Category Archives: 醫學萬花筒

「醫學萬花筒」 My pain, Doctor

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Dr. Luke Tsang
(A family doctor trained in Australia and Hong Kong)

 Most people go to see a doctor with some symptoms(病徵). When we are traveling in an English speaking country, having pains can be a common reason why we need to see a doctor there. The following might help the doctors understand your problem better and to help you quicker.

 ‘Where’ is the pain(痛楚)?
The pain can be in any part of the body. Point to the place that hurt most, better to use 1-2 fingers. If it is involving an area, use your hand to indicate location. If the pain is not only in one place, point to the areas that are involved in sequence.

 ‘When’ : how long have you felt the pain? Has it changed since it first started?

It can be minutes, hours, days or weeks, or even years ! Use a calendar or a time piece or write down the number and show the doctor. The pain can be there all that time or it may come and go. If it wax and wanes, try to think what can bring the pain and what can reduce it. Is it body posture, food, time of day, events or people ?

 ‘How’ : try to describe the sensation; how it has affected you.

Although pain is a common sensation, it actually is quite individualized. Some would feel that it is ‘ sharp’ (刀割似的痛) ( knife like, flash of lightning); or ‘stabbing’ (戳刺似的痛)( the pain goes deeper into the body); ‘bruising’(撞擊似的痛) (like hit by a fist or a blunt object); or ‘sawing’(拉鋸似的痛) (the pain nags, and changes intensity); or ‘pins and needles’ (many small pins and numbing feeling). Another useful way to describe pain is to try to indicate how strong the pain is. If 0 is no pain, and 10 the worst pain imaginable, try use a number between 0-10 to explain your sensation(感覺). Another important point about your pain is to describe how this sensation has affected your life. Has it reduced your sleep? Does it stop you from doing your daily activities (like talking, walking, sitting, up and down stairs, eating, enjoying your life etc) ?

Pain is a subjective/personal sensation. You are the best person to explain to the attending medical doctor how this sensation is troubling you. The more you can describe the pain, the faster the doctor is able to find the reason(s) for your problem. Therefore the quicker you can be relieved from your pain.

「醫學萬花筒」 “Flora in Medicine”

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Dear Readers,

Nowadays, even though when a layman can search for information of medical “diseases” (疾病) from the internet, many people actually do not know what to do when they experience bodily “symptoms” (病癥) or “signs” (病狀). They are “anxious” (焦慮) whether they should wait and see, or should “seek medical advice” (求診) ASAP (as soon as possible), or what are the “First Aid” (急救) methods that they can help themselves. This is of particular importance to those who are abroad, either as travelers, overseas students or immigrants. Very often they do not know how to express their “symptoms” in English clearly to the doctors at the “consultation room” (診室) or at the “Accident & Emergency Department” (急症室) of the “General Hospitals” (全科醫院).

It is how this new monthly column in English “Flora in Medicine” 「醫學萬花筒」 begins, with the aim of helping an ordinary person to know how to help themselves when they do experience unexpected physical discomfort. When and where to seek help, and how to express themselves to their physicians (doctors) so as to help them make accurate “diagnosis” (斷症), so as to avoid unnecessary anxiety or “investigations” (檢查). We are very fortunate to have a number of experienced Christian doctors who are willing to help and to provide their expertise in “general medical practice” (通科). Nevertheless, they would remain anonymous so as to avoid unnecessary personal publicity. We will concentrate on management of “symptoms” and signs”, and not on particular diseases. Please note that they would just try to provide general good medical advice, with no intention to treat individual patients, who should if needed seek direct help from their “family doctors” (家庭醫生).

This is also our first attempt to write in English, with Chinese translation of all medical terms as far as possible. We pray that this could help our readers when they travel to other countries, that they can express their bodily discomfort better in the universal English language, or to find good medical advice searching through English webpages.

Please feel free to give us some feedbacks so we can improve this column in the future. May God bless all our writers and our readers!

Editor.
January, 2018