Inevitable...

I farted in the room with a patient today. Those of you in the know probably figured statistically this had happened perhaps several hundred times already. Not so. It seems that just like in grade school when so much social pressure prevented it, the exam room was the same way. Anyway, it just slipped out. I was so taken off guard that I did something now that I feel pretty bad about. I blamed it on the patient's power of attorney who had accompanied him to the visit. This woman was perhaps in her 80s and somewhat hard of hearing (though not nearly as bad as the patient himself) but neither she nor the patient had anything wrong with their sense of smell apparently. Anyway, when the smell became apparent, I asked them both to please step out if they had to pass gas. This caused them to look at one another in an accusing fashion, each probably assuming a young doctor would not have done this. The patient said, "Well it wasn't me," to which his escort replied the same. I, now feeling bad but needing to complete the lie said, "In my experience, it's usually the third person in the room since they're not concentrating." I don't know whether I convinced this woman that she actually had farted but they both dropped it.