So, although my academic goal of medicine was to get through my career unpublished (which didn't quite happen), I still occasionally get dragged into research peripherally.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."
5 comments:
Funny that - I have some of the most interesting short conversations of my life with Uber drivers, from how to live off grid in the South West USA to Islamic eschatology in the UK. I didn’t think any of the drivers were showing signs of Alzheimer type dementia. Perhaps it has an atypical presentation in Uber drivers???
I think she drove for me a couple of weeks back,it was a memorable ride
Well I guess it was fortunate they actually ended up in the right place because Thelma could have forgotten where she wanted to go and Louise could have driven her anywhere forgetting where she was suppose to go.
"By the way, would you happen to know any ophthalmologists who are doing clinical trials for treatments for blindness?"
Louise: "Can you fix me in time to drive Thelma home?"
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