March 24, 2011

• Chance Encounters

  “Of all the patients in all the clinics in all the world, she had to walk into mine”

  During my intern year oh so long ago (over a year! ) I recall seeing an elderly lady who was visiting me for high blood pressure. She mentioned that she wanted to start taking cozaar, a specific anti-hypertensive drug to control her blood pressure. Scrolling through her medications, I saw that she was already on an ACE inhibitor, a similar class of drug and so asked her why she wanted to switch. Was she having side effects? did she feel her bp wasnt controlled?

  It turns out all her friends were taking the same drug for their hypertension so she thought she should be on it as well. I explained to her that just because all your friends are doing something is not a good enough reason for me to change your medications. Then, because I was an intern and had to run all my cases by the clinic attending physician, I left the room to go present the case, explaining my absence with a simple “I am going to confer with another doctor and return to let you know the plan.” The plan was exactly what I had told her to continue her regular medication but it still had to be presented.

  And that was the end of it.

  Until about a week ago, when I learned that that patient had gone home and googled me, found out I was a freshly graduated intern (not that I was trying to keep it a secret) and felt that I handled the situation inappropriately, both in my flippant response and my apparent self doubt, as I told her the plan then said I had to check with another doctor for something as simple as a prescription question. She then lost all faith in my diagnostic abilities and decided to go see another physician at a later point to follow up.

  How did I learn all this?

  The patient is the grandmother of my current girlfriend

  Talk about your chance encounters.

   

  • 9:47 pm
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