Friday, February 4, 2011

Friday morning, 12:03 a.m.

Dr. Grumpy: "This is Dr. Grumpy, returning a page."

Mr. Awake: "Yeah, I see you for headaches, and I called your office on Wednesday. You called in Imitrex for me, and it helped a lot."

Dr. Grumpy: "Okay, so why are you calling me now?"

Mr. Awake: "Um, because Annie told me to call back on Friday and let you know how I'm doing, and it's Friday now."

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ok, so he can follow instruction. Now if you can just give him something to make the frontal lobe work....

PA in OK

Anonymous said...

This post really confused me, I was sat thinking "That's a perfectly reasonable phone call" until I read it again and noticed the time :D

I have been known to do that. I phoned home at 1am once because I forgot that normal people don't keep those hours, and my mum panicked because normal people don't phone home at 1am unless something's happened. She nearly killed me when I said I was just phoning for a chat!

Anonymous said...

10/10 for patient compliance! Shame, it must have been way beyond his/her normal bedtime.

Anonymous said...

I have some friends who I will call at snore-dark-fifteen should I need something, they owe me for picking them up at the calaboose at 0400 when the drunk tank empties.

Anonymous said...

Sad fact some people simply don't know. I have two college aged children who think nothing of staying up until 2 AM, and wondering why the two parents go to bed at 10PM and get up at 5. I like to remind them that it has to do with their being able to eat and stay up to 2 AM. What really cranks me is the their mother wants them to announce their arrival at home. So for the entire summer I am awakened every night at curfew.

Ellie said...

Can your call service screen those calls a little? I know that when I call the pediatrician's office (and I HATE calling them, especially late) they ask me 97 questions before they page the doctor.

Unknown said...

LOL I bet he sat home all day thursday counting down the minutes

Anonymous said...

Bet he didn't want to talk to you and was thinking he'd just leave a voice mail message, not realizing it was a pager number and you'd call back. I've called people when I've assumed they wouldn't answer their phones just because I had an obligation to call them but I didn't really want to talk to them. Hehehe.

Speaking of pages, some doctor called me the other day, on my private, unlisted landline, and said he was returning a page. I didn't page him. I don't even know who he is! I'm guessing he hit the wrong number when calling back.

terri c said...

Yes, indeed, a compliant patient. And you know from the time of the page that the patient called AS SOON AS IT BECAME Friday. A bit over-scrupulous maybe, but compliant.

Grumpy, M.D. said...

Correct. The call came in at 12:01. It took me 2 minutes to wake up enough to call back.

WarmSocks said...

Sounds like Annie needs to give more specific instructios. "Call back on Friday during office hours to let us know how that med worked for you."

Some of us are pretty literal.

McDuckGA said...

Back in my Vet School days, my mother would call at 7:30am on Saturday, just to chat. Her reasoning? "Well, I knew you'd be home." Thanks, Ma!

Kat's Kats said...

Obviously Mr. Awake was not raised by humans. I was taught that one never calls doctors outside of office hours except for emergencies (such as seeing if one needs to go to the ER). One also doesn't call *anyone* until it is 0900 and never after 2100 unless it is a family member or friend whom one knows well enough to know they have a different schedule.

I have taught my children likewise. Now if I could just teach my son, who has Aspergers, how to answer the phone and take messages.

Anonymous said...

Was this a patient who would take their tid pills q 8 hours within 3 minutes? This seems like the behavior expanded...

The Mother said...

I think it's time we go on the offensive. We should start calling our patients at 2 am to ask them how they're feeling.

Anonymous said...

WHY does my dr's office tell me to call them in a week to tell them how my plantar fasciitis is doing, and then when I call to tell them nothing changed, they don't really seem to care?

Helen said...

When one of my clients do this, I call them at 5 AM to ask how their pet is.

Even if I have to set the alarm to wake up and do so.

I find it so much easier to fall asleep while chuckling.

 
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