How many times have you experienced this?
The waiting room is full and a patient comes in, settles down comfortably and says, "I won't take up much of your time today, I see how busy you are. So I wrote down a few questions." Thus spake a healthy 55 year old man as he sat down and pulled out this post-it from his pocket. "La Maladie du Petit Papier," I thought with resignation.
PubMed has only five references to this entity we all know. The first in Italian from 1967. * We each have our own way of handling this. Some docs grab the list from the patient and say, ""Let's have a look at this." Others say, we'll deal with only three today; you choose." I usually let them read all of them and then proceed.
How do you handle this event? A couple of years ago there was a piece in the BMJ comparing the malady of the petit papier with the newly emerging la maladie du grand printout. The latter may be more common in the major cities of North America than elsewhere.
* Iandolo C. [The "petit papier" sign] [Article in Italian]
Policlinico [Prat]. 1967 Mar 6;74(10):321-8.
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