DOCTORS ARE BAD PATIENTS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 198, 11 August 1908, Page 4

DOCTORS ARE BAD PATIENTS.

■' Who are the most troublesome patients':" -.aid a trained 41ur.se, in answ-r to the writer's question. •• Well, in my opinion, doctors take a bit of heating. " I'or one thing, they know ton much for their own peace of mind. Each new symptom is at once recognised, ami, if unfavourable, has a lowering tendency on the invalid's stale of mind. Again, a doctor is so used to issuing orders to nurses, that it is hard to get him to obey, and obedience to the nurse is a necessity. "Perhaps the most I roubles! - feature about nursing a doctor is his mania for taking temperature. Suppose he is allowed to use a thermometer. If he has a moderately-high fever he worries and worries, and fieum-ntlv makes himself much worse, and sends up his temperature accordingly. "More than once, when the pali-m has been ill a critical state, rather than ;, fuse his reiptcst, 1 have dropped Hither meter jnsl as I banded it to him. ilf course, I apologise, and express my regret—which is not all assumed, for it puts me to the expense of a new inslru- " At one period I got hold of a faulty tin■rinonieter, which I used specially for doittir patients. This registered a much ii.wer temperature than the one 1 used nivsell'. and thus helped to reassure my patient. Indeed. 1 felt ipiite at a 10-s when what might otherwise have Ikm-ii a useless thermometer got broken."