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”…
Many months ago–when I was a mere “third year” student, I stumbled into a horrible, no good, very bad place: the labor and delivery ward.
But you don’t just stumble in for a few minutes–they make you stay. In our case, students spend two weeks on the floor doing the nastiest of nasty–delivering babies.
Say what you want about the “beauty of childbirth”, it just isn’t pretty. Things get ripped and people pull and there’s screaming and pushing and suction and ugh. Disturbing to say the least.
So for a guy like me taking the internal medicine route, labor and delivery can be one of the worst rotations–unless you master the art of the “medicine delivery”.
So, remember a couple of days ago when I was bloviating on my inability to intubate a couple of patients?
Well, I am now officially the greatest intubator this side of the Mississippi.
That’s right. My intubation technique is so good, that I successfully dropped a tube in a gentleman this morning with my eyes closed…and one hand tied behind my back…while reciting the five T’s of cyanotic congenital heart defects…in Latin.
Ooohhh yeah.
Bring on the codes. I’m ready.*
*This statement is meant in no way to imply that I’m actually ready to run a code. You might also be surprised to know that I don’t speak Latin.
