Epi-do
I see dead people
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I honestly didn't know the questions I was asking a patient I recently had were that difficult to answer. Maybe she forgot to put a babel fish in her ear. It certainly couldn't have hurt for her to give it a try because it seemed like I was speaking a totally different language.
She was sitting in her recliner, all smiles & laughing with a bystander in the house when we arrived. Apparently, she was having some abdominal pain. Through the course of the interview, the following exchange took place:
Me: So, when did the pain begin?
Pt: It got alot worse today.
Me: I understand that. You had mentioned that before, but when did it actually start?
Pt: Oh! It started this morning.
Me: You didn't have any pain at all before this morning?
Pt: No, I've had some pain for a while.
Me: Ok. So how long have you had the pain?
Pt: For a while.
Me: How long is "a while"?
Pt: It started a couple days ago, when I had a doctor appt.
Me: So what did the doctor say when you saw him?
Pt: It was a follow up appt.
Me: A follow up for what?
Pt: The other time I had been there to see him.
Me: But, what was the reason you went to see him?
The entire time we had to talk to this lady it was like this. I couldn't tell you the last time I had to work that hard to get information out of someone who was capable of giving it to me (even if it doesn't seem like it from that excerpt of our conversation). I honestly think it would have been much less painful to repeatedly bang my head against the wall.
She was sitting in her recliner, all smiles & laughing with a bystander in the house when we arrived. Apparently, she was having some abdominal pain. Through the course of the interview, the following exchange took place:
Me: So, when did the pain begin?
Pt: It got alot worse today.
Me: I understand that. You had mentioned that before, but when did it actually start?
Pt: Oh! It started this morning.
Me: You didn't have any pain at all before this morning?
Pt: No, I've had some pain for a while.
Me: Ok. So how long have you had the pain?
Pt: For a while.
Me: How long is "a while"?
Pt: It started a couple days ago, when I had a doctor appt.
Me: So what did the doctor say when you saw him?
Pt: It was a follow up appt.
Me: A follow up for what?
Pt: The other time I had been there to see him.
Me: But, what was the reason you went to see him?
The entire time we had to talk to this lady it was like this. I couldn't tell you the last time I had to work that hard to get information out of someone who was capable of giving it to me (even if it doesn't seem like it from that excerpt of our conversation). I honestly think it would have been much less painful to repeatedly bang my head against the wall.
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