For the last day of this month, here's another snippet on primary care, but from the other side of the Pond.
“Nothing bad was happening, it was all stuff I could bang out in my sleep. Penicillin for the ears. Cough drops and fluids. If he gets worse bring him back.
After a while you come to rely, more than anything else, on first sight. You walk into the room and you think, sick or not sick. Not sick goes home as fast as possible. Sick, you watch. You draw blood, you order X rays, you give them fluids. You are careful, because a little bell went off in your head when you walked into the room and saw them. The nurse do it too, and when they say, “I don’t like how this kid looks,” you really pay attention if you’re smart. It’s something you either learn or you don’t. Sometimes I think I’ve learned it. Sometimes not.”
―
Frank Huyler,
The Blood of Strangers: Stories from Emergency Medicine