This Specialist Is Out For Blood

College & University, Croatia, Hospital, Patients, Pranks, Students | | Healthy | July 4, 2019


A couple of weeks ago, I was working in the cardiology department and the topic of conversation between me, another medical student, and a specialist somehow drifted towards practical exams. The specialist suddenly asked us if we knew how to fail a student. Neither of us knew what she had in mind, so we shook our heads.

Then, she explained.

First, find a patient with LVAD — a mechanical implantable pump that assists the heart with pumping blood in heart failure; due to how the pump works, the patient has no palpatable pulse. And then, you give the student a regular blood-pressure monitor and instruct them to take their pulse and blood pressure.

Those poor students.