“It is much more important to know what sort of a patient has a disease than what sort of a disease a patient has.” - Sir William Osler






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L.A. Stuff

New links: The Daily Nosh, for those of you locals looking for someplace good to eat in the Eagle Rock/Pasadena/Silver Lake area. This guy is quite fun to read. Also in the links sidebar is the Great L.A. Taco Hunt, a quest dear to my heart.

Update on Wacky Patient from yesterday: she returned today after her spouse called me and said: "Oh, she has this big callus on her foot I forgot to tell you about." Since a) the patient is diabetic and b) her powers of denial are formidable (she blithely ignored a huge tumor on her neck for months, but that's another story) I said "COME IN NOW."

When they got here, I took one look and ordered an X-ray: She had a nasty open lesion at the side of her big toe with a sinus tract (draining hole) in the center. The X-ray showed a scabby-looking metatarsal joint - I think she has osteomyelitis (a deep bone infection). Off to the podiatrist she goes.

Sometimes I don't know which patients are more trying, the worried well or the blithe deniers... but I know which group scares me more, and deniers have cost me sleep many a time.
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