A friend of mine (Family Practice Resident) was recently telling me about an experience he had.  I find this terrifying.  This apparently actually happened… and it’s not that infrequent.

Dr. Optimistic: “Hey there Mr. Loh-Ai-Cue I see you are here for your routine check up”

Mr. Low-Ai-Cue: “Yeah, I just wanna make sure I’m doin’ OK”

Dr. Optimistic: “Sure thing, let me just get up your labs and… HOLY CRAP!  Your Hb A1c  is 12.5!  That means you have the worst diabetes I have ever seen!  Oh, and don’t get me started on your blood pressure”

Mr. Low-IQ: “Yeah, well, I didn’t change my diet”

Dr. O:  ”But, your diabetes…”

Mr. Low-IQ:  ”Yeah, I’m not exercising either, and those insulin shots hurt, so I’m not taking those.

Dr. O:  ”But… but… you really need to.  I mean you are going to destroy your kidneys, and your blood pressure is through the roof.  You are horribly straining your heart-”

Mr. Low-IQ:  ”Listen.  I’m not going to change my diet or take those pills, K?  I’m just here to get my check up”

Dr. O:  ”But if you ignore everything we say, why even come here in the first place?”

So that’s medicine in a nutshell.  In fifteen years this person will have a heart attack, his toes will be falling off, he will need dialysis three times a week and his quality of life will be absolute crap compared to now.  We could prevent horrible things from happening, but the typical US citizen would rather face the horrible consequences later than have mild adjustments now.

I really feel for the Family Practice doctors.  It is impossible to help someone who will not help themselves.

Thoughts??

So I think enough time has passed that the guilty parties can no longer get in trouble.

In residency, people were all suffering together.  As residents you work crazy hours, get limited sleep, and your life is essentially non-stop studying, working, and gaining as much experience as humanly possible.

Occasionally you need some sort of break.  

Me, being a good nature soul, often became part of said fun.

Them: Hey, you have a kid in room 19 that made you a balloon animal from a glove, it’s really cute,

Me:  Oh, cool, I’ll check it out (huh, that’s weird I don’t even have room 19)

So I go into the room to see the cute little kid with his balloon for me.  When I pull back the curtain, what do I get to see but a nearly naked, extremely drunk man, legs sprawled out in the frog-leg stance because in his drunken stupor that seemed comfortable, with his tremendous shlong out for the world to see and a puddle of pee on the ground.

Ah residency, the memories.