Niagara Falls

Just like I have multiple tricks to help a patient poo, I have multiple tricks to help a patient pee.  Non-urinating also will buy you another day on my list and a catheter.  I've yet to meet the man who wants to have a tube shoved up his urethra, so tricks to pee are popular.

I was rounding with one of my attending's over the New Year holiday, and we had a patient who was failing his void trial (chance to urinate before the catheter and he became friends).  I had tried all my tricks and was out of advice.

My attending walked in the room, looked at the patient and said," Well, you aren't trying to pee lying there are you?  Stand up, my man.  Niagara Falls doesn't flow uphill."  

It worked.

Photo from Niagara Region.Com  

Poo

Doctors in general are overly interested in poo. Color, frequency, consistency.  You name it, and we probably want to know about it.  This is not really advertised when you start medical school.

Every morning when I round on my patients, I listen to their heart and lungs, push on their bellies, check their wounds or drain or both, and fire off this list of questions in rapid succession:

"Are you eating? Have you passed gas yet? Are you nauseous?  Did you vomit?"

"Have you had a bowel movement?  What was it like?  Would you like something to help you have a bowel movement?"

Occasionally a patient can't poo after surgery for one reason or another.  This is bad juju.  No poo means that the patient will be staying in the hospital another day.  Which means they will be on my list another day.  Which means I have to round on them another day.  Which means I get ten less minutes to eat/sleep/play with my pup/study/sleep.  Which makes me grumpy.

All of that leads me to this morning when I gave an 87 year old gentleman a high five for having a bowel movement.

I'm not terribly proud of that moment, but I have ten more minutes to sleep tomorrow.