Clerking a dead body

(photo from flickr.com)

Sorry for the loooong silence. Have not been in the mood to blog the past few weeks...

Anyway... share an amazing story today.



In medical school, we were taught a standard set of things to do when we see a patient, in the following sequence:

1. History taking - ask the patient what is his/her complaints and gather other relevant information.
2. Physical examination - 'check' the patient physically eg. listen to the heart, lungs etc.
3. Investigations - ask for blood tests, X-rays, ECG etc.
4. Treatment

But in emergency situations, this sequence shouldn't be followed rigidly but actions should be taken to save lives first - eg. treatment first only after a short history and physical examination rather than a complete one.

One fine day, a patient who was quite ill came into the ward. A houseman attended to the patient. Since the patient was too ill to give a history, he had to take history from the patient's wife. The curtains around the patient's bed were drawn as the nurses were helping him change into hospital attire, and they left the patient after they were done with the changing.

Now this houseman diligently took a complete history from the patient's wife by the bedside, outside the curtains. After about an hour of hard work, he finally finished history taking and had a few differential diagnoses in mind. So, he put the file aside and stepped into the curtains to proceed with the second step - physical examination.

To his horror... the patient was lying still on the bed, cold, pulseless, no breathing and stiff - he was actually DEAD!!

Traumatised, the poor houseman had to write in the file after his documentation of a full beautiful history:"On examination, patient is dead."

Sigh...