Upon giving orders for a patient to be given immunosuppressing radiation treatment and then learning that it was nothing more than a staph infection (the radiation therapy killed the patient's immune system, essentially dooming her to a painful death), he is visibly agonized and blames himself for killing her.
Shortly after the initial surgery, he developed a staph infection and underwent five additional surgeries to eliminate the infection.
Infection | infection | Chlamydia infection | Group A streptococcal infection | Staphylococcal infection | Focal infection theory | The Infection | Protozoan infection | Group B streptococcal infection |
Surgery (thyroidectomy to remove the whole thyroid or a part of it) is not extensively used because most common forms of hyperthyroidism are quite effectively treated by the radioactive iodine method, and because there is a risk of also removing the parathyroid glands, and of cutting the recurrent laryngeal nerve, making swallowing difficult, and even simply generalized staphylococcal infection as with any major surgery.