The saying "kids are not just little adults" is one maxim that we hear repeated a lot in the hospital. After a few months of pediatric medicine, I find myself needing to re-learn the opposite: Adults are not just big kids.
One thing that is relatively uniqe to adult medicine is the phenomenon of making fun of the patient. Well... maybe "making fun of" isn't the correct term. But with adults that have tons of comorbid conditions - the heart patients with COPD and liver disease, for instance - there is the underlying knowledge that they contributed to their own condition. And so many adults are non-compliant with their therapies that it is not uncommon to have a relative level of cynicism when treating them.
Which leads to comments like the one made by an intern to another this morning: "Something fishy's going on. Her glucose is still 400-something and she's on enough insulin to kill an Oompa Loompa."
Love it.
1 comment:
I love Oompa Loopmas
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