A woman was sent to the ER from her OB office, where she was screamed at in the waiting room in front of other patients, that she had put herself in danger by waiting to take an abortion pill for her ectopic pregnancy.

Between sobs, she explained that two days ago she was told her pregnancy was “in the wrong place” and “most likely but not completely certainly” wouldn’t be viable. She really wanted this baby. If it wasn’t certain the pregnancy wouldn’t work, could her doctors help her gather more information?

The hedge-y read on her ultrasound two days ago was totally bewildering to her. Terminating the pregnancy was so incredibly consequential. Yet no one took the time to explain the likelihoods in detail, the options available to her, the impacts on her future fertility.

This is the state she came to me in the ER in: terrified I was going to tell her we needed to surgically cut her tubes out, riddled with unjustified guilt, and confused without sufficient help from her doctors. And of course, grieving the loss of her pregnancy.

ERs consider women with pregnancy complications the lowest priority if they’re not bleeding out: these are healthy young women who should be sent out for outpatient follow–up. Maybe they can be seen by an APP without even going to a room, they say.

Luckily I got time to take care of her. Luckily, I didn’t have to cave to pressures on my time this shift keeping me from holding her hand and giving her the time and answers she was long overdue for. Luckily the OB colleague I called was exceptional and undid the misinformation shouted upon her in the office earlier that day. These things shouldn't have been left to luck.

But because she didn’t bleed out or have a complication or sue us, this case isn’t reviewed as a sign of a system failure. How wrong of our health system to tragically mismanage the care of this woman on so many levels.

Women like this (and anyone going through life-impacting medical decisions) should get as much time as they need with experts to make the right choice and feel a sense of peace about it. They’re not wasting anyone’s time: getting sound explanations is part of health care, which is their fundamental right.