The Boerewors Emergency Medicine Chronicles: Another 'Word of the Day'

Wednesday, 7 January 2009

Another 'Word of the Day'

"Horrigami"

A point reached in certain activities - the folding of a map , the untangling of a kite on a mercilessly cold and windy day - where it seems concedivable that you will be trying to accomplish this one task for the rest of your life on earth.

In my case , trying to get an accurate 'previous medical history'...or even an explanation of the presenting injury that bears any relationship to what I can see on the X-ray...or even...

...well...last week, despite showing a patient her very nasty head-of-humerus fracture,she insisted that it was her wrist that was the problem and not her shoulder...despite having no recollection of how she sustained her injury...having a completley normal wrist film...and being unable to move her shoulder at all...in the end I just got up and left the room and sent Julian in to sort out her fracture clinic appointment...

*sigh*

From "Wyse Words" by Pascal Wyse in the Guardian , 27 December 2008

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What I do and where I do it

Naturally...naturally... this blog is a complete work of fiction.Of course it is... None of the people (or their relatives) or any apparent colleague or indeed any event mentioned within the blog, exist, or have ever existed. Really..no..really...Honestly..trust me..*right*

If you think that you recognise yourself, -particularly if you are a clinician or an ex-girlfriend-, then you have a narcissistic personality disorder.

However if any part was true then the introduction might read something like this:-
I work as an autonomous Emergency Nurse Practitoner serving a charming English seaside town called Little-Ghetto-on-Sea, on the East coast, closer in fact to Europe than to London.
We treat a wide range of minor illness and injury , with admitting privileges to St Vulva's, the main academic hospital some 20 miles away .
It is apparently one of the UK's most densely populated city's...and fits Littlejohn's discription in the Daily Mail when he says,"most British seaside towns are run-down dole-claimant dormitories,which seem to take a perverse delight in driving people away through a combination of rip-off prices , tatty boarding houses and disgusting food and draconian parking regimes" . It often feels as if it is the setting for 'Little Britian' which most foreign readers will know is more social commentary than cutting-edge comedy.Indeed most of the male patients are typically shaven headed pierced,inked,dirty-fingered,dull eyed ,baseball-cap wearing, unemployed smokers with prodigious drinking skills. The women have a limited vocabularly, ranging from "innit" to "my (human) rights" with not much else inbetween.Invariably they have several children from different consorts (love that word!) and walk through the town talking on their cell phones and ignoring their children.There are few vegetarians and even fewer graduates.

DISCLAIMER

This site is for entertainment purposes only.

Any patient interactions or cases that are posted here are not based upon any single person ,living or dead ;or any specific event.

Conversations in quotes and remarks that appear to be quoted verbatim are not necessairly true. All patient details are changed to make identifying them impossible, far exceeding the minimum standards for de-identification of patient information.

However , occasionally , ECG strips ,photographs,or x-ray images that are of clinical interest are posted and are subject to that particular patient having given me written permission for the image to be published;and no original NHS images or materials are used,removed or uploaded from any of the hospitals in which I work.

Under no circumstances should any reader assume or think that any nursing or medical advice is being dispensed.

No nurse/patient relationship,- or indeed any theraputic relationship of any kind-,will be established by you reading and/or commenting upon this blog.