Loss Of Containment

I am officially done pretending this is an abstract medical mystery. Whatever is happening in Stockport, it is no longer confined to paperwork and procedures. I treated a patient today—a young man, couldn’t have been more than twenty—who tried to bite a colleague during a routine vitals check. There was no confusion on his face. He didn’t look like someone in the throes of a fever or a drug reaction. There was just a pure, animalistic intent. He wasn’t trying to fight us; he was trying to feed. We had to use physical restraints, and even then, he didn’t stop lunging. History will not thank us for our euphemisms. It’s time we call this what it is.