Hello, is this Dr… … … … (what follows is my horribly mangled surname, not that I blame the nurses, since a significant portion aren’t locals, and even those who were locals have problems pronouncing such a distasteful stringing together of vowels that I really blame the midwife who registered my grandfather’s/father’s name with her own version of hanyupinyin that had such a long-lasting result)

Hello, yes, this is the passive. (ah the wonderful generic name for the job that is nothing but passive!)

Can you come and see this patient who complains of:

1. Burping, and burping, since admission 5 days ago

2. Pain on the lip (but no rash/ulcers/trauma/new foods/drugs)

3. Being unable to sleep (at 8pm)

4. Shortness of breath, blocked nose for 1 month

5. Hungry (but he is NBM in preparation for scope)

6. I don’t know but he says it’s private and he wants to speak to the doctor (turned out, he was unable to erm ‘get it up’ in hospital)

7. Unable to pass motion for last 3 days (and it’s 3am at night now)

However, despite the seemingly ridiculous complaints and the obvious solution we have to many of those ‘passives’ above, I’d like to share an incident detailing how we should not just brush aside these complaints at times…

One night, I was called for: pt unable to pass urine but is already on urinary catheter.
I asked if pt’s cath was newly inserted or whether he was delirious accounting for not knowing that a tube had already been placed to relieve his urge, and asked if the cath was draining. The nurse said yes. So I just left it at that.
About an hour later, she called again, saying the pt really seemed uncomfortable and the bladder felt distended. So I went to take a look, and lo and behold guess what I found?
The patient had a distended bladder because….. someone had clamped it down!