Notes from the Clinic, Part III

A couple of weeks ago, I had to stop by the hospital to get some medicine for an ear infection. (My body, still flummoxed by the environs in which it finds itself, insists on contracting diseases usually affecting small children under the age of five.)

I had the following interaction with a nurse, who weighed me, took my blood pressure, and proceeded to ask some routine check-in questions.

Nurse: How are you?
Cati: Good, thanks. And you?
Nurse: Alright, a little hungry, but that´s not your fault.
Cati: *blink*
Nurse:... do you have a fever?
Cati: I´m not sure, maybe a little.
Nurse: (touches Cati´s arm). AY! My God! You´re burning up!!
Cati: I am? I don´t think...
Nurse: (touches Cati´s arm again) Oh, wait, no, you´re normal.

Without touching a thermometer, she notes 37 degrees Celsius on my chart.

Here´s the thing: They always do this at that hospital. Just ask the patient if she has a fever without ever reaching for the device that would provide an accurate answer. Whyyyyy? Although maybe I should be impressed this time the nurse went so far as to use her finger tip to take a reading, because I mean, it´s the same as a thermometer, right?

I went on to be seen by the doctor, who examined the ear that was bothering me with the ear-flashlight-telescope thing. Then he asked me if the other one was infected. I said I didn´t think so, but wasn´t sure, and he sat down contendedly at his desk and started writing prescriptions. Why wouldn´t you look at the other ear? All he had to do was shuffle six inches to the right and take a peak. WHYYY?!

I always thought of medicine as a science, but am confused by the persistent lack of scientifiy inquiry involved in its practice here in Panama. Just saying, the medical professionals here are doing nothing to convince me that it is inappropriate for me to follow my dream of practicing Dr. Quinn-era frontier medicine in 2011.