If you’re looking here for tonight’s post, you’re in the wrong place. I just spent the last two hours writing this page:
Magic Schoolbus does your nose and throat
Visit it. Proof positive that I can, on occasion, be educational.
D.
Suisan’s story reminded me of one of my first (and last) patients, a woman who came to the University Hospital for a tuneup and left . . . well, she left on her own terms.
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Yes, we all know what scum doctors are. Some doctors. You don’t need to send me your horror stories; I gave you plenty of opportunity for that last week. And if you really want equal time, let me know, and we can have a How to Piss Off Your Patient free-for-all.
But for tonight, we are considering ways in which patients poison the doctor-patient relationship.
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Earlier this week, I solicited medical stories from one and all. Many thanks to our participants:
1. Maureen,
2. Dean,
3. Leslie,
4. Carla,
5. Suisan,
6. Sapphire Writer,
7. Kate,
8. SxKitten,
9. zzHwy101,
10. Blue Gal, and
11. Shelbi.
I wrote your names on equal-sized strips cut from 3×5 cards, shuffled them, and had Karen choose three. The winners are: SxKitten, zzHwy101, and Blue Gal.
Yes, it is indeed weird that those three are all in a row on the list above. I promise you I shuffled, and Karen did indeed pick from different areas of the stack. Life is just weird like that.
I’ll drop a line on your blogs asking you to email me with your snail mail addies. Congratulations!
Coming soon: this blog’s one year anniversary (counting its Shatter days, that is). Any recommendations for contests and/or prizes?
D.
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This one is inspired by Kate, who has her own thirteen posted.
1. An artificial fingernail, removed from an adult's ear. Ouch!
2. Cockroaches, too many to remember.
3. Facial mud mask dried to the consistency of concrete, removed from the ear of a crazy person.
4. Black-eyed pea, removed from a young girl's nasal passage.
5. Silly putty, placed in a child's ear (as an ear plug) by a common sense-challenged mother.
6. Red string removed from my son's nose. And the shoemaker's sons go shoeless . . .
7. Half a pigeon head removed from an 18-month-old's larynx. Oh yes, more common sense-challenge parents to blame.
8. Countless pennies and nickles removed from little itty bitty esophaguses from Los Angeles to San Antonio.
9. A truly nasty meat impaction in the esophagus. When Alec Baldwin was learning how to play a doctor, he was watching me and my junior resident tackle this one.
10. Bamboo in the neck following a motorcycle accident.
11. Numerous bullet fragments recovered from the neck and face. Yes, we really do love to throw them into a metal bowl, so much that we usually do it over and over again, because it's things like that that make being an ENT worthwhile.
12. A rock of crack, which I wrote about here.
13. And enough childrens' beads to weave a size 14 wedding gown.
D.
Leave a comment, and I'll link to your Thirteen list here.
Schooligan gives us a wine list!
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Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!
The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged!
Yatta yatta yatta. Boy, am I sick of that paragraph.
UPDATED! See below.
I have in my hot little hands three hardcover copies of A Life in Medicine: A Literary Anthology, edited by Robert Coles, M.D., and Randy Testa. This is a fine collection of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction about medicine, and includes work from Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, Anton Chekhov, Lewis Thomas, and Raymond Carver. Good stuff.
If you’re interested in winning a copy, here’s what you need to do. Between now and Friday evening, post something to your blog about medicine. Medical horror stories, medical success stories, hearsay can-you-believe-its, anything you like. Hey, I’ll even allow stories from veterinary medicine.
Once you’ve posted your story on your blog, drop me a comment in response to this post, and I’ll provide a link below (much as we do for the Thursday Thirteen). I’ll draw three names at random. You’ll need to be willing to email me your address so that I can mail you your copy.
Think of this as an open-ended meme with a potential prize!
UPDATE:
I wanted to add two things:
1. Yes, this is open to folks anywhere in the world.
2. For those of you who have a theme blog, a post about medicine, illness, healing, etc. may not fit into your theme. If you would still like to participate, I would be happy to host your column on this blog.
PARTICIPANTS:
1. Maureen romances the epidural.
2. Dean betrays his two best friends — and they take cruel revenge.
3. Leslie shares two horror stories.
4. Carla breaks my heart. (Well, any reader. Not me specifically, you understand.)
5. Suisan talks about a horse who haunts her dreams. Yes, Suisan, this qualifies.
6. Sapphire Writer is reeeally pushing her luck, but . . . okay, huge tumors count.
7. Kate discusses the joys of mature (rhymes with manure) doctors.
8. SxKitten‘s story took my breath away. Scary!
9. zzHwy101 had a screw loose . . . really.
10. Blue Gal proves that Prozac isn’t all bad.
11. Shelbi, it’s not that unusual for doctors to apologize. I often do.
D.
Apropos of my post yesterday on Ambien, take a look at Lauren Slater’s Op-Ed piece in today’s New York Times (Jagged Little Pills). Ms. Slater gives an all-too-brief rundown of the history of psychotropic disasters, including iproniazid (introduced in 1955, yanked from the market in 1961 after causing 54 deaths), Miltown, and Prozac.
Ms. Slater suggests there is a twenty-year cycle on such drugs — twenty years between a drug’s introduction and the discovery of nasty side effects. I’m not sure where she gets this “twenty year” figure. Ambien hit the market in 1993. The bad news on Prozac, introduced in 1988, came out well before the twenty-year mark. We’ll take a closer look at Prozac in a moment. But first, what does Ms. Slater have to say about this delay?
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Have you hugged your personal demons today?
They’re lonely, you know. And hungry. Oh, so hungry; they would love to creep back to their place of prominence and authority, sit on that throne they shared for many years — shared with each other, of course, but never with you.
Your demons are lonely and hungry, and they are as pissed off as a jilted lover with borderline personality disorder. Things haven’t been the same, ever since you banished them. Ever since talk therapy.
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