an explanation for my absence
I've found the hospital where they are hiding the nice orthopaedic surgeons. I say "hiding" because until this week, I thought that "nice orthopaedic surgeon" was a contradiction.
The nice orthopaedic surgeons do not sit down.
If a physician does a clinic, they sit in a room and the patients come in from the waiting room and it's all very straightforward and perhaps you leave the room in between times to collect notes. (If this clinic is the one that I was in last Thursday, which was the first sunny day we had had in the west of Scotland since sometime in August, the room is in a basement and when you entered it it was still dark and every single patient who comes in will tell you what a glorious day it is outside.)
If an orthopod does a clinic, they have eight rooms and eight patients in them at one time and dash from one patient to another patient to another patient and back to the second patient to a fourth patient to the radiology department and never ever ever sit down. I was in fracture clinic for eight hours today. I sat down for thirty minutes in the middle, to inhale some coffee and a sandwich. But the orthopod who I was spending the afternoon with had been in A&E until four o'clock this morning and then was back in theatre for nine and then did a four hour clinic, so I am not too badly off considering. Also, I have learned a hell of a lot about bones today and seen some orthopaedic injuries that I didn't think people survived -- a C2 fracture, which usually kills people so effectively that it was in fact how they killed people back when there was hanging.
Although (this one's for sixpence1969) I did have to stop myself from looking disbelieving and snorting with laughter when he told me that elbow fractures are usually quite stable.
The nice orthopaedic surgeons do not sit down.
If a physician does a clinic, they sit in a room and the patients come in from the waiting room and it's all very straightforward and perhaps you leave the room in between times to collect notes. (If this clinic is the one that I was in last Thursday, which was the first sunny day we had had in the west of Scotland since sometime in August, the room is in a basement and when you entered it it was still dark and every single patient who comes in will tell you what a glorious day it is outside.)
If an orthopod does a clinic, they have eight rooms and eight patients in them at one time and dash from one patient to another patient to another patient and back to the second patient to a fourth patient to the radiology department and never ever ever sit down. I was in fracture clinic for eight hours today. I sat down for thirty minutes in the middle, to inhale some coffee and a sandwich. But the orthopod who I was spending the afternoon with had been in A&E until four o'clock this morning and then was back in theatre for nine and then did a four hour clinic, so I am not too badly off considering. Also, I have learned a hell of a lot about bones today and seen some orthopaedic injuries that I didn't think people survived -- a C2 fracture, which usually kills people so effectively that it was in fact how they killed people back when there was hanging.
Although (this one's for sixpence1969) I did have to stop myself from looking disbelieving and snorting with laughter when he told me that elbow fractures are usually quite stable.