Sharing burial plots to swabbing dogs: The strangest things patients have asked of GPs
After Dr Pam Rachootin told of her brief time as an Uber GP — when a patient asked her to pick up Woodroofe’s lemonade en route to a home visit — we put out the call for the strangest requests our readers had fielded from their patients.
From dealing in drugs and sex aids to TV maintenance and a take-home appendix, it turns out some patients expect a lot from their doctors.
And they can also struggle to see the line dividing a doctor from a vet.
Below are some of our favourite stories. Thank you to everybody who contributed.
Two of my patients, a couple, were having cryotherapy for genital warts.
She booked the pre-lunch appointment slot, and he booked the post-lunch appointment.
They both presented for the first appointment very excited, having packed a seafood lunch so that I could join them in the parking lot for a culinary feast — in the break appointments to treat their genital pathology.
Dr Maureen Fitzsimon, GP, Sunshine Coast, Queensland
I did an excision on my patient.
When he returned, he asked me to excise a lesion on the face of his goat.
The goat had a black lesion on the side of her face. I did the excision, and the goat lived happy for another few years.
No histology done, and I could not bulk-bill.
Dr Roberto Celada, GP, Warragul, Victoria
It was in the mid-1980s, and an elderly couple, whom I had helped through their most recent health problems, came in.
She said they had come to ask me a question.
Apparently, they had paid for burial plots reserved in the local graveyard.
There were three of these plots: two for them and would I like the third?
Somewhat taken aback (being in my very early 30s), I had a sudden mental image of occupying said plot, and after some 20 years, getting a knock on the coffin lid and hearing the lady’s voice asking me about her funny rash.
I got around it by saying her offer was very kind but I was for cremation when my time came. Still makes me giggle some 40 years later.
Dr Paul Attwood, GP, Leicestershire, UK
After the Bundaberg floods, I had a patient I had known for a long time come in with his girlfriend and ask for a script for a sizeable amount of pseudoephedrine.
I was well aware that he took and sold drugs and told him no.
He then said, “Doc, I’m doing it hard with the floods, and I can sell that shit for $400.”
His girlfriend exclaimed, “I don’t believe you said that to your doctor.”
Referring to me, he responded, “Nah, she’s cool.”
I was not ‘cool’ enough to give him a script.
Anonymous doctor
I had a patient who was hospitalised with a mycotic aneurysm.
Blood cultures grew an unusual organism that was usually found in the oral cavity of dogs.
The patient had a dog but couldn’t recall being bitten by it.
The infectious diseases specialist involved in his care mentioned to my patient’s good friend that it would be interesting to know if the patient’s dog was the source of the infection.
So the friend duly presented to my clinic with the dog in tow and asked that I swab the dog’s mouth and send the specimen off for micro and culture.
Filling out the pathology request form was an interesting exercise.
Dr Ian Jones, GP, Castlemaine, Victoria
I was asked to adjust the TV reception during a house call.
Anonymous doctor
As a locum for a bulk-billing after-hours service, I was called after midnight on a wet and freezing Canberra winter night by a patient with a ‘delicate problem’.
I arrived at a lively party.
When I finally found my patient, I discovered that she had run out of scripts for her contraceptive pills.
Dr Iris Weingarten, GP, Sydney
I had a patient in Melton, Victoria, who used to get a recurrent abscess in his perianal region, about 1cm x 0.5cm in size.
Used to happen once or twice a month. They would drain on their own.
There were no features of a fistula in any.
He wanted Medicare to pay for him to take a taxi to Geelong beach to wash his perianal region in the sea water so that it healed.
He was very upset that I could not recommend this.
Anonymous doctor
I was once asked how to manage a three-year-old’s naughty invisible friend.
Dr Anthony Zehetner, paediatrician, Sydney
When I was a GP trainee, I was working at a walk-in clinic with long wait times.
I noticed one young woman who looked like she had popped in from work, and it took ages to get to her file.
I finally called her in and apologised for the very long wait, almost two hours. I asked what I could do for her.
She pointed her index finger right in my face.
I looked at her finger, I looked at her and asked her what was the problem.
She replied, “I have a paper cut.” I looked closer and replied, “Oh, yes you do.”
I got a sterile alcohol wipe, wiped her finger and applied a Band-Aid.
I asked, “Anything else I can do for you?”
“No, thank you,” she said and walked out.
Anonymous doctor
A patient asked me to buy her a vibrator as her husband had erectile dysfunction from a hernia operation.
Dr Jane Harris, GP, Bendigo, Victoria
A patient came in to see me with an empty bottle of glaucoma eye drops.
It was the first time I had seen him.
As he was leaving the room, he said, “Thanks, but I have to be honest with you now. These are for my dogs. Vets are too expensive to get the drops.”
Anonymous doctor
I was going to perform a radical nephrectomy on a patient for a renal malignancy.
I discussed the surgery with the patient’s family, who requested that I prophylactically remove their mother’s healthy contralateral kidney at the same time in case she developed another malignancy in that kidney in the future.
On another occasion, a patient requested a vasectomy on the basis that his naturopath had advised that this surgery would stop candida in his gut from refluxing into his testes.
Both of these requests were declined by me.
Dr Robert Davies, urologist, Perth
A patient discovered her blood group was different to her brothers.
She questioned her paternity as she thought she knew both her mother and father’s blood groups.
She asked me to chase down her father’s medical records to confirm his blood group and therefore her paternity.
Fortunately, his blood group was different to what she had thought and correlated with her own.
Anonymous doctor
We’ve all been asked for medical advice in social situations, but I would have to say that the most outrageous and utterly inappropriate case of this for me was when a complete stranger wanted my advice on migraine treatment — after I had just given the eulogy for my late mother.
Dr Bill Owen, GP, Nelson Bay, NSW
A patient came to the front desk to book a house call.
Anonymous doctor
I was having a beer on a Friday after work when a patient approached me wanting a prescription of steroids for his greyhounds.
Dr Brian Cole, GP, Bendigo, Victoria
A patient who was born overseas and said he did not know his birthday requested a test for his age.
Anonymous doctor
My pensioner patient wanted a prescription for Mylanta to treat their arthritis.
The rationale was that arthritis “is due to a build-up of acid in the joints”, and so an antacid was just the thing to help.
Anonymous doctor
A father requested that I write a letter to his son to say that he had a bad cancer and so couldn’t go off to fight in Afghanistan with his mates in the reserves who were all going.
His son went off to Afghanistan and came back safe, thank goodness.
I declined to write the letter but felt pretty conflicted, as the rate of PTSD in soldiers after just one tour of duty was very high.
Dr Marcia Manning, GP, Sydney
My patient asked me to ring a doctor in the US to ask if the father of the groom had a history of epilepsy.
Anonymous doctor
When I was a surgical RMO, we admitted a teenager with acute appendicitis for surgery later that evening.
His mother wanted to wait outside the theatre to receive the appendix and take it home.
Anonymous doctor
A patient requested to have her cervical screening test videoed so she could watch it back afterwards and feel more in tune with her body.
Dr Katrin Rudolph, GP, Gold Coast, Queensland
