The worst patient in the world....

in

(a la my hero- Keith Olbermann from MSNBC) today's patient, Mr. Nastyman. I called him in, not blind to the fact that he was a grumpy ole man but managing to get through stage 1 of the exam -the history-taking without incident. However in the middle of stage 2 (testing vision) he kinda freaked out at me. I had committed the awful sin of telling him to take off his distance glasses to read the near card. He huffed and he puffed; then i asked him to hold the card like a book and that i had the occluder (that blocks one eye at a time) and that is when he "Blew" and yelled, " Balls, Woman!". I was so taken aback and knew i couldn't handle him (win him over to my side) because I was so angry, so i excused myself and left the room. I was going to ask a co-worker, an old pro who i was confident could take over for me; but he was already heading into a room with a patient; before i could go on to Plan B ( not that i even had time to formulate a Plan B) Mr. Nastyman stormed out of the room and into the waiting room where he told his wife "C'mon we're leaving" - something to that effect as told by the secretaries later; and to which she said but don't you have to wait to see the Dr. and to which he growled " I said, Let's go".
I could only imagine and have empathy for this poor woman who must hear "Balls Woman" or worse at least 10 times a day!
I then went to the office Mgr. to ask what i should do with the chart and about documenting this; she told me to ask the doctor, so i caught him coming out of an exam room and told him of the incident. His first response to hearing "Balls/Woman" was "what does that mean?" shaking his head as one of his aides explained that he said this to me and had left; to which he then said, "well good, good riddance". Then coming to his senses he told me to document "just what happened" and to leave the chart and he would dictate a letter to the patient stating that he needed to follow up on his eye care.
So I did just as I was instructed and wrote: When asked to remove his glasses and read from the Near card the patient responded, "Balls Woman".
Well for the rest of the morning this phrase was repeated often and might be the new office mantra - til tomorrow's worst patient walks through the door that is.
I think it's time to retire- don't i wish!

4 comments:

Noelle said...

I think I'm going to be using "balls woman" all day at MY office...

Unknown said...

omg what a crotchety old man

Sky said...

lol at the grump. sorry you had a difficult patient. i remember the days when i would have wished for someone like this man you describe instead of the cursers and dramatists we encountered. i don't miss a day of it!

Mary Sheehan Winn said...

What a pain in the ass. Poor wife :(
Poor Roni too.