The Stalker

I heard this story second hand when I worked at the CofE and have heard at least 2 versions but something like this actually happened.

Several years ago a young man approached one of the cardiac surgeons, telling him that he was a student at one of technical colleges and could he watch some cardiac surgery. The surgeon was of course only too happy to have somebody witness his genius and so the young man was welcomed into the OR to watch cardiac surgery. After he had been there for a couple of weeks people got used to him being around and he started to drift into other rooms to watch other types of surgery. At that time and even after it nobody was required to wear ID in the OR or anywhere in hospital for that matter. The odd memo came out about wearing ID but nobody ever paid attention.

One day he showed up in a non-cardiac room and introduced himself to the anaesthetist and watched the surgery on a female patient including the insertion of the foley catheter at the beginning. (Female patients are positioned for foley catheter insertion in a Penthouse pose) At the end of the case he walked back to the recovery room with the anaesthetist. Shortly after arrival in the RR the patient opened her eyes, saw the young man and started screaming uncontrollably.

Turns out he had been stalking her, had learned she was having surgery and had weaseled his way into OR where in addition to watching surgery enabled him to view the daily OR slate with patient names on it.

I can only speculate how much the CofE paid out on this case.