Who is this young girl,
Thinking she has the right to be in my office?
I pretend to be nice,
I do all the tests,
After all, I can’t risk her suing for neglect.
I comfort her, by telling her it’s stress,
Indeed yes, this is all in her head.
I let her tell me all of her symptoms,
She must be a hypochondriac because how else would she have come up with all of that?
Nevertheless, so she can’t say I haven’t done my job,
I send her for an MRI and EEG,
I also use my favourite words:
I tell her it’s nothing sinister.
I can’t believe she’s wasting my time,
She has anxiety, her brain is all fine!
Now that I’ve ridden her off of my list,
I can move onto to patients, who are actually sick.
She walks in looking young and healthy,
Does she really expect me to believe her?
She’s too young to be sick, and all her tests say are that she needs a psychiatrist, not a neurologist.
I give the advice I’ve learnt from my medical degree, “just get on with life and do whatever you were doing. Go to university, you’ll be just fine! You can’t keep relying on your family forever.”
Poor them, they must be really fed up of her,
She’s just too lazy to make her own food, to get out of bed, to go alone to the toilet unaided.
Yeah, she can still go to university, it’s not like she needs 24/7 care in case she falls down the stairs!
I tell her she doesn’t need those crutches that she uses,
I tell her she’s wrong about social anxiety, although she says it’s much better and I’ve only known her five minutes,
She’s just stressed, her diagnosis is functional.
Six months later her MRI and EEG are normal,
But I already knew it would be,
I advise her doctor to sort her out with a psychiatrist, even though she’s already seen one because I don’t get paid to actually listen to people.
A year later and she’s trying to get another neurologist appointment?
We can’t be having that, let’s make her referral disappear!
She’s told an ophthalmologist she’s having temporary loss of vision, flashes of light?
Who even cares? It’s just in her mind.
She’s chased up how her urgent referral hasn’t be fulfilled in a month,
I guess I’ll have to write her doctor a letter then,
I’ll say it’s just migraine auras because when I saw her she was fine.
She’s only pretending to be disabled,
After all it’s functional so she must be pretty messed up inside.
I’m a doctor so people know I’m smart,
So I get good money,
I don’t need to actually believe my patients and look for things that are not obvious to see.
I’ll make sure she feels like she’s going crazy and will never be helped or believed.
