Monday, October 15, 2007

Welcome to Tombstone!

First a small matter of house keeping. It appears that after fifteen years the domain that also supplied my email address has been withdrawn. My very kind ISP have supplied me with a shiny new domain of my own and a new mail account to go along with it, so for those who feel the need to know, I can now be reached at “the-doctor-is-in(AT)doctorjest(DOT)co(DOT)uk”

Now on with the motley….

I’ve seen some pretty odd indications for admissions to nursing homes in the past. On at least a couple of occasions we have had to admit patients to a local Home for healing of their pressure sores (it helped that the Home’s matron was at the time an internationally published authority on the subject and a true mistress of her craft, thus disproving the old axiom that “those that can’t teach”).

We have also felt in necessary, on more than one occasion, to admit frail patients to nursing homes rather than to hospital to keep them away from the Jabberwock strains of MRSA or C. Difficile (prn dif-ik-illy not dif-iss-eel it’s LATIN people!). There was even one occasion when I admitted a chap to get him away from the maggots (we are talking real live wigglies here, not the Lovecraftian imaginings of a diseased mind).

Still today’s notification takes things to a whole new level. I have a patient who was recently admitted to a nursing home for her own safety after a fist fight developed between her family and her carers.

From now on I’m thinking of changing the old monicker to Doc Holiday.

6 comments:

ageing student said...

Re LATIN - thank you - that proves that I was right in pronouncing it hydro-kef-alus and not hydro-seff-alus during a discussion at a recent OU seminar on Human Biology. In the end we agreed to differ!

steveg said...

I'm with you doc on the Latin thing (was forced into 4 years of the subject in grammar school - and still can't rid myself of it!) but I wonder why someone in the media has not worked it out, or more importantly, why some presumably educated medico has not jabbed one of them in the ribs and pointed out the correct pronunciation?

Go for it Dr J...

Steve

Doctor Jest said...

ageing student-- Welcome, and quite right. After all you don't hear people talking about "sardiac arrests" so where the heck does "sephalic" come from. (The lack of a proper classical education, that's where.... mumble, grumble.... )

steveg-- dissapointingly some of the supposedly better informed medics are the ones perpetuating this Francophone travesty of what the late great Ronnie Barker would have labelled "pissmronuciation".

Nostrumdammit said...

cum natrii chloridii dosis magnum sumendum

Regards
N

BenefitScroungingScum said...

Grammar school latin taught me how to sleep unnoticed during lessons and say Salve mea columba. A productive two years I'd say!

I'm surprised you're not called upon to intervene on a regular basis in fights between 'carers' and 'families' Dr J? Bendy Girl

Doctor Jest said...

nostrum-- for once not a word of this post had to be embellished I assure you. I even have a temporary resident slip from her time in respite care to testify to the fist fight that occasioned her admission to a nursing home a little off our patch. What impressed me was the restraint of the receiving Doc in only qualifying that indication with a single exclamation mark.

Bendy girl-- there are days when I fwwl I should qualify for a "blue berret" it's true, but seldom do we see actual fisticuffs. Personally I blame the alcopop generation.

Vale mea columba.