Patient Tales #542

I've skipped posting a lot of them.... because why would I exaggerate or make up a number like that?

I'm sure anyone reading my blog has been to the doctors at least one time in their adult life. This is assuming I have anyone still reading my blog after such sporadic postings, of course. And, of course, when you are at the doctor you get the wonderful clipboard with bullshit papers that you have to fill out every time you go in even though they already have all the information and you've deemed them tree killers (or is that just me and my doctor's office? Seriously, I have to fill out a demographic sheet every f'ing time I go there.). So the doctor I work for has these amazing demographic sheets as well. The worksheet we have is only one page of actual filling out and then the standard HIPPA regulation page that the patients only have to sign so I don't count it as actually filling out. Our demographic page looks much like any other doctor form you've filled out over a lifetime. But are you one of those special individuals that likes to tell your life story via patient registration sheets? Because apparently the patients our facility attracts constant enter into TMI land.
Over the course of the three and a half years that I have been entering information from these pages I have noticed several trends:
1. Marital Status
Apparently Single, Married, and Divorced are just not enough to explain our patient's marital status. We need to switch to the facebook style and have an 'it's complicated' option -- now I'm a little tempted to put that in the next time I have to fill out that bullshit. In all the time I've been working on these things I have seen many "happily married" with varying amounts of smiley faces surrounding this, "NA" not applicable -- because they are neither single nor married nor divorced they are beyond these trivial human word associations, "in the process of a shitty divorce" and there certainly wasn't enough room for that in the space allotted so they were determined to get that off their chest, etc.
2. Allergies
This may be a sensitive subject since I'm sure this varies from office to office of how much info they need, but at the vast majority of offices (excluding an allergist) do not need to know what foods you are (or think you are) allergic to nor do they need to know you have seasonal allergies for which you take over the counter meds. I can't speak for all offices, but when we ask we want to know medicinal allergies. Like penicillin not strawberries. We aren't going to feed you strawberries, but we may need to know about the penicillin. Although telling your waiter that you're deathly allergic to green peppers just to make sure they don't put any in your food is totally acceptable.
3. Current Medications
If you take vitamins good for you. A general broad canvas of "vitamins" or "daily vitamin" is actually more than we care to know about, but still acceptable -- writing down how many and every specific one you take is not. Having a printed up list of all the meds you take, although acceptable, is a little terrifying and generally makes us think you are already on your death bed.
4. Past Operations/Medical Illnesses
Holy crap! I can't even go into all the craziness we experience in this section. I think it goes against HIPPA regs, but I do have to say "multiple attempts at suicide" is slightly unsettling.
and lastly...
5. Crossing off sections you don't approve of...
You would think that an optional section would be labeled as "OPTIONAL" but no. Apparently our whole form can be taken with a grain of salt. We don't need this information. We only ask for it to give you callouses on your fingers from writing too much and a cramp in your hand. It amuses us. But the whole reason for today's outburst is because recently I had a patient cross of the "sex" section. I would think it obvious that we aren't looking for the Mike Meyer response of "Yes, please!" and that we are actually asking about your gender, but on several occasions we have gotten variations of the low brow humor that goes along with any mention of the taboo word, sex. This past week I had a patient cross out the word "sex" and replace it with "gender". Thank you, lady. I may not have understood that otherwise. I get confused easily.