Funny clinical encounters

Funny clinical encounters

Vijay Gopichandran


Sometimes clinical encounters are hilarious. I am writing about three such incidents in this blog. Mr. Murugan was an elderly man who used to visit the clinic regularly in the year 2010. He used to come every day demanding an injection for his breathing difficulty. He had a mild form of chronic obstructive lung disease, caused by years of heavy smoking. He would come to the clinic on ‘bad days’ when his breathing difficulty would be worse, and we would give him medications through a nebulizer (a device that delivers the drug directly to his lungs through a mask) and injections. Even on ‘not so bad’ days he would come and demand an injection. I would give him the benefit of the doubt and give him the injection on these days. But it is the third kind of visit that would really test the clinic staff’s and my patience. He would come there on ‘good days’ humming a song, reeking of freshly smoked beedi and casually demand an injection. Any amount of persuasion would not make him go away with tablets. On one of those ‘good days,’ Mr. Murugan came into the clinic and asked for the injection as a routine. I was on duty that day and I decided that I wouldn’t give him the injection that day. Somehow the vicious cycle of injection dependence had to be broken. So I took out an old, used syringe without its needle, drew some normal saline kept in the clinic for wound dressing purposes. I did all this in front of his eyes and asked him to lie down so that I could inject it on his buttock. Mr. Murugan lay down in all earnestness. I gave a sharp pinch over the upper outer part of his buttock and threw out the normal saline in the syringe into the dustbin. I took out a moist cotton piece and cleaned up the portion that I had pinched and walked out of the injection room. Mr. Murugan walked out behind me and told me, “Doctor, today's injection was different from all other days. The pain was more. Whenever that nurse used to give the injection it never used to hurt. But today it hurt. I think you have given me the correct medicine.” He walked out. The next day Mr. Murugan came back with such a broad smile on his face and reported, “Doctor, the injection that you gave was magical. I am feeling very good today. I want it again”. Even as he was saying this, I could smell the beedi and alcohol in his breath. A vicious cycle had been broken but from injection dependence, it had become ‘pinch’ dependence! I laughed inside my mind thinking about what a fix I had put myself and my colleague into. She had to now regularly pinch the old man’s butt!  


Sometimes I am a bit vague about the instructions I give to my patients. This vagueness arises from my biased thinking. I assume that the patients understand and see things the same way as I do, and this has led to some very hilarious and funny moments in the clinic. One day, an elderly man with severe pain and swelling of his knee had come to see me. He was in distress. His knees were warm and swollen. I decided to give him a pain killer injection. So, I asked him to get into the injection room and told him that I would come to give him the injection. I told him, “Ayya, please lower your dhoti (long dress wrapped around the waist covering the thigh, knees, and legs worn by men, usually white in colour) so that I can give you the injection in the buttocks”. I went to the washbasin, washed up my hands with soap and water and went into the injection room. I was shocked to see the elderly man standing there buck naked from the hip downwards. I had asked him to lower his dhoti and he had literally dropped the dhoti and was standing there naked. I rushed and helped him get his dhoti back on. Then I slightly lowered it to expose just the upper outer part of his buttock and gave him the injection. After that, I came back to the consultation room and the suppressed laughter surfaced and had a hearty laugh (of course, the patient did not see it)! After the laughter wave passed, I was overwhelmed at how much patients were willing to expose their vulnerability to us. It spoke to me a lot about trust.


In my clinic, the washbasin is inside the doctor’s restroom (toilet). The design is bad, but we have to work with that. So, every time I am done seeing a patient or doing a procedure, I have to walk into the toilet to wash my hands. Fortunately, the room is used exclusively for handwashing purposes and the toilet is decommissioned. So, there is no chance of infection entering the clinic. One day, I wanted to give an injection to an elderly lady, and I told her “Please come, I will give you the injection” and pointed towards the injection room. I must say here that both the toilet (handwashing area) and the injection room are in the same direction from the consultation area. So, I pointed towards that direction, got up and went inside the toilet to wash my hands. When I washed my hands and turned, I was shocked to see the elderly lady standing behind me inside the toilet with her saree lowered and her buttock exposed. I was so glad that there was nobody else around to see this. It did not look that good, me and the elderly woman inside the toilet with the lady having her saree lowered. I politely told her that this is the washroom and requested her to go to the injection room and guided her there. That evening on the way back to the city, I had one of the heartiest laughs of my life.


There was a Mr. Arumugam, who is a patient with knee pains. He comes regularly to visit me even now. He did something so funny one day, that I sat with him laughing. Both of us laughed so heartily that we completely forgot that it was a hospital. I regularly prescribe a painkiller gel to apply on his knees. He would sometimes come once every 15 days as his stock of medicines would run out sooner than expected. One day, he came within a week demanding the painkiller gel. His previous record revealed that he had received the painkiller gel only the previous visit. So, I asked him, whether he was ok and if the knees were really bothering him very much. He said it is ok, and not that bad. He said his gel ran out soon this week. I asked him how his gel got over so soon. He smiled sheepishly and said, “I discovered that if I mix the gel in a glass of warm milk and drink it, it gives me a high” and winked at me. This was the funniest use of painkiller gel that I had ever heard of and I broke out laughing. He laughed and both of us sat there having a burst of hearty laughter. I then explained to him that the gel contains some substances that cannot be eaten and so he should not do that. He kept smiling throughout the whole episode. I don’t know if he stopped his ‘gel-milk’ fix. But he buys the gel at smaller quantities now!


Clinical practice, especially in primary care can sometimes be mundane. The same cough, cold, fever, joint aches and pains day in and day out. On many of these days, such funny moments give a respite. They assure us that ours is a completely human enterprise, error-prone, and funny. Even as I am writing this blog, I am remembering the innocent, sheepish, funny grins on the faces of all these wonderful people who gave me such pleasant memories to remember, smile about and share!