18. The Need to Showoff Can Hurt Innocent People
Dr. Robert Liston was famous for his ability to complete operations in a matter of seconds, and amputate a leg in just two and a half minutes. Unsurprisingly, the odds of a mistake were pretty high. Dr. Liston played up his reputation for speedy surgery for all it was worth. Surgeries back then were spectator events, and galleries surrounded operating rooms for observers to watch the proceedures. As he brandished his cutting tools, Dr. Liston would often shout to the audience “time me, gentlemen!“ That became his catchphrase.
In the course of one surgery to amputate a leg, an assistant who held down the patient’s limb lost the fingers of one hand when Dr. Liston accidently severed them. The doctor continued with the job, and took off the patient’s leg. Both patient and assistant got gangrene, and died within a few days. In his frenzied slicing, Dr. Liston also accidentally cut an elderly spectator’s coat. The old man was not hurt, but he was splattered with blood from patient’s amputated leg and the medical assistant’s severed fingers. The elderly spectator thought that he had been wounded, panicked, had a heart attack, and died.
