Funny story of how I was chased out of ward round while in medical school

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Medical school, especially in Nigeria, is usually rigorous. It was a tradition for patients to be distributed for management by all medical students in the unit concerned. Hence, before reporting for duty in any new unit, the medical students usually distribute patients from the unit and clerk them for presentation to the consultant the following day.

Unfortunately, I was the group leader and had also failed to distribute the patients in the unit to myself and other colleagues.
It was a beautiful Monday morning, and I had prayed to have a week of minimal stress. I hung my stethoscope around my neck after wearing my ward coat. Students always stood behind consultants like a swarm of bees, and that day was no exception.

When the consultant got to the side of one of the patients, he called the medical students to come forward and asked, "Who's patient is this?" There was dead silence as nobody owned up. Then he asked the group leader to come forward, which I reluctantly did, fearing for the worst.

"Who's patient is this?" The consultant repeated.

My heart beat as though it were chased by a mob, and I could feel my heart struggling to abandon me and run out of my chest. It was then that I knew I was in serious trouble since I forgot to allocate each patient to the medical students in the unit.

"The patient is for the consultant." I managed to say this as the team of medical doctors and some of my co-students burst into laughter. The consultant was shocked, perhaps at my response or my stupidity.

"Get out of here immediately!" The consultant thundered as I quickly moved back. I managed to say "sorry" a couple of times, but that seemed to aggravate the consultant further.

I left the ward that day scared, although a bit of me laughed at me for giving the consultant such a response.

All patients actually belong to the consultant; however, each was allocated to medical students to clerk and present, which I failed to do.

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