The Prophet
Thursday, July 20, 2006
If you study medicine at my university, you will rotate chiefly through two government hospitals. The first is the tertiary academic hospital, located squarely in the centre of the city. The second is a secondary hospital, which is located far, far west, just before you enter the city's adjoining township. This hospital is dead ugly. It doesn't even look like a hospital. It consists of a series of open-air concrete walkways, sheltered by sheets of corrogated iron. When it rains, these walkways flood where they've caved in, and every morning caretakers sweep the medical waste and trash down the gutters which run alongside the walkways. There are fliers all over the notice boards detailing strategies for the re-eradication of the hospital's roaches. I correct the spelling and grammar in these fliers with a ballpoint pen. Some of the wards have no curtains between the beds, and some of them have no beds at all. These are boarded up and silent, waiting for the day our health department will finally have the money to provide them with enough nurses and clerks and doctors.
And in the middle of this hospital, in the heart of the surgery department, lurks The Prophet. Students have a knee-jerk reaction to doctors older than forty: they immediately call them Prof, regardless of the doctor's actual qualification. The Prophet is not a Professor, and every time a student says "Uh, excuse me Prof..." he shrieks: "I am only Prof if by that you mean Prophet! And I am a prophet! I preach and preach all day, words pourrrrrr from my mouth, but nobody hears them except the walls!" He shrieks this several times a day.
The Prophet likes to shriek a lot. He tells us that tomorrow is theatre day, but that two patients haven't pitched. "It's a disgrace!" he screams. "Non-complacency is rrrrife!" A wave of white saliva laps over his lower teeth. As the wave is about to break in the corners of his mouth he sucks it back. He stares at us. "I mean compliance," he says. "Non-compliance is rife."
He sidles over to the next bed. He looks like a colourless beef-olive: his white jacket forms a long, tight tube around the tubular body beneath, his head and neck squeeze out from above the collar, topped by a greasy grey comb-over. The next patient has a deep vein thrombosis. The Prophet hates DVT, because you never cut these patients open. He bellows that it's a medical problem, and that the physicians should be handling these patients.
"Where do these patients follow up?" he yells at the houseman.
"At our clinic..." she mutters.
"What?" he screams. (The Prophet has been working at this hospital for nigh on ten years. I can't believe he's only discovering the DVT disaster now) "And the INR, who draws the INR?"
"We do..."
"What? This is a logistical nightmarrrrre! It is an a-bom-in-a-tion!"
He sucks the wave back, and the house doctor nods sheepishly. There's nothing she can do about it. The Prophet prods the offending leg in disgust. "In the old days," he declares, hand tucked severely into one pocket, "this would not have happened."
He grabs his satchel and stomps out of the ward. We're relieved that the round is over.
And in the middle of this hospital, in the heart of the surgery department, lurks The Prophet. Students have a knee-jerk reaction to doctors older than forty: they immediately call them Prof, regardless of the doctor's actual qualification. The Prophet is not a Professor, and every time a student says "Uh, excuse me Prof..." he shrieks: "I am only Prof if by that you mean Prophet! And I am a prophet! I preach and preach all day, words pourrrrrr from my mouth, but nobody hears them except the walls!" He shrieks this several times a day.
The Prophet likes to shriek a lot. He tells us that tomorrow is theatre day, but that two patients haven't pitched. "It's a disgrace!" he screams. "Non-complacency is rrrrife!" A wave of white saliva laps over his lower teeth. As the wave is about to break in the corners of his mouth he sucks it back. He stares at us. "I mean compliance," he says. "Non-compliance is rife."
He sidles over to the next bed. He looks like a colourless beef-olive: his white jacket forms a long, tight tube around the tubular body beneath, his head and neck squeeze out from above the collar, topped by a greasy grey comb-over. The next patient has a deep vein thrombosis. The Prophet hates DVT, because you never cut these patients open. He bellows that it's a medical problem, and that the physicians should be handling these patients.
"Where do these patients follow up?" he yells at the houseman.
"At our clinic..." she mutters.
"What?" he screams. (The Prophet has been working at this hospital for nigh on ten years. I can't believe he's only discovering the DVT disaster now) "And the INR, who draws the INR?"
"We do..."
"What? This is a logistical nightmarrrrre! It is an a-bom-in-a-tion!"
He sucks the wave back, and the house doctor nods sheepishly. There's nothing she can do about it. The Prophet prods the offending leg in disgust. "In the old days," he declares, hand tucked severely into one pocket, "this would not have happened."
He grabs his satchel and stomps out of the ward. We're relieved that the round is over.
posted by Karen Little @ 2:23 PM,
2 Comments:
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At 12:16 AM,
theinjuredcyclist said...
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mmmmm
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At 4:51 PM,
The Electric Orchid Hunter said...
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This is a bit of a scary man, I'm sure. Maybe it's a defence mechanism, of sorts? He's a fierce, insanse, superior person on the outside, but how amusing would it be if he was a gentle lamb inside?
