all i want for christmas is...

not to have a 27.4% medicare pay cut.

somehow i dont think this is a compliment

my patient returned from a visit to a specialist and said if someone was going to guess at what medicine she should take she wanted it to be me because i'm a better guesser.

a mind forever warped

a medical education definitely results in some serious brain remodeling.  it has some intended consequences, as i tried to explain here, but also some unintended consequences.  for example, riding in the car today with my twelve year old daughter and listening to the music she loves, my daughter says 'mom, i don't even want to know what you think of those lyrics*.'

normal mom brain thinks, well, those are some pretty angry and depressing thoughts he's expressing...

doctor mom brain thinks, that young man is about to get a vocal cord polyp.


*'monster' by skillet

have i got this right?

so, newt gingrich can accept millions of dollars in "consulting fees" from a major mortgage broker, but i cannot accept a ballpoint pen from a drug company for fear of undue influence.  clearly, he is a man of greater moral fiber than me.

i can still feel the sting...

i was very pleased to see kurt hummel make a stand against dodgeball tonight on glee, i myself having received a D in gym class one marking period for refusing to play dodgeball on the grounds that it was a cruel and barbaric sport.  kurt,  you have my vote for president.

fart, aka the post i can no longer suppress

so, if i fart, but don't hear it because my stethoscope is in my ears, does that mean the patient didn't hear it either?  not that that really happened to me or anything.  i'm just wondering.

and the other nine are...

here is the rest of my list for why primary care doctors like me need a good sense of humor:

reason #2:  at some point in your career you will be vomited/urinated/defecated/bled upon, and/or doused in perirectal abscess pus

reason #3:  you will make pennies on the dollar compared to you specialist colleagues.

reason #4:  someone will ask you to look at their mole at a party and you will be able to say 'i'd be happy to look at that mole right after i examine your prostate.'

reason#5:  every year, congress will threaten to cut your medicare pay an ever increasing percentage and then expect you to rejoice when they postpone the cut one more year.  if you didn't have a sense of humor, you'd surely be insulted.

reason #6:  your dear but tactless grandfather, when he sees your corolla, will say 'why are you driving a nurse's car?' (if i am somehow insulting a nurse, i beg you, please be mad at my grandfather, not me!)

reason #7:  you will be tempted, and you will succumb, to doing something gross on your kitchen table.  hey, the kitchen has the best light.

reason #8:  you will be called 'provider' more times then you will care to count.

reason #9:  someone will have you paged in the middle of the night for a prescription that can't be filled until the pharmacy opens at 9 am.  monthly.

reason #10:   you will have access to the only medicine without side effects - laughter.

 (reason #1)

doctoring dilemas

you ask your elderly patient's spouse, whom you haven't met, to come in with her for her next visit so you can discuss her worsening cognitive impairment.  you find him to be equally impaired...

your patient's spouse insists he is drinking heavily and you must do something to help him but without telling him she told you, yet when you ask him about his alcohol intake he states he doesn't drink...

you know your patient has a cold.  you know they will raise hell if you don't give them an antibiotic.   you know that even if you could get them out of your office without one, they will call you tomorrow and insist they are worse...

blue stethoscope or black?

i heart ringtones

the next time someone's catchy ringtone goes off in my exam room i am going to stop whatever it is i'm doing and bust into one of my signature dance moves.  that would be in direct violation, however, of my daughter's emphatic decree that i never dance in public.  she would say it like this, with just the right amount of that endearing twelve year old flare for the dramatic:  'mom, swear to me right now, you will  NEVER.   DANCE.   IN   PUBLIC.'

careful with your assumptions

my 84 year old patient told me that the only people that want to see him anymore are his doctors.  so of course i said, 'who said i want to see you?'  he really set me up for that one, didn't he.