Dr. Grumpy: "Hi, thank you for coming in today. I'm Dr. Grumpy. Have a seat."
Mr. Leon: "Hello."
Dr. Grumpy: "Let me get some notes ready... Okay, are you right or left handed?"
Mr. Leon: "Excuse me?"
Dr. Grumpy: "Are you right or left handed?"
Pause
Mr. Leon: "What kind of woke bullshit is that? Seriously, I am so sick of you people."
He got up and left
Other questions show that they're the ones who aren't paying attention:
In this case I guess the computer wasn't paying attention:
When I get invitations like this I kind of wish I wasn't paying attention:
They often want to know how things progress if patients fail treatments (1st line therapy, 2nd line therapy, etc.). Sometimes the person writing the survey gets confused.
Then there are questions like this:
(For the record, there is absolutely NFW I am going to attempt to manage a patient's diabetes. I'm a neurologist. And any patient who would ask me to manage a non-neurological condition has a death wish).
There are ones I have no clue about:
My favorites are when, after I've slogged through and completed a survey, it asks if I still want to get paid for it.
So, although my academic goal of medicine was to get through my career unpublished (which didn't quite happen), I still occasionally get dragged into research peripherally.
Let me be clear here that I have nothing against research. It's very important. It's just not my thing.
But my call partner, Dr. Cortex, loves it. So when she's out of town I occasionally get dragged into seeing a research patient for her, or signing off on some papers, or whatever. It keeps peace in the local neurology community.
Currently she's on one of her far-flung skiing trips (I think to Hoth this time) so I got roped into doing a pre-study screening visit on a lady for one of her Alzheimer's drug trials.
I showed up at the research office and sat down to look over some papers. There were 2 older ladies in the lobby. The study coordinator told me the visit had become a doubleheader, because the one who'd come in for it had been joined by another lady who'd heard about the study from her and also wanted to participate. Not a big deal. We need volunteers to find out what works, so the more willing souls the merrier. This is where all medical breakthroughs come from.
So I saw the first woman and did her paperwork, then went into another room to meet the add-on.
Dr. Grumpy: "Hi, I'm Dr. Grumpy. Thank you for coming in today. So, I guess you heard about the study from Thelma and decided to join her?"
Louise: "Well, she and I were talking on the ride over and she was telling me about it. I've also been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease by a neurologist, so I thought I should get involved, too."
Dr. Grumpy: "Are you a friend of hers?"
Louise: "No, I'm her Uber driver."
On Friday I admitted a lady who fainted at the store. After talking to her I wrote "seizure unlikely" in my impression and wanted cardiology to have a look at her.
I then turned her over to my call partner, Dr. Nerve, for the weekend.
He apparently agreed with me, but is under the impression her insurance pays by the word. He wrote:
