The seriousness of most illnesses can be determined by the global demeanour of those gathered round the patient.  When you enter someone’s home and are greeted by a smiley happy chirpy face of a relative mid throws in the process of making a pot of tea, I think it’s a safe bet that the patient you’ve come to see will not be dead or dying.

I stood at the foot of a bed where my patient lay and unperturbed, repeated his proclamation.

“You can’t move”

The patient’s wife stood in the kitchen.  A smiley happy chirpy face befit her as she made a pot of tea. Continue reading →

When a young person trips over in the street half cut you really shouldn’t expect them to be calling an ambulance. When the said person is a medical student, well, it just seems to exacerbate the ridiculousness of the issue!

The call had come down as “22yom Falls. ?broken arm. ?intoxicated”. So, to give the person their dues, I was thinking they must have fallen from a height . . . say, from some scaffolding or something. Because that would warrant a broken arm surely.  When I arrived I was presented with two drunk males, one lying on the pavement and one leaning over him.

There was no scaffolding to be seen. Continue reading →

It was another busy night on the JRU (Joint Response Unit).

This is the evening where we have one FRU per Police borough and are just tasked to Police related calls.  The logic goes partly and a little something like this . . .

Passerby calls 999 re something happening – eg drunk in street.  Police take up call, attend if they believe it may be relevant, also pass call to London Ambulance Service due to possible injuries/illness . . .

Continue reading →