… and a smile

The patient had a major abdominal surgery. One of the side effects, as the patient, is that you need time to recover and so you don’t get to eat. Well, you do get “astronaut” food but that isn’t so satisfying.

It was four days later and during a discussion with the surgeon that the patient was informed that she would now be able to have ½ liter of water. Not carbonated or anything crazy like that, just regular flat water. This is really not a fun diet no matter what the circumstances and so the patient asked if it was possible to replace the water with a coke.

Nope, that particular request was not approved by the surgeon, I guess he is an “old school” doctor.

Where babies come from …

People are the same everywhere, you might find a genius in a small town (Albert Einstein, Ulm Germany), or you might find one or more idiots in a big city such as my neighbor. It turns out that in Slovakia there is a tiny village where the cumulative village IQ is being dragged down because some of the inhabitants cannot figure out how to move away.

The story is actually quite common, boy meets girl, boy loves girl, and finally boy leaves girl. Unfortunately the fairly tale changes tone when the boy receives a visit as part of an investigation to determine the paternity of the child.

It seems that the young couple must have been quite friendly as reason for this visit was due to the celebration of an August birth. When confronted by what seemed to be incontrovertible evidence the boy suggested that it really could not be his baby. After all, he had not been with the girl in question since new years eve, and that was really some time back.

Well, It did take come explaining but after learning not only how babies are made but how long of a process it is before the actual birth. Once all of this was clear he did admit that perhaps he could indeed be the father.

Apparently, the entire process is not started with a letter written to a stork after all.

Tales of the suit thief

The patient was in for a routine check. It was just for a routine liver biopsy, nothing serious. He checked into the hospital but didn’t get the best roommate. The roommate was an alcoholic with a history of psychiatric problems. When nobody was around it seems that our alcoholic patient decided to take the banker’s clothes and go for a walk. The banker had very good taste in clothing as was obvious from his “handsome” silver metallic suit.

This was only realized near the end of the shift. Pretty much as you might expect when somebody takes someone else’s property you have to get the police involved. Our Dr. heroine bore witness to the entire situation. It began with with people being hurriedly interviewed and all of the facts being written down in a notebook.

It is less clear what happened to the keys, wallet and other personal effects but in general things turned as it could have been expected. The alcoholic with a new suit and a pocket full of money felt like going out and celebrating. He was found a few hours later sleeping it off on a park bench. Standard procedure for the German police when they find a passed out person is to bring him to a hospital for medical attention.

Imagine the surprise, not even 12 hours later, when our heroine walked into a room to check on a new patient. The previous alcoholic was now laying in a new room in the same hospital being checkout by the same medical staff. There was one additional fact that that was also quite obvious. The drunk was a very well dressed unconscious patient – well that and apparently a very stinky one. It was actually difficult to be in the same room due to the smell of urine, fecal material as well as other odd fragrances.

There must have been a conversation about how the suit was once again found but that was not reported. All we do know is that the banker let his former roommate keep the suit.

Pregnancy is the best prevention

Different countries do things differently. In Germany in the past, each doctor’s practice was responsible for any little emergencies that their patients had during the night. Being on call all the time, as you might imagine, is not so desirable so the doctor’s worked out a solution. A group of “emergency” doctors were paid by the doctors for taking care of anything that occurred during the night.

This responsibility is still in force today. It was during one of these night shifts that the doctor was faced with an unusual situation. The patient was not 100% fluent in German, but was able to describe the symptoms – cramps and back pains. The young lady who was in her late 20’s was also a new mother.

Some of the questions asked of the patient were related to family history but considering the age and the symptoms a specific line of questioning emerged. One of the questions that came up was about the use of contraception. However, the answers kept coming back about how the patient was breast feeding. The answer itself was a bit puzzling but there was a medical possibility that indeed breast feeding might prevent the ovulation. This is not quite the same as contraception.

Well, it turns out that that the patient didn’t misunderstand the question but believed that breast feeding was just as good as other methods of baby prevention.

She was mistaken and received a congratulatory comment as the doctor left the apartment.

Too much television

The patient was delivered to the hospital with the symptoms of dizziness and hyperventilation. The hyperventilation was due to not so much for any physical problems but rather what seems to be due to stress.

What could produce so much stress in a young lady to create this condition? It seems that she and her boyfriend were trying to make an important decision earlier in the evening. The choice was whether to watch “Germany’s next top model” or “Games of Thrones” on television. The doctor made his notes in the patients file and departed.

The doctor in charge was a real professional as no more than a slight smile crossed his lips and that was only when he was in the hallway out of sight of the patient.

