If you haven’t read about the “record” high levels of pollen in the air, you (like me) have experienced a lot of the allergies we know as allergic rhinitis.
Yesterday, I was on the local TV news station talking about pollen, allergies, and what to do about it. Check out Video 1 and Video 2.
If you find them useful, I encourage you to check out more of my interviews by clicking here.
*This blog post was originally published at Doctor Anonymous*
One of the great things of being in a group practice is meeting and taking care of patients who may not necessarily be on your own personal patient panel. Walking into the room, I hear the patient say, “Doc, you gotta help me.” I see a red right forearm and on the “complaint” section, the nurse wrote “burn.”
So, I ask, “Well how did you burn your arm?” “Well, doc, I got cancer.” Hmm, that’s interesting. I didn’t make the connection until the next sentence. “It was my last treatment with chemotherapy about 2 weeks ago and for some reason, the needle slipped and the stuff went all over my arm. The cancer doc prescribed these pills, but they don’t seem to be helping. I asked the pharmacist about some salves and this is what they said.” He showed me a handful of creams and ointments purchased at the pharmacy.
Since I didn’t know this patient at all, I was leafing through a very thick paper chart to try to catch up. “Yeah, I’ve been coming to see Doc [name] for a long time now. I’m glad you were able to see me today since his schedule was full.” This very pleasant patient then told me about how they diagnosed his cancer – a tear came to his eye – it’s like he was re-living that moment again. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Doctor Anonymous*
“Hey doc,” the patients says, “I think I got wax in my ear.” I reply, “Well, that makes it hard to hear me, then, huh?” “WHAT?” – the patient yells. Oh yeah, I say to myself. “I’ve been having this ever since I was a kid. Every few months, I need my ears cleaned out.” So, I look in there, and it’s the most amount of wax I’ve seen in a long time.
“Sir, do you use q-tips to clean our your ears?” I ask the patient. “Well, yeah, I think I’ve been doing a good job at keeping things clean, don’t you think?” “Well, I wouldn’t recommend that because it looks like you’ve been pushing the wax further in there.” “WHAT?”
So, we’re able to get some of the wax out of there only to find a lot of redness and irritation in the ear canal. “Doc, I still can’t hear. Are you sure that you got all the wax out of there?” “Well, sir, there is no more wax in there now. It looks like there is an infection underneath, and that’s what causing the problem now.” “WHAT?” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Doctor Anonymous*
“Dr. A, your student is here,” the front desk squawks through the intercom. “Sheesh,” I say to myself as I look at my full schedule of patients. Now, don’t get me wrong. I really enjoy teaching. Something I do know is that I could not do teaching full time. I thought about possibly joining a residency program or exploring the possibility of teaching full time at the med school. But, at this point in my career, patient care is still my passion. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Doctor Anonymous*
I have a lot of friends in Boston this week who are attending the annual meeting for the American Academy of Family Physicians (ie – Congress of Delegates or AAFP CoD). And, they may not be too happy with what they read in this post, but here goes.
As some of you know, I’m scheduled to present at BlogWorld Expo (BWE) later this week in Las Vegas. I’m going to be moderating a panel about how patient privacy and the HIPPA law can impact blogging, podcasting, and interacting with social networking. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Doctor Anonymous*
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