yesterday

i was in the middle of mortality meeting when a nurse paged me... i answered the call with my cell phone trying to speak softly...

bigtail: hi this is dr. poon...
nurse: a patient complains of constipation and requested digital evacuation...
b: (stunned) ha??? which bed...
n: bed 12
b: where's the houseman???
n: she's in a tutorial and cannot come back before 4pm
b: (raged!!!) i'm in a meeting... i'll see this patient later... (my meeting ends at five)
n: or... (and hungup)

(bigtail's nerve got on, therefore call up the nurse again...)
b: would you please give that patient fleet enema
n: (as if it should never be ordered) ha??! or... (hungup again)

ha??? are you ok??? paged me and informed me to go and digital evacuate??? without attempting any enema... are you sure the patient requested it out of the blue??? would you request for yourself a digital evacuation when you're constipated??? and it's so urgent that u need to page the MO right away??? i wouldn't like the intern to do it either... if somebody's looking for an example of common sense, this is the contrary... sick...