Читать книгу In Stitches - Nick Edwards, Dr. Nick Edwards - Страница 13

I felt like a prat today. This eight-year-old boy came in after falling on an outstretched right arm. It looked like it was probably broken. I gave him my usual preamble with boys to make him feel at ease.

‘So what football team do you support?’ I asked.

‘Man City’, he replied. ‘Joey Barton is brilliant,’ he added. I told him my little joke about our hospital policy being not to treat Man United supporters as a way to save money. He laughed but I am not sure if his dad realised I was trying to be funny.

‘Blimin’ good idea that is. Bunch of pansies the lot of them.’

‘Oh dear’, I thought, and went back to examine the boy, then wrote an X-ray form. I wrote ‘X-ray R wrist please’. I always try and be polite on my forms – it usually helps to oil the cogs of the working day.

He came back with his X-ray and to my surprise there was no fracture. I reassured him and his dad, and sent them on their way, with the advice he was to come back if it continued to hurt.

Seven hours later he was back – this time with his mum – and still in pain. As he was a returning patient, he had to be reviewed by a middle-grade doctor (like myself) or consultant. Luckily (for me and my blushes) it was after 6 p.m. and I was the most senior doctor around. I examined him again, and explained that muscle injuries can be just as painful as broken bones.

His mum then asked, ‘Do you have a policy of only X-raying the wrong hand if they support City, or does it not matter and you X-ray everybody’s wrong hand?’

I was flabbergasted. I protested. Surely her son was making things up. I went and got the X-ray form to prove that I had written R on it. I had written R, but the radiographer had read L as, to be fair my R looked like a L. I looked at the X-ray – yes there was an obvious ‘Left’ written on it. What a dick I had been. I apologised to the mum profusely. A new X-ray form was written with ‘Right’ written instead of R and it duly came back with a small undisplaced fracture needing a plaster of Paris cast. Luckily, no harm was done.

I apologised, held my hand up and admitted my error. I told the mother that I was never going to write R and L again, but spend the extra second finishing off the word. She seemed to accept my apologies. She also wanted to clarify that her nephew would be able to come to hospital if he ever got ill. He is a Man United supporter. ‘Oh dear’, I thought, as I went on to explain myself for a second time.

A note to all readers. The Man United comment was meant as a sarcastic joke. All NHS hospitals will see supporters of any football club. Don’t worry … well, unless you support Chelsea – then you are on your own.