INTRODUCTION

Hi folks:) Now i know there is a lot of shite out there on the internet, this is just my small contribution. Anyway, i have been inspired my friend karen little, and seeing as there is always something floating around in my head begging to be written, it seemed it was time for a blog. Hope you're all not bored to tears.

Now as any doctor who has ever worked in Casualty will know, there really is no cure for stupidity. All countries have their share of fools and most of them float through A and E at one point or another (let me just say at this point that I do love my job and have no problem with genuinely sick people, in fact, I will go the extra ten miles for them.) The only difference usually is language and skin colour.

When I was working back in SA,I used to get very frustrated at patients who only came to 'Western' doctors as a last resort: they would go to traditional healers and sangomas first and only present to us much too late, when things were really getting out of hand. SA docs are often frustrated at the lack of education in state patients, and how difficult it is to explain concepts like viruses, bacteria or cancer to them and their families. Language barriers are only a part of the problem: even with translation, some patients genuinely refused to accept that their family member had, for example, bacterial meningitis, and insisted that they had rather, for example, been possessed by angry spirits. Ignorance and poor education are big problems. It was tough.

However, not nearly as tough as what I have encountered here in Workingclassville in Ireland. Here, we have a much more dangerous beast: the 'Educated and a little bit paranoid' patient. Like Mr X who I saw with a lower respiratory tract infection.

'Sir, I do need to tell you that you are in the 'morbidly obese' category. You weight is becoming a health risk factor in itself, and you are headed for heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension. You need to lose about 15 stone(thats about 100 kg for the metric world)to be a healthy weight for your height.'
"Well you know doctor, all the men in my family are this big... and I eat the same food as my wife and she's tiny."
'Riiiiight. Well, anyway, here is a short course of antibiotics for your infection. You may also want to stop smoking marijuana, its certainly not doing your lungs any good'.
''Well atually I've done my research on the Internet and theres no trials that show that its actually bad for you."
'Riiiiiigggght. You may also want to take some regular paracetamol for your fever and generalised body aches.'
"Well doc, I'll take the antibiotics but not the paracetamol."
'So you'll smoke marijuana (a mind altering, brain destroying, cancer inducing drug) but not take paracetamol (one of the most effective pain and fever relievers we have, with minimal side effects)?'
"Doctor, marijuana has been used as a medicine for thousands of years. Paracetamol is poison provided by drug companies looking to make money."

Right. Of course, Big Pharma's out to get you. He then proceeded to tell me that he wouldnt take high blood pressure or diabetic medications either, becuase 'they can be managed naturally'. The irony is of course, that people like this keep Casualty departments in business, so I really cant complain too much.
I do think it hilarious and fascinating though, that someone from a first world country with a good education system and access to all the information in the world can still be as frustrating and difficult to counsel as a patient from SA who has no high school education, even though we speak the same language.