» Doctors, Nurses, Dentists and Hospitals

A month in the life...
Being a real GMC registered sawbone, I've seen a few 'interesting' things in my time. The 'foreign body in rectum' stories sound like the stuff of urban myths, but unfortunately are incredibly common. We often see people who've driven miles and miles in the hope that no-one will recognise them in our ED! Equally, we have a few frequent fliers who've just given up on explaining why there's fishing line in their jap's eye and a hoover attachment in their rectum... On the A&E computer, they come up as 'Personal Problem', so everyone medical and in-the-know can snigger...

Favourite patients from the last month or so:

1. The man who was brought in by police with acute psychosis. Plod's reasoning: "Well, we found him at the beach claiming he was Jesus and trying to walk on water". He did have wet ankles.

2. The elderly chap who stabbed himself in the stomach with a 10" bread knife, apparently his wife was annoying him. Managed to miss every organ of value in his abdomen. His CT scan is still doing the rounds in various hospitals.

3. The 3 year old who filled up both ears with plasticine because "Mum's music is horrible". Took about 2 hours and a trip to theatre to get it all out.

4. The chap who got confused overnight and drank his and two other patients' full urine bottles. He didn't remember in the morning and we didn't have the heart to tell him. He was concerned about the 'funny taste' in his mouth though.

5. Obligatory foreign body story: elderly lady with vaginal prolapse (things can get a wee bit loose down there as you age) - used to keep an (empty) miniature of whisky up there to stop her internal ladybits falling out...

6. Two or three 'things' lost up bottoms.

PS We don't have a collection of things found in bottoms, that would be just wrong - they're either thrown away or given back to the patient.
(Wed 17th Mar 2010, 11:40, More)

» Neighbours

This is really boring if you don't understand cricket
The old man's on the committee of the local cricket club, which is just celebrating its centenary and is surrounded by houses of the red brick, turn-of-the-century, half-a-million quid type. Anyway, as happens in cricket, occasionally the wee red ball hits off the willow (fnar fnar) and hurtles out of the ground and meets the red brick or Dutch slate of one of the aforementioned houses. The vast majority of residents are aware that this is, really, a hazard of buying a house next to a cricket ground and are easily placated by free membership, a few pints in the bar and free entry to the Christmas party.

There was one bloke though, who got mightily annoyed as one six sailed out of the ground and into his window. Into the secretary's office he stormed and demanded to know "what is the club going to do about it?"

He then asked why the club couldn't protect his house/garden and put up a fence "like you have for the other houses". Rather perplexed, as there's no fence around the club, just a privet hedge and a low wall, the secretary looked blank until it slowly dawned on him that the man was referring to the sight-screens...

At village cricket matches, this story's bloody hilarious.
(Sat 3rd Oct 2009, 23:27, More)

» Teenage Crushes - Part Two

Helen Baxendale
Dr Claire Maitland in Cardiac Arrest - complete fox. So many male doctors will agree...
(Sat 7th Nov 2009, 23:42, More)