Redbud Medical Systems, Inc.
Custom-made beds for Supine bike stress
echo, Post treadmill imaging exercise echo, & Resting echo
Models:
400
500
Features & accessories
Delivery, installation, & warranty
Echocardiographers: Have you heard these?
Maybe a thousand times?
Is that my heart?
Is my heart clear down there?
How long does this take?
Is my heart big?
Can you see the blockage?
Can you see where they cleared the plaque out of my valves?
Can we stop just for a minute so I can go to the bathroom?
Is that my heart making that noise?
What is an infarct anyway?
Wanna know when I started having problems? When I quit smoking!
Does it look better than last time. . . I think it does!
They've been in this chest so many times they should install a zipper!
What are those colors?
What are those sounds?
That sounds like an old wringer washing machine.
Sounds like a sump pump.
Should it be that noisy?
When are we going to be done?
Who was that girl in the other room?
What is that thing bouncing up and down?
I don’t think I ever really had any heart problems – I never did before.
How many of these do you do in a day?
Hey, let me ask you, should these drugs make me impotent?
How many years do you have to train to do this?
Is my purse still over there?
When are we going to be done?
How can you see anything in that?
What are you doing there?
That looks like a fish mouth.
That looks like a couple a kids clapping hands.
That just looks like a bunch of weeds.
That looks like those weather patterns on TV
That looks like a volcano.
That looks just like the bottom of my ash tray.
That looks like a couple of little pigs.
That looks like the rear end of a pig.
Looks like a duck.
Like a monkey.
A face.
What does it mean when you have erotic heartbeat?
Hey, I’m wired for sound, huh?
Looks like it’s beating real good to me . . what do you think?
What is that white stuff right there?
What is that black spot?
Is that something wrong right there by that white spot?
When are we going to be done?
Where is the doctor?
Didn’t you do this test on me over in Sacramento?
(from a man:) "I’m not pregnant am I? Ha!
(from a man:) How the heck you do this to a woman?
Would it be a problem if I went to the bathroom again?
If I go to the bathroom, will you have to take all these wires off?
How much does this equipment cost?
How much does this test cost, anyway?
Where did you get that accent?
What's the matter? Do you see something wrong?
I know you are not supposed to tell me . . . but tell me . . . how does it look to you?
When is the doctor getting here?
"You mean," she asked incredulously, "that my heart keeps beating even when I hold my breath?!"
The big guy on the bed said gruffly, " . . . Yeah, my brother-in-law and I work. I mean we really work. We’re commercial fisherman up in Alaska and let me tell you," and here he spaced out his words so I would not miss his meaning - his accusation directed at me. "I . . .mean . . . we . . . work! and I don’t mean just sittin’ around punchin' a bunch of buttons like this here."
And then there were the sensitive comments delivered to our nurse by the 57 year old year old Italian man.
"You sure don’t look like a nurse," he exclaimed during the ECG prep, "Why, you look
just like a divorced glamour girl!" and then he gave her a big wink filled with meaning known only to those who speak the Language of Romance. Later, as she left the room, he called out, "Come back soon, now," and then he nudged me with his elbow like men do when sharing important tribal secrets . . . and winked. A real rascal.
"Are you sure I have to quit smoking? Couldn’t I just cut back a little bit?"
A man in Tulsa described the sensation of his arrhythmia as ". . . just like they was a bunch a crickets was in there."
Hey doc. This Cardizem takes the lead out of my pencil.
A frightened and apparently terribly misinformed post-angioplasty patient once asked, "Can you see where my heart was?"
An arrogant orthopedic surgeon lay in left lateral decubitus
and repeatedly coughed in my face.
"I’ve had the flu. This goddamned bug has been going thru my office for the past three weeks."
I gave him a washcloth and asked him to cough into that so he wouldn’t spread it to
me.
He ignored the cloth - refused to even take it.
"I’m not contagious!" he said with contempt.
After thinking about that statement for a few seconds the doctor must have concluded that it did not convey the
high level of his station, so he added with melodramatic emphasis, "I was never contagious!"
I stopped scanning and just looked at him, probably with a dumbfounded expresson.
"I was never contagious," he argued again against my silence.
"Cough!"
"Should I take off this crystal?"
Sheila goes through this every time she comes in for an exam. She slips the quartz crystal and chain off her neck and continues in rapid staccato.
"I’d better take it off for the test. Yes, I'll take it off. It carries a lot of energy, you know. It’s always making computers all over shut down. It sends off this electrical energy. It has the same crystalline structure as DNA, you know. And it’s piezoelectric. Controls my blood pressure. I’d better take it off."
I always receive her crystal with great care (using both hands) and cautiously place it a safe distance across the
room on a towel. I appreciate her sensitivity and concern for my computers and stand in awe at her faith.
Some patients attempt to establish rapport with their physicians by telling jokes:
"Hey, Doc. You know what nine out of ten doctors use for birth control? He
offered this up to our most staid, aristocratic and uncompromisingly aloof
cardiologists.
"Their personalities!"
And some patients actively avoid all rapport with their doctors: Mr. Smith. a rather cranky vet, had his aortic valve swapped out. His surgeon very strongly advised that he take it easy and that he
should not even drive his car. Shortly after his surgery, an echo was ordered. Mr. Smith showed up in
rubber boots and bib overalls scented with fresh loam. He had been rototilling for this year’s corn patch.
He stubbornly insisted he did follow his doctor’s instructions.
"I wasn’t driving my car!" he hissed.
One of my most endearing memories is that of a young Cambodian woman who had recently arrived in this country.
After instructing her to " . . .undress from the waist up, and put this
gown on, open in the back," I left the room. When I returned I found
her laying on the bed, on her back, with her hands over her eyes and completely
naked.
After correcting this misunderstanding , I asked her routinely,"Why did your doctor want you to have this
exam?"
"My doctor," she said shyly, " he hear a song in my heart."
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500
Email: sales@redbudmedical.com
Web address: http://www.redbudmedical.com
Content revised: January 24, 2004