Humor

Some of the best and most unexpected moments I’ve had in medicine have involved children.

Sitting on her mother’s lap while I elicited the story of her illness, this particular three year old had seemed relaxed, social and quite articulate. Taking a cue from how attached she seemed to be to Mom and her obvious unusual maturity for age, I tried to be clever when it came time for the exam. “Do you want your Mom to help you up onto the table so I can check your ears and lungs, or are you big and strong enough to do it yourself.”

The computer generated routing slip on the exam room door said he was there because of a knee injury. That turned out to be only partly true.

When I entered the room, he was sitting comfortably on the exam table. I introduced myself, we shook hands, and as I sat down at the computer to open the EHR to his chart, I started with my usual fairly open-ended question:

Me: So, what brings you in today and how can I help?

Him: I hurt my knee this past weekend. (Note: this was a Wednesday.)

Me: Tell me about it.

We couldn’t find her sneakers anywhere. They weren’t in the travel bag, under the bench in the mudroom, in either car,  at friends’ houses, in the closet or under the bed. After two days, we gave up and bought a new pair sneakers.

Rachel called about her elderly father, Blaine, better known to me as Bucky. She requested a ‘nerve pill’ to calm him down at night and a referral to a neurologist to test for dementia.

At a recent clinical staff meeting, a physician complained that the new requirement that clinicians enter all orders manually into the electronic record (CPOE) is slowing us down and causing errors. The IT and administrative staff were not the least sympathetic. Their message: it’s really not a big deal, it only takes an extra minute or two, and smart people like you should be able to master a simple skill like this.

You can’t make this stuff up. I pulled into our local BJ’s gas station on a recent rainy morning. It was quite busy and I looked around for the shortest line to join, Seeing a woman in her early 20s who appeared to be finished fueling as she re-holstered the nozzle in the pump and returned to her car, I pulled in behind her, expecting to promptly be able to pull up and buy gas.  A car pulled in behind me, so I was now committed.

After decades of hiking, camping, canoeing, kayaking and swimming in various back country environments, it finally happened. I have been colonized. Beaver fever, also known as giardiasis, caused by the protozoan Giardia lamblia.  Enjoying my metronidazole.

The appointment was for his annual physical, and to review his well controlled hypertension and gout. After we had addressed these issues, I asked if there was anything else he was concerned about.

Every year when I brought my chain saw in to be serviced and have the blade sharpened, Reggie tried to get me to buy a set of chaps. They weren’t cheap, and, while I was not the least bit sanguine about the destructive power of the saw, I used it infrequently, only in good conditions, and with care. The chaps were a garish orange, and I always declined.  Reggie always shrugged, looked disgusted, and rang up my bill.

A few years ago, when he made his usual offer and I declined, he looked at me for a very long moment, and then said: