Feb 10
Tomayto
Nothing to write home, or anywhere else, about. Just an old feller with some indistinct shoulder pain that might, or might not indicate some sort of cardiac origin.
Dezzie is running through the standard questions.
“Any medical problems in the past?”
“No, none.”
“And do you take any medication?”
Because they ALWAYS say that they’ve never had anything wrong with them and then they ALWAYS have a list of medications that you can reverse engineer a medical history from.
You don’t get taught about common medicines on your Technician course. You should do, it wouldn’t be a hard module to drop in, just an afternoon of “Here are a couple of dozen very common drugs that lots of people take, remember them.”
It comes with time.
Because we’re ignorant about medicines, most of our patients also are - they take the pills the doctor gives them. As such, you also learn to recognise the mangled pronunciations of names that people come out with.
Even if you can recognise them, there’s no guarantees the patients will be pleased about it.
Back to Dezzie and our patient.
“I take an Aspirin in the morning and Oprah-Zamma-Roll.”
“What d’you take that one for?”
“It’s a gastric pill, helps with my heartburn.”
Ah, jolly good. Omeprazole is ridiculously common, everyone’s on it.
The conversation continues for a little while, Dezzie continues to probe at possible sources of the patient’s chest pain. Mostly we’re suspect of this gastric history.
“So the Omeprazole you take….”
“The what?”
“The Omeprazole.”
He stares blankly at us.
“The tablet? For your stomach?”
“Oh!”
Light dawns, he catches my eye and rolls his before leaning close into Dezzie, speaking slowly and clearly, as if to a stupid child.
“Oprah…..Zamma…..Roll.”
Dezzie doesn’t bother to correct him and the patient sits back, happy to have set us right.
February 10th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
One that made me laugh was the old lady in resus, who in between her gasping for breath was able to “correct” my pronunciation of her medication!
February 10th, 2010 at 2:01 pm
Excellent! Although why do some medicines have to have complicated names, anyway? I mean, we can all pronounce aspirin (I hope) but that there gastric pill? Took me a couple of goes to get it right, and I’ll have forgotten it in half an hour.
February 10th, 2010 at 2:12 pm
Oh the fun that we had at Saint John cadets with salbutamol - sal-butty-roll being one of many! The inevitable outcome of ‘that blue puffer’ was satisfactory to both first aider and casualty alike!
February 10th, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Hey! At least he TRIED. It wasnt “the little white pill” - right?
Speaking of little white pills - I am out of them. I best call the pharmacy and order more.
February 10th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
All of my grandmothers (married into and my own biological ones) AND my mother-in-law pronounce mammogram as mammy-o-gram. I twitch but I don’t correct them because they’re grandmothers and my mother-in-law.
February 10th, 2010 at 5:45 pm
they taught us ‘cloppy-dug-roll’, i always forget thats not how its meant to be pronounced
February 10th, 2010 at 6:56 pm
bet we can all say Prooooow Zaaack!
February 10th, 2010 at 10:14 pm
How about ‘my fizzy one’……..a drug made by Pfizer!
February 11th, 2010 at 1:42 am
Oh, the fun I have with the district nurses… is it dyke-low-fen-ack, dick-loff-een-ack, some combination of the above? And don’t get me started on citalopram, solifenacin, pregabalin, and of course good old omeprazole.
Just to add to the fun the very primitive communication aid that I sometimes use pronounces them all wrong. Drives me bananas.
Just for the record and unrelated to your post except that they turned up while I was writing this, I really really hate district nurses. Just saying. An ugly blue uniform does not automatically confer wisdom, honesty or even basic manners on the wearer.
February 11th, 2010 at 7:54 am
Reminds me of the Thai teachers over here who wander into your class and try to undo all the good work you’ve done. Cause, y’know, they know English waaaaay better than us poor native speakers. I didn’t know that walked and talked had two syllables till coming over here, glad they corrected me on that. Oh, and I don’t play guitar. Oh no. I am play guitar. That’s taught me…
February 11th, 2010 at 8:00 am
A friend told me her dog’s epilepsy was being treated with “peanut butter balls”, which I thought was decidedly strange. It turned out to be phenobarbital.
February 11th, 2010 at 10:46 am
I live in northern Italy. While getting onto a chairlift up the mountain last week the tape was playing for the “busy” time so we didn’t leave empty spaces. I howled with laughter as the nice lady told me to “queue-eee up-eee”. And my neighbour and her friends have asked for a couple of hours (!) of English lessons for their upcoming holiday in Washington DC, Boston and New York. Mmmm - suggested using Italian in NY!
I translate professionally - the number of times someone in business who has spent a few months in the USA has corrected my English…
February 11th, 2010 at 7:03 pm
Oh good idea about the module for the common drugs, I might enquire tomorrow about that on the IHCD Amb Tech course Im currently on (Day 4 over and 31 days to go!)
February 11th, 2010 at 7:16 pm
Oh, with you all the way - had ram-eye-pillow today……. (ramipril) and there are so many people on aspirin, atenolol, ramipril, simvastatin that I practially type it when I have a cardiac case while waiting for confirmation
February 11th, 2010 at 8:42 pm
Heh. Once went out to an elderly West Indian gent with chest pain who told us the only meds he was on were his “Jackson tablets”. Took a few repetitions and puzzled looks before he produced a packet of Digoxin :oD
February 11th, 2010 at 11:37 pm
In IT, I have noticed that as soon as people consider anything to be complicated, they mispronounce/misuse the name.
Sometimes, they just don’t care.
February 12th, 2010 at 2:08 am
I was in a biology class many many many year ago. We had a foreign-born prof call proteins…
pro-T-ins. Made a two syllable word into a three. Sounded like a new alien life form
February 12th, 2010 at 2:29 am
“So is your baby’s medicine pink or white, and is it once a day or twice a day, and for 5 days or 10?” Not that ear infections are as common as they were, thank goodness…
February 14th, 2010 at 7:59 pm
Oh we all love those little white pills don’t we?
I once had a patient call in asking for a refill on her Triaminic (brand name children’s OTC cough suppressant/expectorant) it was finally determined that she wanted Tramacet (tramadol+acetaminophen)
I also have a co-worker pronounces pantoprazole as pant-oh-pra-zo-lee no matter how many times we correct her. We are thinking that she just does it to drive us up the wall now.
February 18th, 2010 at 2:37 am
I had a distraught patient tell me once how the only medication (of a very long list) that she could afford was her Voltron. She meant Voltaren (aka diclofenac), but it was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud every time she said it.
February 22nd, 2010 at 11:24 am
Fantastic!
This reminds me of so many jobs!!! lol