The big screen

There is nothing more boring than lying in a hospital room with nothing to do. Television is a fairly painless way to while away the hours, and that may be one of the reasons that you tend to find a TV in each room.

Well, the hospital tried to make the isolation room as livable as possible. It is actually a long room with a 40 inch flat screen mounted on the wall. The television needs to be so large as the patient would be so far away. Honest, it would be nice if it were hanging on the wall at my home, and I guess that I was not the only one thinking this thought.

There was a patient who decided that it would be a nice parting gift. It is different than when you are at hotel where you grab an ashtray or bottle opener. The first thing is it was mounted to the wall but more than that it would require two people to carry it away. So that is exactly what they did, they pulled it out of the wall, and carried out of the room possibly past one or more hospital staff and out the emergency exit.

The isolation room actually never got another television after that.

Dec 31, 2003

Back in the prehistoric days of medicine they also had problem with a sophisticated device called the “telephone”. Well, that is my take on this problem as there are quite a few people who work in offices who have telephones that work.. On this day, the doctor was walking around the ward but only receiving phone calls about half the time.

It wasn’t the best day of the year, certainly for this patient. He died of natural causes in the morning, but according to protocol a “second” viewing must be held to ensure that this was his new stable condition. Because it was during a shift change, this second viewing did not take place immediately, but was actually pushed back a few minutes. It was about 2pm when the medical student went up to the ward to speak with a nurse about the second viewing. She was directed to one of the rooms, when she entered it was empty.

Trudge back to the nurse to inform them that the room is empty. There are not a lot of places to hide in a hospital room, but sometimes the patient will be temporarily placed in the bathroom – its not what your thinking. Nobody is dumped into a bathtub, the whole bed is pushed into the bathroom.

A small discussion ensues about the missing patient. I wish I could have seen this one in person. Of course the conversation is finished with the following utterance by the doctor in charge of the ward.

“Whoever has lost the body, has to find the body”

“Speak with the morning shift or whatever”

Well, I guess in once sense it is a small bit of karmic payback as the body was indeed found and this same doctor who was called to do the second viewing. As you might have already guessed, the body had made its way to the morgue. It was seven pm, and despite what you see on television, hardly anyone goes down to the morgue.

This doctor was not planning on going there alone so she brought another doctor. It is difficult to say if the morgue is in the basement or really in a subbasement level of the hospital. It is a very dark very very quiet place. The two doctors were slowly inching along the corridor, perhaps thinking of every horror movie they had ever seen on television, when all of a sudden the phone rings.

Yup, both doctors almost jumped out of their skin. It turns out that they were being called by a fellow doctor who was partying it up elsewhere, the real question was how could you reach me in the subbasement when you cannot reach me on the normal ward. Oh, the patient? Yes, he is still deceased.

Mardi Gras unplugged

As fat Tuesday gets closer and closer the real celebrants come out of the woodwork. It was still a few days before “the day” when another patient was delivered. There was no real costume to speak of, just a pair of “antennae” attached to a headband.

It was when the doctor was taking blood the patient sat up gave a high pitched giggle and then laid down to sleep once more. This patient was probably done celebrating for the night.

More than I wanted to know

When I am given some little medical “gift” such as pen or notepad I am now a bit more curious which pharmaceutical is being advertised. The last one was advertising laxatives.

This time I receive a small pad of post-it notes with Levitrea all over it. This drug was similar to another drug with the more recognizable name of Viagra. I wasn’t sure I wanted this sitting on my desk at work so I gave it to my colleague.

So he wouldn’t be blindsided by someone I did tell him what the medication was. Oscar, one of my colleagues at work sometimes visits us. This time when I came in he did notice the new addition to Zachary’s desk. He started to crack a few jokes at Zachary’s expense. It turned out that Oscar knew exactly what the particular medication was and that in itself did provide a unique insight Oscar’s private life.

Married to a Doctor

It is pretty much the same at all different types of trade fairs whether they computer or medical. There are always small gifts to “buy” people’s interest – pens, post-it notes, mice pads, USB sticks or even bags emblazoned with the company logo.

My wife, as a doctor, does visit these trainings and does get these types of “gifts”. The pens usually go to work. The usually have some words written on them that look more like an eye chart than an actual word.

Well, one of the gifts that she brought home was a small cloth bag with a squiggly line on the side and the word Movicol. It wasn’t really big enough to do any real shopping but it was large enough for holding a magazine as well as a few odds and ends. I used to use it when I was flying a lot so you might have seen me walking through the airport with it.

However, one day when I was being picked up by my wife she commented about my bag. It turns out that the squiggly line was actually an intestine and Movicol is a laxative.

Sometimes I wonder how many people really knew what this meant and what they thought of me wandering around with it.

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