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GENERAL PRACTITIONER'S SECTION
PRESENCE OF A DECENT CURTAIN AND A FEMALE ATTENDANT - A MUST IN PRIVATE PRACTICE
OP Kapoor
Recently, I saw an Indian diabetic lady, residing in UK. She had consulted a number of specialists for pain in the left buttock. A CT Scan, MRI and a lot of other tests were done. The moment she entered my examination cabin, I told my lady assistant to lift her sari. She was wearing no undergarments and I found a big bandage of 2" 2" size on her buttock. Following an IM injection six months ago, a sinus had developed, which was still oozing and dressing was being done!
Who is to be blamed for this omission? The hospital authorities and the modern polyclinics provide pigeon hole cabins to the specialists! There are either no curtains or curtains which are short and are not able to provide complete privacy and are only for show! And though the specialists are provided the services of a telephone operator and a secretary/peon, nobody offers a lady assistant! In my opinion, one can do without the above software but in private practice, the services of a lady assistant are an investment for a good examination, which helps in turn for diagnosis of a female patient. In fact, the female patient can be satisfied only with a thorough
examination and for that matter even a rectal examination! The latter is specially appreciated by women who are chronically constipated! Many of them complain of so called non-bleeding piles! It is not possible to undress a female patient without
the help of a female attendant. Even for taking an ECG, it is unethical not to have a female attendant. Many doctors call the accompanying husband to be present. My advice is, not to do so. In fact, most of the husbands never accompany their wives. And
those who do accompany them, are the ones who pamper their wives. Often they are very possessive. Therefore, your examination will be grossly limited due to the fearful looks of the husband, while you are examining his wife!
IRON SUPPLEMENTS BENEFIT NON-ANAEMIC WOMEN WITH FATIGUE
Women with fatigue who are not anaemic may benefit from iron supplementation. Verdon and colleagues conducted a double blind, randomised, placebo controlled trial in nine primary care sites and among 144 women in western Switzerland. Fatigue after one month decreased by 30% in women taking iron, and by 13% in the placebo group. Subgroup analysis showed that the effect may be restricted to women with low or borderline serum ferritin concentrations.
BMJ, 2003; 326 : 1124.
