Posted by Andrew on 12/4/2015, 10:58 pm, in reply to "Re: Catheters"

Hi Clive, medics most of the time are dealing with people who have no medical or scientific knowledge, only school level education, and who dont want to know. Hence they tend to assume you dont know anything relevant, or would not understand. They tend to treat you more seriously if you use formal medical terms. So you can say you get chronic urinary retention; that will probably scare him. If he suggests you will manage, tell him "the autonomic nervous system closes the urethral sphinctre". He will probably ask you if you are a doctor, and treat your concern more seriously! For example, when I told my urologist that I was glad to have my hydrocele treated cos I was fed up with looking priapic,he visibly startled and asked me if I was a medic, because I had used the word priapic. Then when I mentioned to the anaesthetist about shy bladder and the autonomic nervous system he went ecstatic: "at last a real world example of the autonomic nervous system. I have such trouble getting my medical students to understand what it is; can I bring you into a class to explain it to them?". !!!

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