The Referred Patient

The patients that you will be asked to see in the Accident and Emergency Department will be categorised eventually in accordance with a variety of diagnoses, but almost without exception the reason they are seeking emergency medical attention is because they are in pain, often severe pain. The pain of a ureteric colic, of a bladder stretched to twice its comfortable capacity or of an ischaemic testis is extreme and is usually compounded by apprehension, by fear and by a knowledge that there is nothing that the patient can do about it and that he or she must therefore rely on others.