I like to think I do a reasonable job and reducing medical explanations into something just about any patient can digest. Saying things like “bugs” for bacteria or “your body fights back” for immunological response help tone down the high brow medical discussion. Simple stuff. No big deal.
But I’m often amused by the way patients comprehend the disease process.
For example, I was recently seeing a young, homeless, female patient who was dealing with a simple pneumonia–nothing spectacular. But during a routine screen of her liver function via a complete metabolic panel–a series of lab tests that evaluate liver function, blood constituents, and electrolyte levels–we noticed that she had poor liver function.
I decided to interrogate the patient as to the potential causes of the bump in liver enzymes. While she couldn’t put her finger on any one process that may have caused the problem–she wasn’t drinking anymore and she rarely used Tylenol–she did mention that a bunch of years ago someone told her she had a “touch of hepatitis”.
I’m still trying to figure out exactly what a “touch” of hepatitis is.
Must be a similar condition to “a little pregnant”…
