Sunday 6 February 2011

What's In A Name?

In Medicine, there exists a well established desire to have syndromes, diseases and procedures named after a particular person or place.

Liverpool has attached its name to the now familiar "end of life care pathway". For the great good acheived by this approach, Liverpool must take great pride in its association with something so meaningful.

Glasgow has attached itself to the Glasgow Coma Scale in which patients are assessed very quickly to ascertain their level of consciousness. In the sphere of Intensive Care, the GCS, as it is often abbreviated, is de rigeur.

New York is now synonymous with the assessment of gravity of heart failure and has been adopted world-wide to provide a clear pathway to teatment.

However, for all the great merit of the afore mentioned triumvirate, it is surely Bristol who have really stolen the lime-light. What drives a given researcher or physician to decide to classify anything is intriguing. However, what drove anybody to decide to grade stools with a mark of 1 to 7 is truly mind boggling. The hours of dedication assessing countless samples of effluvia is both admirable and somewhat teutonic. As a pre-clinical undergraduate I used to have visions of arriving on the wards to be greeted by a row of beds above each of which stood a numeral of judgement on their every movement - if you'll pardon the pun. I envisaged covert conversations taking place between medics and nurses along the lines of "We've got a 7 in bed 5 - watch your step" or " The poor fellow in bed 9 is a 1 and its been 3 weeks now - you have to feel sorry for him".

So hats of to Bristol for providing endless hours of mirth to medical students everywhere. Let us also spare a thought for all those grade 1 patients who dream of their next motion and all those grade 7's who would just like 5 minutes respite....