It’ not easy to be a Doctor
During a patient’s two week follow-up appointment with his cardiologist, he informed me, his doctor,
that he was having trouble with one of his medications. “Which one?” I asked. “The patch. The nurse told me to put on a new one every six hours and now I’m running out of places to put it!” I had him quickly undress and discovered what I hoped I wouldn’t see. Yes, the man had over fifty patches on his body! Since this incident, the instructions now include removal of the old patch before applying a new one.
Dr. Rebecca St. Clair, Norfolk, VA
I was performing a complete physical, including the visual acuity test. I placed the patient twenty feet
from the chart and began, “Cover your right eye with your hand.” He read the 20/20 line perfectly. “Left.” Again, a flawless read. “Now both,” I requested. There was silence. He couldn’t even read the large letter on the top line. I turned and discovered that he had done exactly what I had asked; he was standing there with both his eyes covered. I was laughing too hard to finish the exam.
Dr. Matthew Theodropolous, Worcester, MA
A man comes into the ER and yells, “My wife’s going to have her baby in the cab!” I grabbed my stuff,
rushed out to the cab, lifted the lady’s dress, and began to take off her underwear. Suddenly I noticed
that there were several cabs, and I was in the wrong one.
Dr. Mark MacDonald, San Antonio, TX
At the beginning of my shift I placed a stethoscope on an elderly and slightly deaf female patient’s
anterior chest wall. “Big breaths,” I instructed. “Yes, they used to be,” remorsefully replied the
patient.
Dr. Richard Byrnes, Seattle, WA
One day I had to be the bearer of bad news when I told a wife that her husband had died of a massive
myocardial infarct. Not more than five minutes later, I heard her reporting to the rest of the family that
he had died of a “massive internal fart.”
Dr. Susan Steinberg, Manitoba, Canada
