Diagnosis

Patients brought to my hospital sometimes complain angrily that a clinician in the ER has diagnosed them after spending so little time with them.  “He only saw me for less than five minutes and he’s not even a doctor.  He doesn’t know me.” As I have noted before, it often takes me even less time than that, and sometimes I don’t even need to see the patient.  An intake report came to my desk today which read “…talks about Willy Wonka and the everlasting gobstopper, and then changes the topic to sex.” I had a diagnosis right there, confirmed by the next sentence “Patient reports that he has not slept in four days.” Sometimes it’s not complicated.