If I Can't Diagnose Swine Flu - Then Who Can? ; Vital Signs [Edition 2]

Evening Standard - London › July 29, 2009

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Summary

WE doctors like to think we are pretty invincible. After all, don't we battle daily with sickness and disease, exposing ourselves to infection unflinchingly? Don't we keep calm in the face of disaster and Mr Henderson's ulcers and Mrs Gupta's complaints of being "tired all the time"? Well, yes, sort of, but you should see us when we get ill ourselves. All that apparent rationality disintegrates and we really do make the worst kind of illogically paranoid patients.

I'm living proof. I got appendicitis a year or so ago. Any patient of mine showing similar signs would be through the doors of an A& E department before you could say laparoscopic appendicectomy. But I was busy, scared of an operation and I hoped (in true male fashion) that if I ignored it, it would go away.

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If I Can't Diagnose Swine Flu - Then Who Can? ; Vital Signs [Edition 2]

It didn't, I ended up in hospital for a week with peritonitis and now have a large scar to remind me of my foolishness. And last week I found myself ...

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