As a medical student, I was taught to engage with patients, listen to what they had to say and take a good history. The practice of medicine was a little different. Patients were often reduced to a label (the burst colostomy bag up in gastro), a set of results (the woman with crap LFTs), acronyms (the man with SS and MODS in ICU), or organs (the Spleen in room 10). Short hand descriptions of cases promoted efficiency, and helped with the necessary professional detachment.
Many years ago, I acted for a family in an inquest into the death of a wife, mother and sister, who died within a couple of weeks of delivering her baby as a result of complications from an undiagnosed spinal epidural abscess. The hearing took place in the country. As part of my job, I had to cross-examine local general practitioners. The next day, the doctors’ names and photos were splashed across the front page of the local paper. They could have been criminals for all the viewing public knew. Quoted lines from my questioning gave their conduct the feel of villainy. No doubt enraged parishioners wanted them run out of town.
