I was at work this morning when my mobile rang and it was R.  He never calls, so I got panicky, fearful of some major disaster or bad news.  It turned out that R had finally decided to see his GP about a series of minor health problems that have been bugging him for months.  He was calling so that I could help him remember what they all were.  We created a problem list, I helped him with the spelling of the puffer he was using and we confirmed his history.  I got in trouble for laughing, but he was so cute…. I could hear him writing everything down.  We are so officially in the old married couple category it’s not funny.

I just have this thing about treating relatives medically.  It is really just better for everyone to get an objective opinion.  Hospital medicine is this ivory tower that is far removed from the realities of medicine in the community and treating a relative renders one incapable of getting a proper perspective on how critical or benign a complaint is.

More importantly, I just don’t see enough of the common things to have a sensible approach as to how to manage them.  The paradigm in the physician world is investigate, possibly diagnose but (more likely) exclude the obscure.  We spend hours taking histories and examining.  In GP land, common things occur commonly (the duck analogy) and the approach is fast and targetted.  And there endeth your moment of House-speak.

Except that R hates going to the GP.  His take is ‘Why diagnose something if there’s nothing that you can do to fix it?’.  But, he went and the news is good – symptom management is all he needs.

In celebration of the good news, we had Spinach and Fetta Pie tonight – courtesy of taste.com.au – recipe here