Post 98 Embarrassment for a Medical Student

 I am certain that many folk reading this (well certainly the older ones among you) will remember the book written by Richard Gordon entitled Doctor in the House.     Richard Gordon was a doctor; his

Image of Dirk Bogarde
Not very P C

  real name was  Gordon Ostler.    He worked for a time as an         anaesthetist at St Bartholomew’s Hospital where he had been a medical   student. Later, he  became a ship’s doctor, before retiring from     medicine to concentrate on writing professionally. 

 Gordon died in 2017 at the age of 95.     Doctor in the House was     adapted into a very popular film of the same name in which Dirk       Bogarde played the role of Simon Sparrow, a medical student at St   Swithin’s hospital in London.     Perhaps the film’s most memorable

scene featured a group of students around a patient’s bed being interrogated by the hospital’s most fearsome senior consultant, Sir Lancelot Spratt (played in the film by James Robertson Justice).

The patient in the bed has a blood clotting problem and is being prepared for surgery.

‘What’s the bleeding time,’ Sir Lancelot roars at the group.

Poor Simon looks at his watch. ‘Ten thirty Sir,’ he replies to the amusement of his fellow students.

The following true story has certain similarities.

A group of five or six medical students were crowded around a hospital bed during the ward round of a senior and irascible cardiologist.  Also around the bed were the ward sister and some of her junior nurses.   One of the young medical students, to preserve him from undue embarrassment I shall call him Tony, was asked to listen to the patient’s heart and then describe the murmur that he heard.

Tony was a quiet introspective young man, not one who felt comfortable in the lime light.    Although a bright and diligent student, he was usually to be found at the back of the group trying to avoid being noticed.   Nervously he took his stethoscope from the pocket of his white coat and approached the patient.    Politely he asked if he would mind having his chest examined.

‘Of course he doesn’t mind,’ the consultant interrupted. ‘He’s come into hospital to be examined and treated, hasn’t he?’

‘Er...yes Sir... of course, he has Sir,’ Tony responded, his nerves beginning to get the better of him.

He then proceeded to open the top button of the patient’s pyjama top and apply his stethoscope to his chest.

‘No, not like that!     If you’re going to do the job, for Heaven’s sake do the job properly. Take the pyjama jacket off completely.’

 Tentatively Tony placed a hand on the patient’s chest to locate the apex beat as he had been taught in a previous teaching session.

‘My, your hands are cold,’ the patient observed.

 ‘Sorry,’ Tony muttered, his pulse and stress levels rising.

The consultant then added to his discomfort. ‘I didn’t say feel, I said listen,’ he said in an irritated tone.

Becoming increasingly anxious, poor Tony became more and more flustered.  He listened to the

patient’s heart and was able to identify the distinctive first and second heart beat.  Despite the unfair pressure he was under, he was also able to identify an abnormal murmur and knew that the cause was a problem with the aortic valve.   The correct term was an ‘ejection murmur’ but unfortunately, after a degree of hesitation, the words that came from Tony’s mouth were an ‘ejaculation murmur’.

The other medical students thought this was hilarious as did the nurses who, after initial surprise, fell about in fits of giggles.

He was teased about the episode unmercifully for weeks afterwards, especially as the consultant immediately asked, ‘What ever were you thinking about Davidson.?’

 ‘Well, I er, Sir, ...... I really should, er.....,’ Tony began, but before he could complete the sentence, the consultant added to his misery.

‘Perhaps I should have asked who were you thinking about?  Was it one of these pretty young nurses perhaps?’

Though everyone laughed and thought the exchange had been hilarious, one of the nurses felt an immediate surge of sympathy for Tony. She had a motherly desire to hug and console him. Her name was Kate, but more of her in a later story.

Extract from a doctor’s letter: Examination of genitalia revealed that he is circus sized.

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