Impatient patients

Well, I guess we all have our own fair share of rude patients, however nice one can be.

Today has been a particularly busy day. Ward round in the morning, gastro clinic in the afternoon and I have to nip in in-between to supervise ETT,answering constant bleep from house officers and wards and doing tertiary referrals. I cut short my lunch break and had to review someone in CCU come done to clinic. The clinic was running late and with all the last minutes add-on patients we had. I think I did pretty well juggling all these while being unwell with tonsillitis at the same time.

I had to answer a call from a tertiary hospital in the middle of my consultation and this very impatient patient suddenly just flipped saying it was rude to answer a call and we all should dedicate our time to clinic...bla..bla.. Obviously as a doctor, I just eat the humble pie and apologise, saying I had to, as this is an important call (an intracerebral bleeder). Then she just left the room.

Obviously I don't take this personally, and professionally I booked her for another appointment.

Nonetheless, respect is a very important thing and if you are going to be rude and nasty to my staffs, please leave the room. I may look like "a softie", but you DON'T cross the line with me.