Pluggers by Rick McKee for December 01, 2021

Yea back in the day when you called the doctor. And a human would answer the phone.

Not easy with a pandemic going on; you could get a misdiagnosis chicken pox for measles.

Moms always get it done ! Different times just bring out different ways :-)

Don’t forget house calls.

Or… They could have just gotten the child their vaccinations and not had to worry about that.

it means NO school and Coca-cola………

At that time a Plugger knew what red splotches and fever meant. And Stop Scratching.

I suspect many Pluggers wouldn’t be around if there had been HMOs back then.

Not much different today. Except it’s a Zoom meeting and the patients get to see any dogs or cats that want to be in the picture.

And the call was usually to mom.

Today: The nurse tells you, "Give him two children’s aspirin and I’ll make an appointment for two weeks from today.

Many times that first call was to mom.

That actually is considered a telehealth visit. Putting a computer in the loop doesn’t particular help the diagnosis. Even video doesn’t usually have the resolution to be helpful. Telehealth visits are not terribly useful except for elementary triage. In this case, you have to explain the difference between measles and poison oak.

Two kinds of measles (German and 3-day) and smallpox. Smallpox had a 30% mortality rate, so quarantine was taken pretty seriously. I had both kinds of measles and was vaccinated for smallpox.

Back then with me on the right, that meant the measles vaccine hadn’t been invented yet.

Well, if he had been vaccinated…

And the call was made to the little angel’s grandmother.

I did that three times – two varieties of measles and chickenpox. Never fun.