werner@aecom.UUCP (Craig Werner) (02/06/86)
This is a true story that happened to a foreign medical student
(well, any non-New Yorker -- actually he was from California but I didn't want
this joke to be construed as an anti-Californian.)
who was assigned to take drug histories from a set of patients in a Bronx
nursing home.
As you probably know, elderly patients are usually on many drugs,
including many in clinical trials, so he didn't think much of it when he
found out that over half his patients were on 'Avatapil.'
He dutifully copied down the information, but then was unable to find
the drug 'Avatapil' in the Physician's Desk Reference, the Merck Index, or
any other reference source.
He finally went to one of the attending physicians, and this story
has been part of the apocrypha ever since.
[And if you haven't gotten the joke already, I'm sure you can imagine how
the student felt.]
--
Craig Werner
!philabs!aecom!werner
"Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died."