By Savannah Young
Back in the 1980s, when Mark Schuster was completing an adult neurology rotation at a Harvard teaching hospital, a woman was brought to the emergency room with urinary incontinence and other symptoms, as well as signs of a herniated disc, including a confirmatory myelogram.
She required surgery, making her what the neurology team called a great teaching case. It was one that came with a lesson that, for Schuster, went well beyond how to address medical condition.
The radiologist handling the case unexpectedly reversed his reading and the patient’s neurosurgeon canceled the surgery. When the neurology team asked why, the radiologist admitted that the neurosurgeon had pressured him to change his reading. When the team met with the neurosurgeon, he said that he believed the patient was a lesbian because of what he considered a suspicious novel on her bedside table.
“So, she’s a lesbian, what does it matter?” Schuster exclaimed, in what he recalled was a sort of out-of-body experience. He was startled by his own abrupt and indignant response.