The Patient Was…

The patient was a forty-year old male, and a movie star. His comic roles are movie classics, and the mere mention of his name can bring smiles and laughter.

It was just after five o’clock on a Friday afternoon, and I was off for the weekend. I was about to phone the medical colleague who was covering for me and the rest of the small group who shared weekend on-call duties. There were a couple of patients in the hospital whom I wanted him to see while I was off, and I needed to give him pertinent details on their cases.

As I reached for the phone to call him, it rang. My secretary had already left, and my answering service was picking up my calls. The service reported that someone had called, said it was an emergency, and needed to speak with me. The number they gave was unfamiliar.

My call was answered by a man who identified himself as a producer on a film that was actively shooting at that moment on West 57^th Street in Manhattan. The star, whom he named, had developed palpitations described as forceful and rapidbeating of his heart, accompanied by slight discomfort in his chest and some mild difficulty in breathing.

In some way that I still don’t understand, I confused the name of the movie star with that of another actor and comedian, well known for his work in television. While I personally loved the work of the movie actor, I never cared for that of the television performer, someone I thought was greatly overrated.

Naturally, I wasn’t going to tell the producer that I didn’t much care for the man he was calling about, and certainly would not have declined to see him had I not had the legitimate excuse of being officially off-duty. I knew that my colleague on-call was an excellent physician and the patient would be well looked-after in my absence.

The producer was insistent, saying that they had my name as the best expert to call in case of emergency, and even though he understood that I was going to be away for the weekend and therefore unavailable, they wanted me to see the patient on the coming Monday. I felt obliged to agree to see him and made an appointment to do so.

Sure enough, on Monday morning, the actor showed up in my office.

Not until I saw him, and recognized him immediately, did I realize that I had confused him with the other performer. They had the same first name, and both last names started with the same letters.

He became my patient. His medical issue was related to ingestion of substances that created irregular heart rhythms, substances that were used routinely by lots of people in the movie and other entertainment fields. He wasn’t addicted in any way, and found it easy to curtail their use, although he admitted to occasional lapses even knowing the potential consequences.

It is well known that alcohol and many so-called “recreational drugs” can trigger abnormal heart rhythms, as well as other serious medical conditions. One patient of mine who was seen regularly on television intermittently abused alcohol and did not think it affected his performance.  He was genuinely surprised that I could tell from watching him on TV when he was having an irregular heart rhythm, since nobody else seemed to notice the slight difference on camera from when his heartbeat was normal.

I told the movie star that I loved his work. I never told him about the mix-up in names. He probably knew the other guy, too. I don’t know if he liked his work any more than I did.