Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Document

(The story of our young medical officer continues.)

It must be a miracle; Dr. C could start his round an hour later.

His first patient is an old man with chronic bronchitis. The young doctor flips through the temperature chart, greets the patients, asks how's everything getting on, listens to the chest of the patient, and, then, he is forced to stop. He notices the problem.

"Em... Sister, excuse me," he finds himself a trouble maker, "Where're the X-rays of my patient?"

"Jove, we're running the film-less system. Go and look at the X-rays from the computer." The nursing officer said.

"Quite right. But, how about the blood test results?" The doctor goes on.

"Same. We no longer keep the print-out of laboratory result. Go check from the computer." There seems a tinge of proudness in the answer.

"And progress sheets ?" Dr. C pursues.

"Yes, and progress sheets." The senior nurse is not moved.

"In that case, may I ask why's this patient still having such a thick pile of paper in the hospital record?" The young doctor is incredulous.

"Jove, we don't need to keep the patient's clinical notes and result, but we need to keep the documents that all the things are done properly. Look, for each blood taking and X-ray, we have a check list on the procedures; we've got to fill in and file. Similarly, we don't need to put down the patient's temperature - they're in the computer. The temperature you found in the case notes is actually yours - as I said, we need to document that you are not febrile when seeing the patient !"

The young doctor collapses and has a seizure.

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