Forceful patient requests for antibiotics in an obvious viral URI are some of the most difficult conversations for any doctor to handle.
- On one side - the patient is miserable
- On the other side - the diagnosis is simple and quick and the treatment is crystal clear
Yet, in many cases, we physicians can be persuaded to prescribe against our better judgement.
- Where does this common patient-doctor conflict originate?
- Who can shed light on the awesome persuasive power supplied to our patients by a simple rhinovirus?
I nominate Ogden Nash.
Read his poem below and remember your last doozy of a head cold. I nominate these sentiments, rarely spoken in the course of your office visit, as the source of the arm twisting power of your sniffling, suffering patient's argument for antibiotics.
Enjoy ...
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This is Blog Post #311
Complete Blog Library is Here
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"Common Cold"
by Ogden Nash
Go hang yourself, you old M.D.!
You shall not sneer at me.
Pick up your hat and stethoscope,
Go wash your mouth with laundry soap;
I contemplate a joy exquisite
I'm not paying you for your visit.
I did not call you to be told
My malady is a common cold.
By pounding brow and swollen lip;
By fever's hot and scaly grip;
By those two red redundant eyes
That weep like woeful April skies;
By racking snuffle, snort, and sniff;
By handkerchief after handkerchief;
This cold you wave away as naught
Is the damnedest cold man ever caught!
Give ear, you scientific fossil!
Here is the genuine Cold Colossal;
The Cold of which researchers dream,
The Perfect Cold, the Cold Supreme.
This honored system humbly holds
The Super-cold to end all colds;
The Cold Crusading for Democracy;
The Führer of the Streptococcracy.
Bacilli swarm within my portals
Such as were ne'er conceived by mortals,
But bred by scientists wise and hoary
In some Olympic laboratory;
Bacteria as large as mice,
With feet of fire and heads of ice
Who never interrupt for slumber
Their stamping elephantine rumba.
A common cold, gadzooks, forsooth!
Ah, yes. And Lincoln was jostled by Booth;
Don Juan was a budding gallant,
And Shakespeare's plays show signs of talent;
The Arctic winter is fairly coolish,
And your diagnosis is fairly foolish.
Oh what a derision history holds
For the man who belittled the Cold of Colds!
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PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT
- How does this first person diatribe help you understand talking to patients about conservative treatment of the "common" cold?
- What is one of your favorite "medical poems"?
- What is your favorite Ogden Nash poem?