Today, I had the fortune of meeting a 12-year old girl with five month history of left foot pain. After an initial dance injury last May, the girl had negative initial workup leading to specialist consult in August. Subsequent therapy and treatment was fruitless, and MRI was ordered. MRI was performed last week, and the girl was told she has no pathology in her foot by the specialist two days ago. And yet, here was this girl crying her heart out when I performed my initial examination at the Urgent Care.
Sometimes the world can be cruel to goodhearted physicians. Patients come to us for answers. Anything less seems inadequate. There is a sense that physicians must process all complaints, unite their fundamental physiological mechanisms, and provide treatment that eradicates all symptoms. It almost seems comical.
My wife's grandaunt was doing some cleaning around the house yesterday evening when she slipped on a wet floor and took one for the team. She lay on the ground for several minutes, unable to move due to pain, yelling out the names of her neighbors, hoping someone would come to her rescue. Come they did, all three of them, breaking in through a side window. As you continue to read and mental images of the latest emergency notification system pop up in your mind, the neighbors called the daughter, and the daughter called 9-1-1.
