Heart Failure

‘“AH, Mr Johnson. Ye-es. (Look at chart.) Oh dear, you have been in the wars. How are you feeling?”

‘Can you hear my heart?’ ‘No!’

“Well, I’ve a terrible pain in my…”

“Oh, that’s good. Gooood. Well, try not to worry, you’ll soon be out of it…as will we all.”

And with that the doctor smiles all the way up to his eyes, taps your chart, frowns hard, shakes his ahead and walks off to patronise the next poor sod.

But no more. The Times reports that from this week, graduates from medical schools will be assessed in their bedside manner.

The thinking is that in the rush to learn where all the various bits of the human body go and how they function, new doctors have been neglecting their social skills.

So now they will be assessed in how well they perform in patient consultations and convey bad news.

This is good news, delivered by a man with a smiley face and a free badge. But we are not told how the docs will be judged. So we offer the advice that they should stick to euphemisms.

Little Terry is not in intensive care - he’s in God’s waiting room. Grandma is not terminal, but BUNDY (But Unfortunately Not Dead Yet). And Aunty Joyce has not died, but undergone celestial transfer.

And so on…’

Posted: 9th, August 2005 | In: Uncategorized Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink