"Pictionaries, Charades, and Congestive Heart Failure"

Date: 14 Dec, 2001


Last week, our doctor assigned us to study the case of this 80 year old patient who was having an acute exacerbation of asthma. SHe wanted us to find out whether this patient was really suffering from asthma or was it really congestive heart failure that was causing all the symptoms. So, in the spirit of cramming, we decided to solve the case the night before the presentation. The hard part about the case was the fact that the patient was uncooperative. He refused to have a physical examination and he refused to give us an interview. Hmmm. I suggested that we dress like black ninjas and come to this patient's room when everybody's sleeping. Then we could take this patient by surprise, with someone holding both his arms and legs in place and with me auscultating him.... Nobody seemed to take the idea seriously... LOL. It was a good idea though.

***
So i proceeded to my friend's apartment armed with a ten page research, markers, a medicine book, and a manila paper. I was ready to tackle this problem. I was fully armed... Little did i know that instead of books, my friends came up with vhs tapes, sodas, muffins, chips, and board games. So what did we do? We spent the whole night watching the tapes, playing charades and pictionary. The patient's case seem to have been lost somewhere in between Dr. Doolittle, Someone like you and MTV. It was only around 2 am when we realized that we needed to come up with a report in 7 hours. So what did we do? We slept. Actually, the nerd in me could not sleep. I kept thinking about the patient and how to manage him. I think it was somewhere in between the wee hours of the morning, when the rooster started crowing, that my mind finally gave in to sleep. The next morning, God smiled upon us. Classes were cancelled.