Dr. Dev (Fictional Name) while working as Senior Resident in the Surgery Department, at AIIMS, New Delhi, reached the Private Wards at the end of the evening ward round. He felt thirsty. The ward staff nurses were not around. They were most probably in the Private Rooms carrying out the treatment instructions.
After waiting for some time for the nurses to come, Dr. Dev reluctantly walked to the refrigerator kept in the nurse’s duty room, opened it and picked up the bottle of water kept in there. First, he looked carefully at the outside of the bottle as if looking for some marking or label. Then he raised the bottle against light and carefully examined the bottle against it. Then he opened the bottle and sniffed at the bottle’s content. Finally, he poured some water on the back of his hand. Only then he raised the bottle and took a gulp of the water.
The junior resident accompanying Dr. Dev looked with amazement at his strange behavior. His curiosity finally got the better of him and asked Dr. Dev diffidently, “Sir, what is the reason for your behavior before drinking the water?”
Dr. Dev replied, “It looks like you have not heard about the incidence of the thirsty Senior Residents.” “One senior resident like us felt thirsty in the Private Ward. The staff nurses were not around. He went to the refrigerator, opened and it took a gulp of water from the bottle kept there. The water tasted funny and he spat out the water immediately. The staff nurse had now come back to the nursing duty room. The Senior Resident asked the staff nurse, “Sister, why does this water taste so funny?” On seeing the bottle the nurse becomes aghast and said, “Sir that is not water. That is a patient’s urine!”
Many of the substances in our body are excreted (thrown) out in the urine. Determining the amount of some particular substance being excreted from the body in the urine over a 24 hour period is helpful in diagnosing certain diseases. The nurse had started collecting a patient’s urine admitted in the private ward and had kept the collected urine in a bottle in the refrigerator to avoid its degeneration due to the hot room temperature.
“That may explain you looking for the labels, inspecting the bottle against the light and smelling the contents, but what about the pouring the content of the bottle on the back of your hand?” further enquired the junior resident.
“Looks like you had not heard about the second Senior Resident” further explained Dr. Dev.
“Another Senior Resident felt thirsty and like the first, he picked a bottle of ‘water’ from the refrigerator when the staff nurse was not around. On taking a gulp of water he instantly screamed in pain.” said Dr. Dev. What he thought was water was, in fact, a corrosive chemical which burnt his mouth, tongue, and lips. “So it is better to be over-cautious than sorry and not eat or drink anything without proper identification.”
(Based on true incidences)
— ND
© Author. All rights reserved.
If viewing from Mobile, switch to Webpage view to see a list of popular posts and index of topics of previous posts.
DISCLAIMER: This article is intended only for fun purpose. The author does not promote or recommend any behavior illustrated here or claim it to be useful. Use of the information herein is at you one's own risk. Before trying to emulate or follow anything the reader is well advised to take into account ethical, moral, legal and other considerations. The author recommends that Medical Practice should be of the highest ethical and moral level keeping in mind the interest of the patient as foremost.
DISCLAIMER: This article is intended only for fun purpose. The author does not promote or recommend any behavior illustrated here or claim it to be useful. Use of the information herein is at you one's own risk. Before trying to emulate or follow anything the reader is well advised to take into account ethical, moral, legal and other considerations. The author recommends that Medical Education should be of the highest ethical and moral level keeping in mind the interest of the patient as foremost and according to MCI and other Board’s norm.
Please give your valuable feedback via comments below. Please note that comments will appear after moderation.
You can receive notification on latest post by subscribing via clicking on the bottom of the page on the Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment