I laughed at my patient..

Today I met a very funny reacting patient.

He was telling me how tired and lethargic he was today.

By the way he has flu as well.

After examining him and I concluded that he has Upper respiratory tract infection with high blood pressure.

'Hmm, tekanan darah awak tinggi'.

'Hah???'

 (eyes wide open, shocked)

'Kenapa doctor??' he looked at me.

'Hmm, kenapa apa ya? Kenapa awak batuk selesema or kenapa darah naik?' I asked.

'Apa maksudnya ni doc??' his reaction was really surprised. Kind of exaggerated but everyone accepted news differently, so.

'Probably, you have a tendency towards hypertension later in life..' he cut me off.

and said,' Ya Allah!! What?? I baru start my career and I am not even married yet!!How can I have this??'

He was really dramatic as if I have delivered a deadly news to him.

And he didn't allow soem space for me to explain.

It started to become funny as he cut off my sentence to calm him down with 'MasyaAllah, Ya Allah' everytime (covering his face with both palms).

We started to stare at each other and broke into a guffaw. I placed my forehead on the table in despair.

I just couldn't believe his reaction. It wasn't even that high. It was just borderline.

Is this real or some kind of acting? I couldn't quite made my mind and decided to trust his reaction to be genuine.

He looked at me and said,' doctor, dun laugh. Tak baik doctor gelakkan saya'.

'Awaklah. Ishk ishk saya tak boleh gelak sebenarnya. Awak dah ruin my professionalism ni. LOL. I have delivered many bad news before, much worse than this but never have anyone accepted them this dramatically. LOL'.

I added,' It is okay. Stress can induce high blood as well. This is just a warning. It can still be reversible. You still have a lot of chances okay. If you ignore it, it might stay permanent in the future'.

'MasyaAllah. Ya Allah. Aku belum berkahwin lagi. Macam mana ni? Biar betul??' he exclaimed staring at the wall.

He totally acted as if his world has come to an end.

Since he was so shocked with the news, I asked,' How old are you? Are you working in a stressful environment?'

'I am 33 years old. I am an auditor so it is quite stressful' he answered.

Yes, he is young for high blood pressure but these days even a 20 year old guy had a heart attack on my watch.

After giving him ample of advices, I bid him good bye and best of luck.

On his way out, he commented,' by the way, you are too young to be a doctor'.

In medical field, we want to be older as a sign of experiences so that patients have confidence in us.

Therefore, doctors don't prefer to have their age commented which made me replied promptly,'Heyyy, I am 30 you know, just 3 years younger than you are'.

I sounded defensive protecting my age.

I am so happy that I reached 30 to brag.

'La yeke? MasyaAllah' I heard his last words before the door shut.

Sometimes I teased patients and I would smile but I have never laughed at a patient during consultation.

I would smile or grin appropriately.

I would laugh with them about things and enjoy some stories.

Somehow, I could hold my feelings to maintain my ethics.

That guy today really attacked me persistently with his owh-this-is-the-end-of-the-world- reactions to the extend I ended up laughing.

Lucky he thought it was funny and didn't sue me for laughing.

Not that sympathetic.

The thing was that he was still healthy and he probably doesn't have hypertension.

It was just a one time reading anyway.

So, all the commotion was kind of overboard and funny.

Great laugh we had.