Blogging may be a bit light over the next few days - The proofs of "Da Book" are in, so I have to carefully check them. As I'm working 12 hour shifts, and it has to be done by Thursday, I've got to concentrate n that rather than my blog.

The post before last, concerning the boy with the broken toe - I thought I'd leave it up to you, dear commenter, to decide why I posted it. The main reason was to highlight the attitude that the media often show towards us, and the way that the LAS can only respond with a 'no comment', or 'an investigation is taking place', something I've touched on in previous posts.

The first patient of our shift this morning was a classic example of how patients can often forget a potentially useful part of their medical history. The patient was an elderly man with a general sort of abdominal ache. We quizzed him about his history (nothing especially relevant apart from some possibly constipating drugs), our initial idea was that the patient had constipation.

It was only as we were wheeling him out of his front door that he mentioned that he had diverticulitis - a medical condition that can cause exactly the type of pain he was describing...

At least he mentioned it to us rather than waiting and telling the nurses, making us look like fools, something that happens with some regularity (they'll then go on to tell the doctors something additional, thereby making the nurses look bad).

Right - time tp start the proofreading...

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Sent from a mobile phone, probably from the cab of an ambulance.
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