First Patient

So they make us go through the hospital randomly and ask people if we can do physical exams on them. Way to break the ice, right? Well, I go with another med student to the wards and a nurse tells me this patient will be a good one. She has this grin on her face...foreshadowing anyone?

I go in, introduce myself, and she gives me the thumbs up. So to start chatting it up she says that she's a dancer. I realize 2 seconds later that she's a stripper. I still giggle at the word "boob" and "vagina" so I'm not exactly the most mature person in the world. Also, she was really skanky. Like dirty skanky...she could have been pretty if she made herself up, but for now she was really uggo.

I ask her what she's in the hospital for, and she says she was shooting up heroine and got a big abscess. Wow. I've lived a pretty sheltered life so being with a stripper and druggy all at the same time is kind of a rush.

This patient has the wackiest history I've ever heard of. She thinks her mom poisoned her dad and paid off the autopsy people to not discover it. She does like 4 different kind of drugs. And she was my age. And she has a 8 year old kid. I'm 23 years old. Do the math.

I started with the physical exam and when I was checking her eyes (being very close), she touches my arm and says "I can show you things." Okay so it didn't register with me at first but it did with my friend who was in the room. When we came out of the room, it hit me. This skank stripper was hitting on me.

I then had to present the patient to an attending, which is actually a big deal to a medical student. As I'm presenting and going through the physical exam, she's touching my arm her or stroking my hand there. This time it's registering. I'm going blood red. The other 3 medical students (now they are girls) are giggling. My hands start to shake. I can't think straight. The attending tells me to just stop and I felt like a failure.

I get out and the attending starts laughing at me. So much for my first patient encounter. She later came and asked me for a ride home because she gave her taxi fair to the lunch lady as a tip.