Well, if all Asians look the same

This morning, I walked into the hospital like I always do, but instead of going to get my usual morning cup of coffee, my jaw dropped.

My patient was meandering around the lobby, loudly trying to get a security guard to help him.

And me? I was freaking out.

Because my patient was on a psychiatric hold. And unless my attending had decided to pull rank and come into the hospital early to discontinue the hold, my patient should have been in the locked unit, and not on the verge of eloping, just mere feet away from the entrance/exit and out of my psychiatric jurisdiction.

How did this happen? While my mind thought a million dark thoughts at the county nurses and their inability to pay attention to anything other than their cell phone texts, I tried to smile serenely at my Spanish-speaking-only patient.

"Hola senor! Soy su doctora! Por que...outside....aqui?" I asked him as I tried to figure out which of the few Spanish words I knew could apply to this situation.

He looked at me, confused, but thankfully, not attempting to escape.

"Vien con moi..." I motioned to him to follow me, as I started conjugating French verbs, hoping that the languages were similar enough that he would understand me.

He followed me passively back to the unit. Didn't raise a fuss when I swiped my badge to unlock the doors, wasn't perturbed when I hissed at the security guard for allowing this to happen, and followed me all the way to his room.

"Here you go sir. I'll come talk to you in about thirty minutes okay?" He had no idea what I was saying, but nodded pleasantly at me. I led him into his room, and then led him straight back out of it.

Because my patient was sleeping soundly in bed. And this man who had been following me around, was apparently not my patient after all.

I awkwardly grabbed his arm to look at his patient ID wristband, realized he was supposed to be on the sixth floor, and took him back to his proper room. And then I went and got a big plate of tater tots for the security guard to apologize for my earlier death glares.