Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Speak to me in a language I can hear

Doctors and patients speak different languages.  Often a patient's answers don't match what the doctor is asking.

The doctor asks, "Do you have regular bowel actions?"  And the patient replies, "Oh, all the time!"  Because the patient thinks that regular = frequent.

The doctor asks, "Do you have trouble with your heart?"  And the patient replies, "No."  Because ever since they had that coronary artery bypass graft last year, they've felt great.

The doctor asks, "How bad is the pain?"  And the patient says, "It's really acute".  Because they think acute = severe.  Except for the people who say, "It's really chronic".

But it does happen to us students too.  It happened to me today.  The doctor said, "The interesting thing is that the optico-anal nerve in murines gets blocked because of the sympathomimetic conjugation of transisocarboxylase inhibitor under the modulation of clubbing factor."  And I said, "Hmm, that's really interesting".  Because I had no freaking idea what he was talking about.

2 comments:

jamie said...

"Hmm, that's really interesting".

o_O

My word verification for tonight is "samis".

Frank Sinatra once found a glass eye in his drink and said "who's glass eye is this?" and Dean Martin said "Sammy's!"

It's late. Thats the best I can do.

PTR said...

haha - I like how your comments include these random little stories. It's like a blog within a blog - very Shakespearean.