Hospital nurses and other workers often approach ER physicians for medical advice. I think this stems from our availability rather than any special expertise. The problems for which help is sought range from the ordinary (e.g., removing a stuck contact lens) to the unusual. One nurse approached me and said, with remarkable candor, that she'd been having sex with three guys and was now pregnant. She wanted to marry the guy who got her pregnant, but she had no idea of who that was. Could I help?

My career in post-coital counseling was well underway years before I entered medical school. Perhaps because I'd read The Merck Manual twice by the time I was a senior in high school, my friends viewed me as a ready source of information for helping them with the sort of sexual problems that teenagers always seem to encounter. Hence, I was an old hand at this. But deducing who was the father when there were three candidates? Risky business, to be sure. If I was wrong and a subsequent blood test or an obvious physical trait made it clear that the husband was not the father, then I could end up wrecking three lives.

Drawing upon my medical knowledge and assorted bits of minutia that I'd acquired from a variety of unusual sources, I gave this matter due consideration and told the nurse who was almost undoubtedly the father. Oh, there was one aspect of the story that I neglected to mention. There was almost another candidate for fatherhood: me. I was a good friend with this nurse, and there was a long-standing undercurrent of apparently mutual curiosity of whether or not we were sexually attracted to one another. This question was answered one night when we began undressing each other. At my place, not the ER—sorry to throw the damper on your excitement. Things were progressing as things usually do until we reached the time for me to remove my pants. This was something I was reluctant to do because, alas, I was not having the expected physiological response. No way to shade the semantics, I was limp. My hesitation must have been obvious. “What's the matter? Don't you like my chest?” she asked.

I can't recall ever answering that question. But no, it wasn't her chest, which was more than I was hoping for. The problem was that I was taking some medicine at the time that made it annoyingly difficult to get an erection. It was possible, but it took about 45 minutes of coaxing. For a young man, that's an embarrassment. I wanted to tell her about that side effect of the medicine, but my mouth just wouldn't open. She made another comment about how I must not have liked her boobs very much, got her clothes on, and left. We never dated again.

Darn. I really liked her. Our truncated intimacy, which would have been for her a close encounter of the fourth kind, occurred before I was aware of the fact that she was getting it on with three other guys. Unbeknownst to me at the time, she was already pregnant, which would have averted the possibility that I could have impregnated her. Nevertheless, it certainly would have complicated the picture.

Oh yes, the guess. Fortunately for everyone involved, I chose the correct father, and she's still married to him. Some things just work out for the best.

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