Drips, drains, and dressings

doi:10.1136/bmj.a98

Published 9 July 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a98
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a98

Filler

Drips, drains, and dressings

Anthony Craighill, GP principal, Shoreham, Sevenoaks

susan.craighill@btinternet.com

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

After a restless night at home with increasing abdominal pain,followed by bilious vomiting in casualty and an ultrasound scanthat showed "a thick-walled gall-bladder with multiple stones,some impacted in the neck," the diagnosis of cholecystitis wasobvious.

So, my infrequent episodes over 20 years of retrosternal painsand unrelated rigors diagnosed by me as due to oesophageal spasmand viral infections had been nothing of the sort. How unsurprising—doctorswho treat themselves have fools as patients.

With my minimal right upper quadrant tenderness and a neutrophilcount of 14 000, treatment was also obvious: intravenousantibiotics and remove the offending organ in six weeks’time.

An unpleasant week in hospital followed, largely because ofthe illness but compounded by poor communication, perfunctoryexaminations, and a misleadingly normal temperature chart (butthen temperature goes up after a rigor and not at the time).

It was great to go home, but . . . [Full text of this article]

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