As a doctor, what is the most obnoxious request you ever received from a patient?
One year ago, my girlfriend had this patient who came in with perhaps the most unexpected and weird requests she ever received.
He had only one testicle due to cancer, and now the remaining testicle had taken a hit from one of his cows (he was a farmer). So he had made a decision:
“I am seventy years old, and my wife an I do not share the bed anymore. You don’t need to spend any extra energy on saving it. Just remove it, and I will be just fine.”
The patient had applied his experienced farmer medical logic to his own case, and had concluded that amputating his entire scrotum was the easiest and best of solutions.
The request was totally absurd, of course. My girlfriend tried to explain to him that he needed the testosterone in order to function as he functioned today. But he didn’t understand because he was convinced that the testicle was only of some use between the sheets.
It took ages to made him (more or less) clear that without the scrotum he would suffer from fatigue, hot flashes, muscle loss, poor facial hair growth and what have you. That in some sense he would turn into a woman in menopause (my own words), and that lifelong hormone treatment would be necessary.
The discussion lasted forever, and each time she thought she had finally convinced the old farmer, he started all over again about cutting it away.
In the end, he gave in though — the testicle lived.
SOURCES: Google images.
