oh i forgot....

There was this old man who come to ED c/o gastric pain. He claimed that he had eaten some contaminated food during dinner and pain had awakened him from sleep. He had however pointed to right upper quadrant of abdomen instead of the usual epigastric region.

I asked him what he had for dinner and he said as usual. I am not satisfied with this of answer most of the time. I don’t live with the patient and I don’t know what does the usual mean. I usually would dig the story and he told me he had some chicken soup. Should get the spot diagnosis by this time and I had asked him if he had any history of stone (that include urinary and gall bladder). He gave me a negative answer.

I proceeded with the physical examination and a positive Murphy’s sign was noted. I proceeded with the ultrasound and show the 3cm stone to him and told him about the diagnosis.

He then told me, “ yeah yeah I had gall bladder stone…” I asked him,” but you had told me that you had no stone in the past…”. The patient grinned and answered me, “ Oh I forgot…” Well, just another never trust your patient scenario….

It was  pain in the ass during those resident/medical officer days… clerked the patient like dog and during the specialist round, the patient gave another story – some of the time, one would get this unfriendly “you are lazy” stare from the specialist….time had passed but still, the same scenario happens again and again but this times, I am the one who give the “stare”-----to the patient of coz….