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Thursday, June 11, 2009

Trigger HappyPatient confidentiality is such a frustrating thing. I screened my first minor celebrity today and I can't tell anyone who it was.

I've actually spent today back at Mile Oak (which is like a yardstick, only bigger) seeing patients in the building on the left. If you view the clinic as a pistol, I was based in the gunsight. Most people are happy to walk in through the trigger.

As luck would have it, three of my first five appointments this morning failed to turn up, but the first one who did had a very familiar name. It wasn't until I stared into the back of his eye, however, that I finally worked out who he was. I still wasn't sure though - after all, I've only ever seen him on stage with a guitar in his hand. He looked remarkably different sat on the other side of a retinal camera.

So I took the man's photo, asked about his diabetic control, checked his eye history, and then nonchalantly asked if he played the guitar. Five seconds later, I'd accused him of being in a certain band. At which point my supervisor shrieked and said she'd seen them play in Slough. (I did say he was a minor celebrity). Anyhoo, the three of us reminisced for a while about the nineties, and the fact that we've all said goodbye to our youth, then I told him he'd get his results within six weeks, and let the man go.

Twenty-five patients later, I left Mile Oak behind me, drove back across Brighton, and decided to drop in on my old pharmacy workmates. Only to find that half of them weren't there. Someone must have told them I was coming.

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