposed to be establishments that help heal people, not hope that they die. However, from a nurse or doctors perspective, they are to help treat the most curable patients even if that means letting the weaker ones die to save the healthier ones. This passage makes the reader realize that there is more than one perspective in every situation that occurs at hospitals. Doctors and nurses are used to being in the presence of terminally ill patients and often have hardened hearts, as a result of seeing death on a daily basis. This passage also reminds the reader that nurses are people too and when stressed they can say