Things I never expected to do with my Ph.D.

[rivka]

The phone rang at 10 to 1, just as I was packing up to go over to the clinic for the afternoon shift. It was Stacey, our new graduate student, who was just finishing her first solo shift running subjects.

"Hey, Stacey, how's it going?"

"Pretty good, but, um. There's a guy here for the study, but on his arms he has what looks like open sores."

"Okay. Our policy is that if people have open sores on their arms, they can't do psychophysiology."

"I know. He says they're really old marks that have been there for years, but they look like open sores to me."

"Well, it's your decision, not his. The client might be motivated by the ten dollars, you know?"

"I know. What do you want me to do?"

I sighed. "Tell you what. I'm on my way over to the clinic right now, so why don't you ask him to wait. I'll look at the sores, and then decide."

I spent a fair amount of time fleshing out this story and writing more of it, and then decided that it was frankly just too gross for LJ. And so I'll leave it at this: boy, I'll tell you, the things I never expected to do with my Ph.D...

Comments

[geminigirl]

I would love to know the rest of the story, even if you don't think it's for public LJ consumption.

[orangemike.livejournal.com]

We're sturdy; we can take it, if you can (we're only suffering second-hand, filtered through the medium of your own decency at wit).

[rivka.livejournal.com]

It's not that much of a lurid and exciting story, actually. The fact that I'm the sore inspector is pretty much the central point. Beyond that, the details - what happened that led to us needing an open sore policy, the debate over the actual condition of his arms, et cetera - didn't seem like they added enough value to be worth the gross factor.

[geminigirl]

Yeah, but it's stuff that's kind of interesting to me, as someone whose clients have been similar to yours. It was less the gross out titilation factor than the client curiosity factor for me.

And that's a neat icon.

[aloha-moira.livejournal.com]

I too am curious. I'd think as long as you left it under a cut it would be fine for 'public' consumption.

[meglimir.livejournal.com]

Now I'm curious as to how you handled the situation - did you dissuade him, with or without force, with or without the $10; was he serious or just trying to get away with it for the money or for something else ...?

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

Yes, but why do you guys need a whole policy re: open sores? Is this common among your patients?

I'm trying to think of the last time I saw someone with open sores, and coming up with a big blank.

[gtrout.livejournal.com]

My curiosity for the rest of the narrative, it burns; but I will respect your reticence.

What I really wanna say is that I love the icon. At Burning Man this year I kept bicycling past a little station with a sign that said "Do-It-Yourself Corrective Phrenology." It had a map of the head-bumps and a hammer on a string. Made me laugh every time.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Have you seen Little Miss Sunshine?

"I would just like to mention that I am the pre-eminent Proust scholar of my generation..."

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I'm curious, too. I'm always curious. I like to know things.