So the other day I saw a patient named Rodriguez. As you may be aware it is a somewhat common name. Well I have many in my clinic and I had two scheduled on the same day.
I went in to see my next patient (Rodriguez) and recognized the patient as someone I had met one month earlier and started on insulin. I began by asking how things were going with the daily insulin injection. "everything is fine" was the reply
I opened my chart to the medication list and found that not only was Lantus (bedtime insulin) on the list, but Novolog was too (mealtime insulin). I felt puzzed, sure that I had started only Lantus, but now unsure that I remembered the patient in front of me. I started to update the medicine list. Then I thought 'am I confusing this patient with someone else?' so I turned back to the last clinic visit and read over my last note which made me feel even more confused, I must have the wrong patient, I though.
So, naturally I look at the name 'Rodriguez' and verify that this is my patient's name, 'yes, that's me' (At this point I had not realized or remembered that I had two Rodriguezes scheduled on the same day)
Well luckily I wasn't convinced I asked my patient a couple of details about the last visit like "didn't we start you on Lantus 10 Units last month?" The patient confirmed my memory and also confirmed that I had the wrong chart in front of me. I also asked for the Date of Birth which was incorrect. I excused myself from the room and let my nurse know that I had the wrong chart and we found the second chart labeled Rodriguez (these patients had the same first name too, by the way!) It was nice to know that I had the right patient, and identified the wrong chart before doing anything crazy like sending the patient home with prescriptions for the wrong person. Ironically the other Rodriguez never showed up!
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