Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Two strange things

Hail,
And as the title suggests....

Strange Event the first:

I was going through the patient notes for one of our patieints and I found an old urine drug screen result from the prisons medical service. I reproduce it below in its entirety:

11/10/04
Forensic Urine Drug Screen Analysis:
Methadone.
Buprenorphine
Benzodiazepine.
Methamphetamine.
Cocaine.


Comment: Mr Smith denied any extraneous drug use, claimed "only taking some medications to help with drug withdrawal that Doctor Bronze gave me".

No wonder there's a drug problem up here, it's all down to me and the medications I dole out - "Yeah, coming down off amphetamines can be hard - here, take the edge off it with some coke."

The thing is, I went to a friend's birthday party the other day and he only got some videos. Where are my priorities?

Strange Event the Second:

I’ve been asking the nurses to ring patients on the morning of their appointments to remind them to come in, and this morning Briony (nurse) rang Steve (methadone client). Steve sounded intoxicated.

"Steve – don’t forget about your appointment today" she said.

"My what?"

"Your appointment"

"Why? With who?"

"Drug and Alcohol Services. You know, you’ve been coming here for years?"

"The fuck? Where’s that?"

"Mordor. Like always."

"Jesus. What's the address again?"

Anyway, she manages to get the information across and at ten thirty Steve turns up. Only it’s not Old Steve (Steve the Old-School Smackfiend, hairy and belligerent) who’s been causing us hassle for thirteen years, it’s another guy. New Steve. Bald and confused. Big methamphetamine problem.

Yes, two people, selected from the area almost at random, are both called Steve, and both have out-of-control injecting drug habits. It seems we’d called the wrong number - transposed a few digits - and thus called the wrong Steve. New Steve said he reckoned his family had dobbed him in to it. No wonder he didn’t know anything about us. Old Steve, who had been described by our nurse as "evidently severely intoxicated" that morning, has yet to appear.

Thanks for listening,
John

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

good luck for the exam!!!! Jane & Rob. Mine is 15th Sept (written); 27 Oct (OSCE).

7:12 PM  

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