Me: So who lives at home?
Mom: Mary (name of child patient, changed to protect the innocent), and my boy.
Me: Your boy? Your son?
Mom: No, my boyfriend.
Me: Oh ok, is he the father of Mary?
Mom: No, stepdad.
Me: Oh, did he adopt Mary?
Mom: No.
Me: I see. Where is Mary’s biological father?
Mom: I don’t know.
Me: Does he have any health problems?
Mom: I don’t know.
Me: Who else lives in the home?
Mom: My step mom and dad?
Me: Oh, what about your biological parents?
Mom: They are in (fill in the blank town)
Me: So your step mom and dad adopted you?
Mom: No, OOOOO, I mean they are my step mom and dad IN LAW!!
Me: So they are your boyfriend’s parents?
Mom: Yes.
Me: Are they his real parents?
Mom: I don’t know.
Me: Do you have any other children?
Mom: Yes.
Me: How many?
Mom: A boy and a girl, but they are adopted.
Me: Oh, you adopted a boy and girl!
Mom: No, they are adopted, they are in (fill in the town).
Me: Oh, other people adopted them!
Mom: Yes.
Me: Are they healthy?
Mom: I think so.
Me: Who adopted them?
Mom: (incomprehensible vowel-less Inuit names).
I prided myself on my pedigree charts (family tree), but I may stop doing family histories all together.
I went into peds b/c you can always get a good history from the care-givers, as oppose to the old men and women from nursing homes who are just dropped off at the hospital and no body knows what happened to them. However, getting a history from some of the patients here is soooooooo painful. It’s as though they aren’t the parents who live with them, like these children just appeared before their eyes in my office, They have no idea what symptoms their child has, how long they’ve had it; why they are even here to see me.
Note: not all the cases are like the above, just enough to still keep me sane.
1 comment:
I haven't had to do a pedigree chart since med school!:)
Agree with the old nursing home people dropped off at the hospital...though these days, they are almost always accompanied by their latest med administration record (MAR) cos the health department keeps really close tabs on these nursing homes...
That's really helpful...much better than the alcoholic cirhotic man who lives in the dumpster who doesn't know what medical conditions he has, and also doesn't know what meds he's on...
Even the clinic patients with HTN, CAD and DM, their limbs almost dropping off, and they still don't know their meds...drives me really nuts!!
Sigh, i should have done Peds...;)
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