The Grape Picker

The story with the title The Grape Picker was the main reason that I wrote this book. It is the story of an accidental trauma of a small child, misdiagnosed as child abuse.

Witnessing the painful experience that the child's parents had to go through (the accident itself, the accusations against them, ACS involvement with subsequent placement of the child in foster care, the need to go in court), I came out with some conclusions. The doctors that are dealing with situations like that must have certain qualities: they have to be less opinionated, more flexible, on top of being very knowledgeable. If they remember the Hippocratic Oath, it will also be very helpful (particularly the part of not to be ashamed when you don't know how to solve a case and call for other colleagues help when their skills are needed). It also affected me very much because the child was my patient.

My hope is that mistakes like the one described in my story will not happen anymore. For me, practicing pediatrics was like a bonus to my life. Working in this field has been interesting, challenging, and rewarding. It is occasionally sad, but more often, there were funny moments as this one.

One day, a two-year-old boy needed to receive a vaccine. To distract him, I started to ask him questions: what his name was (Michael), his mother's name (Mama), his father's name (Mama calls him John), and my name (no answer). In the meantime, I had already administered the vaccine without him realizing it. Two days later, coming back to pick up a medical form, the moment he entered the office, he started to spell my entire name correctly and said it out loud. And then he added, "No shots!" Can you not laugh? He was only two years and two months old.