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Pediatrician describes his former lifestyle as an impaired physician

Mr. Gambini was an alcoholic who I had as a patient three times during my internship year in internal medicine. Each time he was admitted with increasingly severe cirrhosis and life-threatening bleeding from his esophageal varices, and each time he was "saved" with all of the heroic measures available to us at that time. His wife and two teenage daughters, their rosaries clutched in their hands, would always be at his side or in the waiting room praying.

During his third admission, I, along with two residents and a medical student, worked over him all night and most of the next day before he stabilized. Sometime during the night Mr. Gambini, still stuporous, pulled his subclavian intravenous line out As I attempted to put it back in, I said to the medical student: "I don't know why this guy just doesn't put a gun to his head. He'd be putting himself and his family out of a lot of misery. He just won't stop drinking."