My Funny Friend Lam... CHEN OIIIII!

Yes, I'm very aware I have not posted about Israel or posted pictures. Note to self: Do it soon. In the meantime, while I'm stalling, I wanted to share a very funny story my friend emailed me. His name is Lam, he's from Delaware. Regardless if you know him or not, it's good stuff (see his lovely face below, and if any ladies out there are interested, let me know). He's in med school... he sets the story up himself. ENJOY!!! (Read the whole thing. It's worth your time).

So, SPs (Standardized Patients) are "actors." They act like they have these illnesses and sickness/soreness, etc to immitate REAL life situations. We, as students, have 2 SPs a trimester. Well..this one SP in my last trimester was a HANDFUL. She wasn't mean, perse...but she wasn't that helpful as an "actress." They're trained by doctors to pretend to be patients. So, we walk in and greet them and such and become "doctors." (we're finally playing DOCTOR now!!) In the SPs, it's only us by ourselves. We're told to maintain a sense of professionalism, have etiquette, be friendly, be empathetic, etc. SO...anything you WISHED your doctor to be, we were told to be that. How are we supposed to maintain professionalism? Through our dress (nice clothes...niiice), our actions (sir, madam, eye contact), and our speech ("So, are you telling me you're hurt near your umbilicus?).

Well, the SP for this day was this woman... (as stated before) and the case this time was "Abdominal pain of some sort." So... I asked her "can you describe to me this pain you have? What kinds of characteristics are there?" And she says "it hurts here...kinda like a cramping sensation" So immediately (i'm not that great of a doctor) i think... menstrual or constipation. SO i ask her "How's your cycle? Are you on now?"..."oh, it's regular...now i'm not on now, i was last week." So...EX THAT!. no menstraul cramps. Now i want to ask her about constipation BUT i didn't want to ask her "are you constipated??" Cause that, doesn't sound professional...at all. So i'm thinking maybe there's an obstruction of the bowel of some sort so i wanted to ask her about her Bowel Movement. BUT! at the time..i couldn't think of that professional term "bowel movement." I'm sitting there just thinking "What the heck was that term?? What is it?!!?" While the lady is talking...i started sweating. Thinking "Shoot, i can't ask her 'how often do you poop?'..that doesn't sound good..i can't say ' constipated...diarrhea...' thats no good" So then i think up of this plan "Maybe i can use code words and still maintain a sense of professionalism" SO...w/ a straight face i asked her "How often do you go Number 2?"

"Number two? What's that?"
"You don't know what number 2 is??"
"No, i don't know what number 2 is. What is it?"
"Its after number 1."
"Number 1? What."
"You don't know what number 1 is?"
"waht's number 1?"
"So you don't know numbers 1 or 2?"
"What are you talking about?"
"POOP!!! HOW OFTEN DO YOU POOOP?!"
"Oh. 2 times a day."

Welll...there goes that air of professionalism... so then, everytthing was going well.. even though that poop incident was goign through my mind...the entire time during my 50 minute checkup all i can think about is "DID I JUST SAY POOP?!?!?!?!?! WHAT THE HECK?!" "I SAID POOP!!" So...I started to sweat (oh so bad)...and to make things worse...i was doing the cardiac exam and pulmonary stuff on the front (and at this point, the gown is removed) so i'm leaning over and i have to put my stethoscope right underneath her left breast and as i leaned over PLOP!! ... a bead of sweat hit her body... d'oh!

So...that's my story of what happened in my SP. AND to make things worse...we're recorded so i get to watch the video of me saying "POOP! how often do you poop!?" and *drip plop plop*. ... but the good thing is at the end of the encounter we get to talk w/ them and they give us some input...so then she asks me "How did you feel? Anything you want to tell me?" ...i said, "Yeah, i'm not sure..but there was this one point during the conversation i felt i was unprofessional." ... "When?" ... "When I asked if you went number 2...and poop." ... "Oh, not at all, you were very serious when you asked so i thought it was a professional question." BUWAHAHAHAHAHA...