MAGAZINE AND NEWSPAPER ARTICLES

Doctor’s Tales

Doctors, particularly those in general practice, are frequently the recipients of extraordinarily confidential, private and personal information about their patients, and sometimes their patients’ families. They also share experiences with their patients which vary from the hilarious to the frightening.

The information from patients may be very sad, depressing and stressful; but at times doctors hear stories that are funny, unusual, titillating, wanton, salacious, sensual, raunchy and just plain erotic. This is

Medwords has a large collection of such stories, all true, that will both educate and entertain.

An example of a doctor’s tale is:-

Home Delivery

  It was 7am as I walked into the surgery and turned off the  answering machine. Thirty seconds later, the phone rang.

  “She’s having it in the bed. Come quickly.”

  The panic in the male voice on the phone was obvious.

  “Who are you, and what’s happening”.

  “Its Mr.W., and she’s having the baby - now!”

  The name was very familiar to me. I confined thirty or so of my lady patients every year in a nearby cottage hospital. One of my patients was obviously coming a bit earlier and faster than expected.

  I had undertaken home delivery of babies on a regular basis in the United Kingdom some years before, but there they had flying squads who could come to your assistance if something went wrong. In Australia there was no such service - you were it!

  Delivering a baby is a very natural and normal process, that women have been carrying out with minimal assistance for hundreds of thousands of years.   Unfortunately, every now and then, when you least expected it, things went wrong. There is nothing more frightening for a doctor than to deliver a normal baby, and then suddenly have the mother collapse with a massive bleed. In a hospital, resuscitation is possible, in the home situation, death was more likely.

  From the babies point of view, there were innumerable potential problems, varying from strangulation with a cord around the neck, to a brain haemorrhage from a too rapid delivery.

  Hoping for the best, I grabbed the “panic bag” off the shelf in the treatment room, ran out of the surgery, and rapidly drove the short distance to the W. residence. The eldest child was waiting at the front door for me.

  Even as I trotted through the entry hall, the reassuring sound of a crying baby was heard. I entered the bedroom.

  Mrs.W. was lying back in the centre of a king size bed, and seemed to be fine. The baby, a pink little boy with the cord still attached to the mother, was lying on a blood stained towel between her legs, screaming his head off. Mr.W. was standing beside the bed. looking both worried about the situation, and relieved at my arrival. Their three year old daughter looked on in wonder.

  It was time for the doctor to bring order to chaos, be reassuring, take charge of the situation, and exude an air of confidence. Adjusting my suit coat, I walked calmly into the room, and around to the side of the bed. Turning on my bedside charm to maximum, I started to reassure Mrs.W. that everything would be fine. Then I sat down on the king size bed.

  It was a king size water bed.

  I had sat far enough into this huge bed to completely miss the edge board with my backside. I sat further and further down, completely losing my balance, and rolled rather ungracefully into the centre of the bed to join the new baby between mothers legs. The effect was anything but the one I had desired.

  Mr.W. didn’t know whether to laugh or apologise, so he just choked quietly, while waiting for my next trick. Mrs.W. started laughing hysterically. Whether this was because she really saw the funny side of the situation, or because she was terrified by her clown of a doctor, I never determined.

  Extracting myself with dignity was impossible. I floundered around, until finally I gained the edge, and struggled to my feet.

  Mrs.W. was still in the centre of this vast bed with her new baby, and was virtually unreachable if propriety was to be observed.

  The solution came in a flash, the sheet was untucked, firmly grasped at one side, and Mrs.W., baby, towel and mess were all hauled into reach at the side of the bed.

  Some semblance of normality returned as I cut the cord, wrapped the baby in a blanket, and passed it to Mr.W. for safe keeping. Now for the placenta (afterbirth).

  This is normally delivered by giving an injection of drugs to contract the uterus, which then pushes out the placenta. I had no such drugs, which meant I had to rhythmically squeeze the uterus from above through the skin and muscle of the belly, while pulling on the cord from below. The rapid result of these activities that a swell arose in the water bed, and Mrs.W. rocked backwards and forwards past me, while both of us became steadily greener and more nauseated by the minute.

  Almost at the point of serious sea sickness for both doctor and patient, the placenta issued forth onto the newspapers Mr.W. had been asked to obtain, and calm returned.

  Mrs.W. had done what millions of women had done before her, deliver a normal baby.

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