7/18/2012

THE GALLBLADDER IN ROOM EIGHT


Doctors often depersonalize their patients-thus Mr. Jones becomes the gallbladder in room eight and Ms. Samuels becomes the mastectomy in room three. In Nigeria, I often refer to my patients by their diagnosis, rather than by their name since I can’t pronounce many of their names.  We have nose girl, face boy, sarcoma lady, and albino man etc.  In this day and age, such depersonalization is not considered politically correct. However, such characterizations are consistent with the way we think in medicine in terms of differential diagnosis. We spend our whole lives trying to categorize diseases and it is natural, in my opinion that we would think of our patients in terms of a diagnosis. I think this is fine as long as we remember that the diagnosis is attached to a real person.

Today's patients had many diagnoses:

Victor-Lymphoma

Nwachukwu-Prostate Cancer

Regina-Goiter

Sylvia-Skin cancer

Ugochi-Previous C-Section

Innocent-Dermatofibrosarcoma Protuberans
Franca-Goiter


James-Stab wound to the IVC