It was the end of my first house job and life was wonderful. I was working on a mixed medical ward with many dermatology patients (it was the day when your boss could be a generalist with an interest) and I’d just had an amazing weekend away in the middle of the Yorkshire dales with my other half (fellow houseman, met as medical students), where I thought he may propose. I got back on the ward on the Monday morning to find the biggest bunch of red roses I’d ever seen waiting for me on the nursing station. I thought I’d find a ring in the middle of one of the stems but no, it was from one of the older ladies who’d been discharged home the previous week.
She’d been admitted with a skin condition that included quite aggressive fluid restriction. The note read:
‘To Dr Burgess — thank you for arguing with the consultant that I needed an extra 100 ml for a cup of tea to get me going every morning. It made such a difference to me.’
It’s always the little things, the personal things, that people appreciate most.
Notes
Footnote
I’ve spent most of my adult life ‘arguing’ with authority one way or another, usually about ways to improve patient care, and Huw proposed the following week in the much more romantic setting of the hospital canteen.
Excerpt from Good Trainee Guide, RCGP Publications, 2013, in press.
- © British Journal of General Practice 2013