Medical Forms for the Terminally Uninterested

 

When you go to the doctor's, and they make you fill out all those forms, no one actually reads any of them. For the past ten years, I've been filling out gibberish, and no one ever said anything. Today, at the doctor's office, when I was asked on an electronic form how I heard of them, I entered

Voices

"Voices in my head."

For the condition affecting me I entered "dyspepsia." Dyspepsia was believed to be a stomach condition that Pepsi was originally formulated to remedy. For overall physical health, I put "general malaise." General malaise was a term used by doctors as a diagnosis during the early 1900's because it sounded more clinical than "we don't know what the fuck you have." I also put down "scurvy," and no one ever recommended vitamin C.
 

 

For known conditions, I once wrote "ptosis of the liver," a condition thought to describe when your organs hang too low. Organ position was originally studied on cadavers, who were prone so the organs were higher than that of upright, live humans. They used to operate on people to raise up their organs. It didn't do anything, but, hey, no one died from it. No one ever asked me about it either.

Once I was asked if I had missing body parts. I put down, "my head." I also listed my height as 7' 2" and weight as 25 lbs, and on the same form I stated that I suffered from "dwarfism." No response from any medical professionals. I routinely sign my name, "Richard Milhouse Nixon," followed by a pi symbol, and no one ever questions it.



 

The other day at the doctor's office, a receptionist person told me that they had switched computer systems, and needed to ask me some questions. So we ran down the normal stuff, insurance information, primary contact, phone numbers, then she asked,

"Are you Hispanic?"

"No," I answered.

"Are you of Middle Eastern descent?" she then asked.

"Nope."

Then she followed with, "Are you an Apache?"

She actually asked me if I was an Apache. Now, I know all those parts of the form are optional, but some people just don't like it when forms aren't completely filled out. I stated,

"I'm not going to answer anymore questions."

To which she insisted, "I need to put something down for race, or we won't be able to charge your insurance!"

So I said, "Human."

I sat in the waiting area with the paper forms I had to fill out, and when I encountered the section that asked why I was here, I put "Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)."

Now, my physician occasionally reads my blog. He told me that he laughs whenever I reference colonoscopies. He's probably not going to find this funny. After years of post graduate education, followed by a lengthy residency, the dude is tasked with trying to figure out what's ailing me, and his computer is choking on a seven foot dwarf, suffering from scurvy, who doesn't have a head.



 

As far as I know, I've never been misdiagnosed from any of the garbage I've put down on medical forms. The way it works is the nurse person always asks you what's going on first, and they enter your information into the computer, then you get to repeat the whole thing for the doctor who mostly asks you the same questions because they never read whatever the nurse person wrote. So I'm sure the bullshit I pen isn't read by anybody.

I wish someone from the medical community could answer just this one question. Where do all those forms go? Do they file them in a massive vault somewhere, or do they send them overseas to a country with marginal indoor plumbing where data entry people are contracted to enter all that information into a massive super computer? Oh, just one other question.

How come nurse people wear such goofy clothes?

Editor's Note: Originally posted on November 17, 2016.