The Buncke Clinic

I cut my little left finger off. The student told me I had two choices- close the amputation and go home or reattach it and lay in the hospital for 5 days, not getting up, keep it elevated. He didn't say that it might be shorter, deformed, usable. And that it- might/probably will - hurt for over a year. Dr. A. Watt- the Bunckie doctor, was watching from behind the curtain, two days later he left for Bolivia and left me in the care of the students. Then he didn't think I needed blood thinner upon leaving the hospital, so the finger began to turn purple and black. It was dying even before I was discharged! They put leeches on it and kept me another 7 days with total bed rest. All the while I thought it was a normal finger! 2.5 months later I learned Dr. Watt intended to cut off the end joint and that he had not reattached the tendon that contracts the finger! It would be a nub only movable at the knuckle. The student's use of the microscopic surgery took priority over my best care.