Medical Confessions

Har. Har. Pretty funny read...

Ever wondered if doctors are frightened of catching what you've got? What their notes really mean? Or how to get round their receptionist? We asked five doctors to spill the beans

Check it out here.

Remembering the old days... Black Eyes & Baragwanath

Being in managed health care is just... not as dangerous.

For some reason, I thought of this old gem the other day...

It was a dark, stormy night. Aren't all the nights in Bara dark and stormy. Or at least dark. When the lights go out. That's another story.

Was working in Ward 20. Having seen the 1 000 00th TB patient, I got called to case where the patient was tired to a stretcher. This can only mean two things.

One, the patient is dangerous. Two, the patient is psychotic. Both aren’t preferable. And the combo package is even worse.

This particular patient had post-ictal psychosis (for the layman out there, translation: have fit, become psychotic). On trying to get close to her, the poor lady screamed like a banshee and struggled against the restraints. At one point, she managed to slip free of the bonds that held her, requiring two (big manly) doctors to hold her down. My job? Flank and approach armed with large dose of Benzo’s. Unfortunately, she got her arm free and took a nice big swing.


THWACK.

I’ve barely been in a catfight, but before I knew it – I was knocked flat back on my ass. 1 x Well connected shot to the jaw. I left. Ego and jaw bruised, and not particularly caring anymore.

On the ward round the next day, we came across the same patient, who was now lucid and no longer psychotic. She was, however, spoting a nice black eye. Eyes turned towards me. The consultant had heard about the punch.

“Did YOU do that?!” he said.

“No,” I replied. But I wish I had.

Goes to show. Always the bloody doctors who get blamed!?

Zuma and his HIV Shower... the jokes #2

Dredging more out the archives - Zuma jokes. Aren't politicians meant to be good at spinning stories?

For our international readers - our State President to be got embroiled in THIS fantastic farce...

Zuma and his HIV Shower... the jokes #1

Har Har... Amusing.

WTF Medical Aid Funding Requests #2

What is a reasonable request from your medical funder? This All Scrubbed Up series looks at funding requests - from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Just remember. A medical aid funder is allocating money to all their members for REAL medical reasons.

Part 2. No time to eat.

Middle Aged Male has a feeding tube because of oesophageal cancer (a feeding tube is a tube straight into your stomache, allowing food to be syringed in).

Request is for a feeding pump. One that provides feeds at a continuous rate throughout the day. Reason for needing a pump? Male travels from Pretoria to Johannesburg every day. Spends approximately 4 hours per day in the car. Doesn't have the time to feed himself.

Join the club mate.

WTF Medical Aid Funding Requests #1

What is a reasonable request from your medical funder? This All Scrubbed Up series looks at funding requests - from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Just remember. A medical aid funder is allocating money to all their members for REAL medical reasons.

Part 1. Eye are not wearing glasses.

Middle age male requests payment in full for laser optic surgery. Male has optical limit, as with most benefits. Reason for requesting full payment: He currently feels that he cannot do occasional activities of daily living, like volleyball and playing with his kids while wearing glasses. In a motivation, the middle aged male said: "They might come off or get broken!".

Further information was volunteered. "I can't wear contact lenses, because I couldn't imagine sticking something in my eye."

Ready! Aim! Operate on my back please!

Working for a managed care company, I am observing the high number of spinal surgeries that take place in the market (and just think that, what a funder sees is only a fraction of what is actually happening in South Africa...)

South Africa is known to have a low threshold for doing spinal surgery. In the UK, you would have to go through a lot of conservative therapy and years of waiting... AND have severe disease in order to get an op. Here, we see many neurosurgeons going in to do fusions or disc replacements sometimes without severe disease, sometimes even without conservative treatment!

Is this due to the patients who put so much pressure on surgeons to do something about their pain? Sometimes I think these people fit into their own subset, and should be defined by psychiatry for a new personality disorder. We get a constant stream of calls - all exactly the same personality types - fighting tooth 'n nail to get a surgery for disease that is very mild on their MRI.

OR. Is it due to monetary greed on the part of certain local surgeons (believe me... when we're looking at funding requests, we see large subsets from the SAME neurosurgeons, and the SAME areas of the country). Sniff sniff. I smell a pattern.

Back surgery is dangerous... not necessarily curative, and often leads to repeat surgeries. Yet in South Africa, it's itchy trigger fingers all round. I think South Africa (neurosurgeons, medical schools and possibly funders) need to have a serious look at the indications for doing back surgery.

Or before long, we'll set a precedent that could rather have been controlled by Celebrex.

(PS. The surgeons in this picture were ripped straight off the Internet and have NOTHING to do with this article! If you're a back surgeon, send All Scrubbed Up your picture... We'll post your picture up with dollar signs. For free.)