Wazza wrote:

> Its true that ptfe fumes can cause problems, a colleague of mine ended up in
> hospital with what the doctors called 'polymer fever', I suppose its their
> way of saying 'lets dumb it down, these poor people won't understand
> anaphylactic shock!
> cheers
> Wazza

I disagree. Lots of laymen toss about "anaphylatic shock" or "had an
allergic reaction and went into shock" but polymer is not a word I hear
tossed about. Anyway, most docs find it difficult to quickly and
smoothly translate their words into laymen's terms, especially in tense
situations, and naturally laspe into medicalese. I got tongue tied just
this week trying to explain that a burn wound was avascular and that
debridement removed the infected dead tissue, not i.v. antibiotics. Of
course, I was being yelled at at the time, and could probably have
recided the preamble to the constitution and the family member wouldn't
have known the difference. Later on she yelled at the other doctor
because the facility the patient was coming from insisted on ambulance
transport, not the family car, like it was our fault they made that
decision.

"a physician is one we pin our hopes on when sick, and our dogs on when
well"...in this case the yeller was well. The sick one was very happy to
see us.
blacksalt