Madazine
Copyright© 2017 by Scriptorius
Chapter 87: See Your Doctor
Doctor: Good morning. What seems to be the trouble?
Patient: How do I know? You’re the doctor.
Doctor: True, but you bounded in here apparently full of beans, so I think it’s reasonable that I ask what you believe is amiss with you.
Patient: I may appear to be sprightly enough but who knows what might be lurking beneath this facade? For all I know there may be some ghastly malignancy consuming me as we speak.
Doctor: Possibly. However, most of my patients call because they have symptoms of some kind, whereas you haven’t mentioned any.
Patient: Well, that’s where your expertise comes in, doesn’t it? I mean, after all the training you’ve had, you should be able to diagnose illnesses at a glance. What do you suspect might be wrong with me?
Doctor: My dear sir, this practice is based on my curing ailments as soon as I have established what they are.
Patient: Hah, that’s what’s wrong with our so-called medical service. You should be working on prevention, not cure. Your business is similar to the police service and it falls short in the same way. The constabulary ought to be forestalling crime rather than merely detecting it.
Doctor: Thank you for the social critique, but let’s concentrate on you. Now, in order to let the dog see the rabbit, as it were, a pointer from the patient concerned is usually helpful. What do you think I can do for you?
Patient: I’d say you should give me a good going over. See if you can find out if there’s anything about to overwhelm me.
Doctor: Look, I have an average of about five minutes for every consultation. A thorough examination will take quite a while and other people are waiting to see me.
Patient: There’s another thing. Why are you rationed to five minutes per patient per visit? You shouldn’t have to rush through your work in that way. No wonder we keep hearing about people who’ve slipped through the net because of this casual attitude to appointments. If you were to give everyone the attention they needed in the first place, you might find that you’d uncover the nasties at an early stage and that would save a good deal of misery later. Also, if you picked things up at an initial visit, you wouldn’t need to see people as often and that would save a lot of your time.
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