Saturday 14 July 2012

True/untrue - a nurse's tale

There's lovely little story on the blog of Doctor FTSE, which he thinks is probably untrue.

I was exchanging true/untrue stories with a friend last night, and recalled this, which really is true.

I was a young staff nurse, and I overheard the following exchange between a young doctor and an elderly and very deaf femals patient:

Doctor: Do you have any trouble with your front passage?
Patient: What?
Doctor: DO YOU HAVE ANY TROUBLE WITH YOUR FRONT PASSAGE?

This was repeated several times. Then:

Patient: Only when my neigbour parks his bicycle in it.

6 comments:

  1. Ha!! Did you fall over laughing?? I'll bet the young doc was set back on his heels. I'll be checking out the other Doc later today. Right now I'm off to the farmer's market. Thanks for giving me my morning pickup along with my coffee!

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  2. Replies
    1. Indeed. But it does go to show that speaking in euphemisms can lead to trouble...

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  3. Hmmm - reminds me of a compliment paid to me by an elderly lady who complained of a problem with her back passage. She apologised and said that she couldn't allow me to examine her down there as I was "too young". No matter - the symptoms alone were sufficient to warrant a second opinion, and I referred her.

    Now in those days it wasn't considered good form for a GP to refer a patient to a consultant without having a proper examination. I wrote to the consultant - a good man, much my senior - explaining why I had not examined the patient and expressing the hope that she would not afford him the same compliment about his youthfulness.

    She didn't. All was well in the end, and the consultant did write me ever such a nice letter.

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    Replies
    1. I think all this talk of passages is awkward. Who started it? And more to the point - why?

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