Tuesday, May 18, 2010

What the hell?

Dr. Grumpy: "Any illnesses run in your family?"

Mr. Fallz: "Yes. My brother is 3 years older than me, and my sister is 7 years older than me. So I guess both my siblings are older than me. My parents are also older than me."

11 comments:

Moose said...

You know, the more I see these, Doc, the more I think the problem is between the ears and the brain.

Hearing loss of some kind is not only for the elderly. Have you tried, when you get these non-sequitur-like answers, immediately asking, "What question did I just ask you?"

You might find out more about your patient. [or you might find out that one of your commentors should just STFU :-).]

Amanda said...

Admit him.

Grumpy, M.D. said...

Moose- I do that. Whenever I get a weird answer I always repeat the question and ask if they heard me okay.

Anonymous said...

Okay, fess up, Doc? What kind of MD are you really? LOL! How do you do it?

Anonymous said...

I believe he heard: "Does oldness run in your family?"

Not exactly illness, but close.

Anonymous said...

Too funny! Thanks, this just made my day!

Moose said...

Dr Grumpy -- I actually suggest you turn it around: instead of repeating the question, you ask THEM what they heard. If you repeat it it gives them the 'out' of brushing off a problem. If you ask them to repeat it back to you and you get something weird back, at the least it might indicate a hearing problem. At the worst, well, might it indicate the brain isn't doing it's usual job?

Or maybe I should just go back to the STFU option :-).

[the captcha word is GLYTIO, which is Remote Mountain Italian for "STFU, Moose" :-P]

Li'l Azathoth said...

"I have SAT-math-problem-itis. Which of the four drugs below is the correct prescription for me- (a), (b), (c), or (d)?"

Julie said...

while i like Moose's approach - there is no question i can think of which would logically require an answer such as the patient gave!

I will say one thing positive about your patients ... they do provide an endless amount of blog fodder ...

Heather said...

I am looking forward to learning the stellar-quality poker face skill set that *must* come with being a doc. Because let me tell you, I don't really have them quite down from being a parent. At what point in your education do you think you developed your poker face? Did it require surgical intervention to unhook facial tendons and ligaments or just a heck of a lot of Botox?

ERP said...

And they are both on Aricept too....

 
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