(CNN)In medicine, we like rules.
Digestible, consistent patterns can be easily recognized, analyzed and lead to a swift diagnosis.
An alcoholic with yellowish skin and eyes, spider veins on the legs, weakness and a protuberant belly. The pattern points to cirrhosis of the liver.
A woman who has no pain whatsoever when sitting, but who consistently develops a dull ache in her legs after just a few steps. That is likely peripheral arterial disease.
Doctors are trained to seek such patterns. They are easy to teach and easy to learn, which is ideal for how much information needs to be absorbed in medical school.
However, the convenience of learning through patterns is not always pragmatic. Patients break patterns and defy the rules all the time, and when they do, following such patterns can get in the way of the patient's needs.
Such was the case with my friend and former CNN correspondent, Miles O'Brien, who suffered an injury that led to an amputation of his left arm.
Miles had been in the Philippines working on a story when an equipment case had fallen on his arm. The injury was far worse than Miles first realized, and within 48 hours, he had developedAcute Compartment Syndrome. When Miles went under general anesthesia, he didn't know what the outcome of the operation would be, but over the next couple of hours the surgeons learned they needed to amputate his arm to save his life.
I've known Miles for 14 years. He was gracious to me when I started at CNN and I learned something from his reporting on space every time he appeared on television. We often joked that together we were the rocket scientist and the brain surgeon of CNN. And over the years our friendship grew as we covered wars and natural disaster (including Hurricane Katrina) together.
So it was personally upsetting to first hear of his injury and then later as he described the moments after he awoke, his brain still registering the presence of the phantom limb. I cried when Miles told me he had breathed a sigh of relief only to look down and see that a part of him was gone. What stunned me more, though was that for a week after his operation he stayed in the Philippines, worked on his stories, and told...no one. Neither his family nor his friends. He didn't even tell his bosses back in Washington, DC as he continued to submit his work. Within minutes after losing his left arm, Miles was grieving, and within days he was working out of acceptance or denial, as if it hadn't happened. He was already starting to break the rules.
Read more: What Miles O'Brien teaches us about loss, and being found
Digestible, consistent patterns can be easily recognized, analyzed and lead to a swift diagnosis.
An alcoholic with yellowish skin and eyes, spider veins on the legs, weakness and a protuberant belly. The pattern points to cirrhosis of the liver.
A woman who has no pain whatsoever when sitting, but who consistently develops a dull ache in her legs after just a few steps. That is likely peripheral arterial disease.
Doctors are trained to seek such patterns. They are easy to teach and easy to learn, which is ideal for how much information needs to be absorbed in medical school.
However, the convenience of learning through patterns is not always pragmatic. Patients break patterns and defy the rules all the time, and when they do, following such patterns can get in the way of the patient's needs.
Such was the case with my friend and former CNN correspondent, Miles O'Brien, who suffered an injury that led to an amputation of his left arm.
Miles had been in the Philippines working on a story when an equipment case had fallen on his arm. The injury was far worse than Miles first realized, and within 48 hours, he had developedAcute Compartment Syndrome. When Miles went under general anesthesia, he didn't know what the outcome of the operation would be, but over the next couple of hours the surgeons learned they needed to amputate his arm to save his life.
I've known Miles for 14 years. He was gracious to me when I started at CNN and I learned something from his reporting on space every time he appeared on television. We often joked that together we were the rocket scientist and the brain surgeon of CNN. And over the years our friendship grew as we covered wars and natural disaster (including Hurricane Katrina) together.
So it was personally upsetting to first hear of his injury and then later as he described the moments after he awoke, his brain still registering the presence of the phantom limb. I cried when Miles told me he had breathed a sigh of relief only to look down and see that a part of him was gone. What stunned me more, though was that for a week after his operation he stayed in the Philippines, worked on his stories, and told...no one. Neither his family nor his friends. He didn't even tell his bosses back in Washington, DC as he continued to submit his work. Within minutes after losing his left arm, Miles was grieving, and within days he was working out of acceptance or denial, as if it hadn't happened. He was already starting to break the rules.
Read more: What Miles O'Brien teaches us about loss, and being found