"excitement" in free clinic

The last surprise of the day at free clinic was not so good.  I took one of the books on family medicine to read while I spun down blood samples for the hospital, but as I was waiting one of the other volunteers came by to correct the labels on some blood vials.  I began to read off the labs to confirm that it was the correct patient, but the other student insisted that we step into the little closet with the centrifuge to discuss the changes.  I was wondering if I was violating HIPAA privacy rules when he not-quite-pushed me in, looked down the hall a few times, then squeezed himself in and shut the door.

I suddenly became aware of the commotion a few doors down as the noise grew louder, there were loud banging sounds, and I heard a man shouting incoherent phrases while other people tried to calm him down.   The other student, glancing out, assured me that about eight men were taking care of the situation and that we did not need to worry.  I was suddenly thankful that the other student was a hefty six-foot guy, especially when I heard someone loudly asking the man, "Do you have a weapon?  Please show us your hands and turn around."  A bit later, someone else loudly declared, "That was ten thousand dollars worth of equipment in there!"  By that I point I assumed the security guard - whom I had passed multiple times that day reading a newspaper and looking bored beyond belief - had instantly earned his wages.

A few moments passed.  "Um, I think the samples are done centrifuging."

"Let's just let them go for a while longer."  He waited till things had quieted down and slipped out.  I had a few more batches of samples to centrifuge, so I just waited till everyone was gone and tried vainly to concentrate on the chapter about "Abnormal Pap Smears."

* * *

It was only at the end of the day that I learned that one of the patients - who had apparently shot someone last week - was sitting in the waiting room with his wife and daughter, freaked out, and started yelling.  Some of the male staffers, seeing the situation was about to explode, pushed him into a cubicle and hung onto him, but he grabbed his daughter and pulled her into the situation.  Somehow this moved into a patient room and he started yelling and banging his head against the wall.  Was he psychotic?  I do not know.

In the end, the older clinician who informed us about all the "excitement" just shook his head and said, Two in a row, as yesterday someone had just pulled a gun on his colleague...

* * *

I had just read an article in JAMA about the increased risk of violence to clinicians, so it was a bit strange to come upon a situation like that in such an unexpected way.  It made me decide that now might be a good time after all to restart martial arts training, possibly in aikido (a nonviolent art that uses joint manipulation to at least theoretically be able to subdue an attacker without harming him/her), as probably kicking in knee joints, striking at someone's windpipe or nose, or punching a violent patient in the solar plexus would not be the most appropriate response as a clinician.  Also, having four years of graduate school to improve my self-defense skills might be a good thing before going back to the clinic.