Skip to main content

Doctors receptionists

There's nothing worse than a Doctors receptionist who insists you tell her what is wrong with you. I take that back. There is. When she asks you in front of all the other patients in the waiting room. 



I know most of us have experienced this and at my new surgery I loved how this old guy handled it. He must have been in his 70's and the waiting room was pretty full when he walked in. He approached the desk and the receptionist asked him what he needed to see the doctor for that day. 

"There's something wrong with my dick" he told her. 

The receptionist looked shocked and told him that he shouldn't say things like that in a crowded waiting room. "Why not? You asked me what was wrong and I told you" was his reply. The receptionist became irritated and told him that he had embarrassed the other patients waiting and should have said there was something wrong with his ear or similar and then discussed the real reason with the doctor in private. The guy looked her straight in the eye and told her that she shouldn't be asking people questions in a roomful of strangers if the answer might embarrass anybody. He then turned on his heel and walked out. Secretly I think everyone in the room was thinking 'good on you mate!'

A few minutes later he walked back in. As the receptionist sat smiling smugly everybody was trying to look without being seen to be looking and wondering what was going to happen next. "Can I help you sir?" she said. "Yes. There's something wrong with my ear?" She was obviously pleased that he had taken her advice and asked him what was wrong with his ear. "I can't piss out of it" he replied. The whole waiting room erupted in laughter. 


And like the cartoon above, what I've just told you is a classic joke that I saw on Facebook and just had to share on here. The trouble is that GP receptionists often get confused and mistake their Microsoft office certificate for an actual real life medical degree. And I really hope that I'm sat in the waiting room the time that some old boy takes them on in real life. 

NB x

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Light at the end of tunnel

I’m sat writing this blog post in St Marks, the specialist bowel hospital in London. So much has happened in the last few weeks; it’s all been a bit of a whirlwind. But I finally feel like there is some hope at the end of the tunnel. Let me tell you why.  At the beginning of June I was admitted yet again to QMC in Nottingham with huge amounts of pain, my bowels not working properly and just feeling generally unwell. I had only been home a couple of weeks since the admission in May but I had been feeling so rubbish most of my time had been spent in bed. I had tried everything I could to stay at home but the pain had become so bad I was barely able to stand or take a few steps on my own.  I had expected to maybe be in for a week or two to get stronger pain meds and get back on my feet but I ended up being in for almost a month. They put me on morphine injections and ketamine but then stopped them when my heart rate dropped to 30 beats per minute and my breathing to 7 breaths a minute. Th

The light at the end of the tunnel is a train

Last week was a busy and pretty crappy week for me health wise. I had to go and have blood tests done with the nutrition nurses and I had two hospital appointments; one with the gallbladder surgeon in Nottingham and the other with colorectal surgeon at St Marks. I was hoping to have at least one surgery date to write in the diary following these appointments but I came home empty handed on both occasions. Here’s what happened.  I began noticing over the last few weeks that I’ve started feeling really crappy. I’m feel lucky to have been at home for the last 6 months and I have been the most well I have been for years but it felt like things had shifted slightly recently but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. But years of being sick means I know my body and I can tell when something isn’t right. I have been feeling permanently exhausted and having way more bad days than good. I’ve gone back to spending 2, 3 or more consecutive days in bed, unable to do anything but watch tv and sleep.

The wrong size line

I’m on the M1 heading back to Nottingham after a road trip to St Marks to get my line repaired. But this is me, and as usual it wasn’t a smooth ride. More like a bloody shit show. So what happened? Let me tell you… After being admitted to QMC in Nottingham on Sunday with a broken Hickman line I was taken down to Interventional Radiology on Monday afternoon to get my line repaired. Firstly, I couldn’t believe it was happening so quickly and secondly I didn’t want to get too excited because, well it’s me, and usually things don’t go according to plan. And sadly I right to rein in the excitement.  When the doctor came to consent me for the procedure it was for a replacement, not a repair. I assumed he had made a mistake so I told him I was there to get my line repaired and was definitely not there for a new one. He looked at me and said “I hate to be the bearer of bad news…” and that’s a sentence that never bodes well. He then went on to say that they didn’t have any repair kits and that