Word of the day: malingerer
Malingerer is a fancy word for liar. Specifically a person lying about symptoms, feigning a medical condtion for a reward of somesort (or to get out of jury duty). Yesturday I had 2. One was a textbook 8 year old who wanted glasses and reversed number (ex: it was 47 and she saw 74) but suddenly saw crystal clear when I held up glasses with plain glass in them. I caught that one. But there was also a 40 something woman with a host of symptoms and even though they were some white and quite eyes, I was ready to try some topical ointment for her lids. I had pulled one of the partners in the practice in to take a look, he suggested a different drop, so we did that and when the patient left he pulled me aside and said, you know, nothing was wrong with her, she just wanted some attention and those drops are purely for placebo effects. hmmmm . . . .Yesturday provided some very bizarre cases throughout the day* and at the end of it I was feeling a lot more like a 4th year clinician than a doc. But I guess, at least, I'm learning. Thank God the boss is patient with me and not testing to see if I'm malingering as a doctor.*well once it stopped snowing . . YES for non NYers it was silver dollar size flakes coming down in brooklyn yesturday
posted by gordian knot @ Thursday, April 06, 2006
3 Comments:
You never stop learning so you do not need to apoligze when you discover something new. You need to apoligze when you refuse to admit that you don't know the answer and don't seek consultation.
i had a 9 and a half year old malingerer today! what a coincidence! +0.50 OU did the trick. pain in my behind.
i agree with the first comment...my boss is great about that, too and encourages me to ask him questions b/c he's somewhat liable for me...that's kind of scary. i'll tell you about my slap-the-forehead moment later.
With regard to the observation about the snowfall (and I agree; it's a rare event in New York), just remember this rule of thumb:
Big flakes, little snow.
Little flakes, big snow.
The flakes were indeed dollar-sized, so the probability of accumulation was low. It also helped that the temperature hovered around 40 degrees F; the snow never had a chance to stick. Heh.
--Lou
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