Mumbai: In an incident which has sent shock waves across the medical fraternity, a final year MBBS students has sent a legal notice to a patient and demanded monetary compensation for mental and emotional distress, after the patient had changed his medical history in front of the professor.
It is a well known fact that every doctor in his educative year always goes through this scenario where he takes a detailed history taking for the case presentation during clinics ‘in the patient’s language’, but the patient gives a completely different history when the professor starts the case presentation, making the medical student a butt of all jokes in front of his fellow batch mates.
In an exclusive interview with us, the Dean of Quackdoses Multispeciality Hospital Dr. K’abhi Mat’bann™ said, “Gone are the days when we used to teach our students – Listen to the patient, he’s telling you the diagnosis. Now days, that can backfire on you into a legal suit. Patients offer explanations for their symptoms that are bizarre or illogical, and often start their medical history with what they had eaten a week back. Some patient’s description of their main problem is so creative or vague that it’s unintentionally funny, like a patient saying that she has been swallowing the laxative suppository since 3 days but it is not relieving her constipation, or that a husband giving history that his wife doesn’t have chills or rigors but she was hot in bed last night. When you ask patients if they have any past medical history or co-morbidities, they’ll refuse. But when you ask them if they’re taking any medicines, they’ll show at least 10 strips of different medicines. Even when a situation is funny, it’s difficult to hold back the laughter and remain professional.”
Unconfirmed sources have claimed that the patient’s husband has also decided to legally pursue the matter, and after obtaining a copy of the patient files, has pointed out many glaring mistakes in the budding doctor’s notes including the one which stated – ‘The baby was delivered, the cord clamped and cut, and handed to the pediatrician, who breathed and cried immediately.’
