The Final Diagnosis

“Dr. O’Do

The sound of his own name on the hospital P.A. system brought him back to reality. He stopped, looking around him for a telephone on which to acknowledge the call. He saw one in a glass-enclosed accounting office a few yards away. Going in to use it, he reported to the telephone exchange and a moment later was given Dornberger’s message. Responding promptly; he changed direction and headed for the elevators which would take him to the fourth floor and Obstetrics.

While Kent O’Do

O’Do

Entering the small operating room, O’Do

The tiny, frail Alexander baby had been taken from its incubator and placed on the warm operating table. Now the assisting nurse, with the intern helping her, was securing the infant in place, using diapers—one around each arm and leg—folded in long narrow strips and fastened with safety pins to the cover of the table. O’Do

The nurse unfolded a sterile sheet and draped it over the infant, leaving exposed only the head and navel, the latter area still in process of healing where the umbilical cord had been severed at birth. A local anesthetic had already been administered. Now the girl passed forceps to O’Do

“Yes, sir.”

O’Do

A few minutes ago two student nurses had slipped into the room and now, following a habit of instruction, O’Do

“An exchange transfusion, as perhaps you know”—O’Do

The assisting nurse was inverting a pint bottle of blood on a stand above the table. O’Do

“Temperature ninety-six,” the assisting nurse a

O’Do

Using the knife gently, he cut off the dry portion of the umbilical vein, exposing moist tissue. He put down the knife and said softly, “Hemostat.”

The intern was craning over, watching. O’Do

The assisting nurse was holding a plastic catheter with a needle attached; it was through this that the blood would be drawn off and replaced. O’Do

As he held the catheter vertical, the nurse used a ruler to measure the height of the column of blood. She a

A second plastic tube led to the bottle of blood above them; a third ran to one of the two Monel-metal basins at the foot of the table. Bringing the three tubes together, O’Do

His fingers sensitive, he eased the plunger of the syringe toward him gently. This was always a critical moment in an exchange transfusion; if the blood failed to flow freely it would be necessary to remove the catheter and begin the early preparation all over again. Behind him, O’Do

O’Do

On his score sheet the intern wrote, 10 ml. out.”

Once more O’Do

Turning the stopcock again, he withdrew donor blood into the syringe, then, tenderly and slowly, injected it into the child.

On his score sheet the intern wrote, 10 ml. in.

Painstakingly O’Do

Then, twenty-five minutes after they had started, the baby stirred and cried.