Cross-Cultural Learning

Common Sense, Ain't

How is it that three people with acute diarrhea (I've gone to the latrine four times since midnight! OMG! Do something!) can come into the Troop Medical Clinic convinced that they absolutely must see a doctor immediately, while another individual will put up three days of unilateral testicular pain that radiates into his abdomen before finally coming it to get it checked?

Why are physicians unable to comprehend that when one individual is doing the blood draw, documentation, urinalysis, Toradol injection, and IV access, that it will not all be complete in less than five minutes. Or that morphine isn't kept in the unlocked cabinents with the ibuprofen, and the medics don't have free access to opioids at all times? And why is it they're extremely irritated when I ask them the proper route and rate for drugs that they administer freqently, but that medics have rarely, if ever, been given the opportunity to handle? It must be a real bitch to not have nurses to do all the legwork for you like in your civilian practice, and now you get to see what happens when you don't let medics do anything but vitals and patient registration for years.

But there was one moment of happiness in all this: while agreeing with one of the diarrhea patients who just couldn't understand how he could get sick,that washing one's hands is indeed an excellent personal habit, the detailed education on how hand to mouth fecal transmission happens in densely populated work and living areas seemed to really horrify him.

I take my little bits of schadenfreude where I can.

Ugly Gun Sunday

This Needs To Happen More Frequently

Yelling Allah Akbar didn't help much here it seems. Shame this doesn't happen more often.

H/t to Sipsey Street Irregulars

Compassion

Us medics are full of it!

Some Cheap Medical Advice

Based upon a recent encounter in the Troop Medical Clinic, a few thoughts.

Empty your bladder before going to bed, even if the latrine is 50 yards away and it's cold. If you're not willing to do that, find a plastic bottle larger than twelve ounces to urinate in. If you're not willing to do that, work on stopping your flow using the muscles in your pelvis, because even though your junk is made of tissue capable of flexibity and expansion, it isn't suited to containing the force generated by suddenly clamping off the urethra while you switch bottles. And if you're suddenly peeing bloody urine immediately after doing so, then no, you don't have an acute onset UTI or renal cancer. You've only torn your urethra.

Enjoy urinating for the next several days.

Pass the O2 Bottle

New lesson learned today: Running as fast as possible while wearing full battle gear in a high-altitude and poor air quality environment will leave you on your knees wondering if the 150 lb Sergeant next to you can haul 300+ lbs of passed-out Sergeant, armor and weapons to the TMC.

(That's an early-mornin view locally. The haziness is all smog, and that's the good part of the day. In a few hours the mountains are completely obscured.)