Welcome to the real world

My GP supervisor asked me to go and talk to an elderly lady whose daughter had come in with her.  When I went in there was some confusion because they thought I was a doctor.  I was introducing myself to the elderly lady (who, for the sake of brevity, I will now refer to as "the old lady" or "the mother") and explaining what was going on when she said, "I CAN'T HEAR A WORD YOU'RE SAYING".  Sigh.

The daughter explained that her mum had been having some hearing troubles and also had some short term memory issues.  The old lady could read my lips a bit, but it seemed to me that she didn't really know what was going on.  Either that or she thought I was too youthful and handsome to be a doctor and thus must be some kind of confidence trickster.  Happens to me all the time.

The GP returned and we all became embroiled in a complex conversation with the GP trying to explain some ear-drops to the old lady, me asking the daughter questions about her mother's dementia, the daughter reassuring her mum that the doctor was going to fix her ears, the GP making incidental pedagogical remarks to me, the daughter thinking he was talking to her and getting confused by all the medical language he was using, and the mother shouting out from time to time, "I CAN'T HEAR YOU.  CAN I GO HOME NOW?"

I think I deserved a jelly bean from the lolly-jar after that session but nobody offered.  Perhaps I should have just said, "I CAN'T HEAR YOU.  CAN I GO HOME NOW?"