Wait...What?!

Being paired with a local physician (preceptor) that we visit at least once a module makes up one of the clinical aspects of our first two years. It is with these preceptors that we have some of our aforementioned "patient contact." The experience generally lets us get more comfortable pretending to be doctors with being student physicians, but more than anything it helps reaffirm why we're all here. What do I mean by this?

As my preceptor and I sit in the side office of the clinic and he fills out the chart of a patient we just saw, the nurse walks in and hands me (as the real doctor is still busy) the next patient's chart. I glance down to see at what we'll be looking and my eyes go wide with surprise.

The Chief Complaint (i.e. the reason for coming) box reads:

Right Thumb- splinter under nail (noodle).

As one might imagine, I reread that sentence a few times. Curious, I look up at the nurse and she, trying to contain her surprise/amusement/disbelief, explains that he was cleaning some dried pasta from a pan and voila:

Noodle + Under + Thumbnail = Pain.

The real downside of this for the patient (It was great for me. I got to watch and help with something unusual.) is that pasta, being a grain product and rather moist, acts as a pretty poor tenant when leasing sub-cuticle space. After about 10 minutes of Lidocaine shots to numb the area (oddly enough the most painful experience for the guy), half of his nail cut off, and some nimble forceps work by my preceptor, he left likely feeling physically worse but thumbnail-infection/pasta free.

I am certain that while this is the first semi-strange experience in my medical career, it will not be the last. Until next time.