Confession

Somewhere along the line, we learn that a patient's chart should not be tampered with and to do so is a breach of medical ethics. But I once did, and I think it was the right thing to do. Here's the story.

It was a long time ago, as they say, and in another country. I had finished my first year of residency and, as scheduled, went into the Army. I was an OBV, an “obligated volunteer.” If one did not volunteer for a commission in the service, he would be drafted at an inconvenient time; hence, most of us chose to go in when it worked out best for us.

In 1 month I went from a sheltered residency in Boston to Fort Sam Houston, where I learned to shoot, crawl under barbed wire, wear a uniform, and salute. I listened to endless, seemingly useless, lectures in the heat of a Texas July. Then briefly back East and off to Germany via a Military Air Transport Service plane. Then the train from Frankfurt to Stuttgart and staff car to my destination near the Black Forest, where the Army had an installation housing a group of schools dealing with clandestine activities having to do with the Cold War. I was to be the family …