The great unwashed

Dr. Genesis, before each patient contact.

Dr Genesis is back at work, after a week off. He was feeling human again. Now he feels distinctly inhuman. The same patients are on the ward, barely having improved despite intensive medical input. Most of them have got worse, probably because of intensive medical input. The other doctors flit around, mainly chasing their own tails, finding more problems each day, most of them iatrogenic. What most patients need, in Dr Genesis's humble opinion, is good food, regular exercise and a bit of a hug and cuddle.

Of course a few of them, particularly the younger ones, need high input medical attention and good treatment plans.

But the majority of our patients are elderly, with fairly non-specific complaints. They are the victims of modern medicine. They have lived far in excess of their life expectancy, had they been born, say, last century. Mainly they are just feeling the effects of old age. But writing "old age" as a diagnosis is not acceptable. It probably isn't "codable". So we search and search with blood tests and scans, desperately hoping something will turn up positive.

Have you had a blood test ever, dear reader? Dr Genesis has. It hurts. These poor people have blood tests almost every day.

No wonder they feel ill.