Doctors often depersonalize their patients-thus Mr. Jones
becomes the gallbladder in room eight and Ms. Samuels becomes the mastectomy in
room three. In Nigeria, I often refer to my patients by their diagnosis, rather
than by their name since I can’t pronounce many of their names. We have nose girl, face boy, sarcoma lady,
and albino man etc. In this day and age,
such depersonalization is not considered politically correct. However, such
characterizations are consistent with the way we think in medicine in terms of
differential diagnosis. We spend our whole lives trying to categorize diseases
and it is natural, in my opinion that we would think of our patients in terms
of a diagnosis. I think this is fine as long as we remember that the diagnosis
is attached to a real person.
Today's patients had many diagnoses:
Today's patients had many diagnoses:
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| Victor-Lymphoma |
 |
| Nwachukwu-Prostate Cancer |
 |
| Regina-Goiter |
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| Sylvia-Skin cancer |
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| Ugochi-Previous C-Section |
 |
| Innocent-Dermatofibrosarcoma Protuberans |
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| Franca-Goiter |
 |
| James-Stab wound to the IVC |
