Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Twenty-Four Years

Needless to say, The Doctor deals with a lot of elderly patients. Yesterday he had a patient in his office who can barely remember who picks them up and drops them off at our office let alone anything to do with their various medical conditions.

The Doctor spent about 20 minutes of his time trying to ascertain when this patient had last had a colonoscopy. They stated very seriously that they were pretty sure it was in 1985. The Doctor looked at me and said, "Ok, Erin, I want you to write for those records."

Ummm...ok. I don't mind doing my job, really I don't, but I have several issues with writing for their records:

1. No one writes for records anymore as we now have a thing called the fax machine.

2. This patient honestly couldn't remember talking to the nurse five minutes earlier about their medications. And yet, The Doctor thinks they can remember a colonoscopy in 1985? I don't think so.

3. Medical establishments are only required to keep medical records for 10 years in the state of Texas.

4. If their last colonoscopy was 24 years ago, wouldn't you think that regardless of the results, they might need another one?

1 comment:

Julie said...

A friend of mine wrote this little poem that make me think of you...

My day job is less than exciting
The monotony is so uninviting
With blogging I'm inspired!
As long as I don't get fired...
Just make sure I don't get caught writing!

he he