Medicine isn’t an art or a science
It’s a language.
A tangled web of pheochromocytoma and haemoptysis.
The only difference between this and
Every other language in the world
Is that, in medicine,
The translation can be “platelets of 800,
Swollen lymph nodes in groin”
Hyperglycaemia and glycosuria.
History of infective symptoms
Young in age, family history going back generations
So much behind a single word, diabetes.
Low white blood cells, platelets through the floor.
Aplastic anaemia. Leukaemia.
Differentiate by calculating other risk factors,
Or by taking a bit of bone and reading what is written
through the middle
Like Blackpool rock.
We, the translators. Trying to remember
A thousand words, a thousand languages.
Then put it all into English.
Because at the heart of endocarditis,
And myocardial infarction,
there’s departed, love, dear, fright.
humanity, autonomy, rights.
So many words to understand
But these are the hardest.
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