Computer Replaces Horse’s Mouth
I write down the symptoms when I am ill. It pays to keep a record.
As an active retiree and founder of the RewiredRetired movement, I have more time to be ill now, but the doctors can’t make the time to see me. My appointments are usually two weeks after the illness has gone away. Without my written notes I wouldn’t know why I was there. I made the appointment in the heat of my brave battle with a terminal man-illness, determined to go through with it even after a two-week wait, or the cost to the NHS would be astronomical. A notice in the surgery warns me against such profligate neglect of duty.
I picked up the idea of written notes from watching police on the witness stand on the tele. Like them, I am not above making the odd alteration to the facts when gripped by the cold reality of hindsight or obeying orders.
An older RewiredRetired member told me I should cure myself and not wait for doctors to poke at me and offer platitudes and panaceas. He thinks B&Q and hardware stores would revive their business if they introduced DIY medical aisles. Late-night openings for a DIY A&E would be a terrific success and ease the burden on the NHS. Self-treatment would leave doctors free to do proper medical stuff like cutting, tearing out, producing babies from personal places and tut-tutting and sighing while staring at a swollen groin aggravated by stupidity in the gym.
I finally make it to the surgery to be greeted with a recently posted notice. “Not all the doctors in this surgery will deal with pregnancy terminations on grounds of conscience and religion. Please discuss your requirements with the receptionist who will arrange alternative appointments.” The receptionist in question is the one named repeatedly in the patient survey last year as the most unapproachable and rudest member of staff.
Soon I expect to see a notice saying, “One of the doctors in this surgery will not deal with homosexuals, lesbians and female adulterers on the grounds of his religion and because they challenge his shaky gender self-image. He believes such sinners should get a grip and take up praying, not be treated on the NHS. Please discuss your requirements with the receptionist who will arrange alternative appointments”. Fortunately, the receptionist is not swayed by age, gender or sexual orientation, she dislikes everyone.
A more useful notice would be, “One of the doctors in this surgery has very cold hands. Please discuss your requirements with the receptionist who will arrange alternative appointments if this will cause you problems.”
My appointment is with the new, young doctor who has read a medical book recently and is still idealistic about her vocation. There is hope for me.
Notebook in hand, stopwatch ready to claim my full ten minutes, I march in, confident that the illness I endured so bravely two weeks ago will be named, giving me a good handle to start a medical martyrs conversation in the pub.
Already long in the tooth after only four weeks in post, the new one welcomes me, makes two attempts at saying my name correctly, introduces herself, comments on the weather, invites me to give an opinion about the new décor in her room, tells me to sit and asks about my imagined ailment, all in one sentence. Before I can launch into reading from my notebook, ‘as I was proceeding down the stairs at 0929 hours on the morning of 15th April ….,’ she switches her attention to her computer.
She is checking my date of birth.
There must be a mantra in all medical manuals that is taught to doctors, dentists, opticians and any passing itinerant prodder of human bodies that starts, ‘considering your age….’. When I hear those words I know there is no hope of a proper examination. The computer, by stating my date of birth, has red-flagged that I am not to be bothered with, unless I keel over there and then. I am deprived of a detailed medical diagnosis to share with my neighbours, even if they will be reluctant to listen.
If you buy a horse at a fair, you rub its shoulders, feel its muscles, run your hand along its back, trot it around and, most importantly, you look in its mouth. The doctor’s computer has supplanted these centuries-old techniques of fitness assessment. The new doctor could learn all she needs to know by trotting me around and looking in my mouth.
There are a few exceptions to this point of view.
I still remember the first time I was examined for prostate ‘irregularities’, the medical euphemism for cancer. No one had warned me how the doctor would examine me. It was the one time I wished that the grinning medic could have done it by looking at a computer, instead of poking at the ‘horse’s mouth’, my euphemism for where he put his hand.
My date of birth only marks the day I blessed the world by turning up. It should not be used as a mark of Cain signalling that I am past my use-by date.
