LJ Idol - Does this look infected to you?
Jun. 10th, 2013 05:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dezaIt's pretty common knowledge that people come to the public library to ask about everything. I do mean everything. Want to know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie-Pop? Screw the owl; ask a librarian. How many neck vertebrae does a giraffe have? Do these cognac-colored shoes go with camel slacks? When does a movie start three towns over? What's the square root of pi?
Librarians have the answer.
Sadly, it's not uncommon for people to come to the library when they have a medical issue. It wasn't that surprising when one grey-haired lady showed up at the reference desk with an obviously ill little girl in tow. This child was miserable. Her face was flushed, her eyes were red, it was obvious she had been crying and she had this odd rash on her cheeks. The woman marched up to the desk and said "The doctor said my granddaughter has Scarlet fever. Says she needs to be quarantined. I think he's nuts. Does this look like Scarlet fever to you?"
First off, librarians are NOT medical professionals. We may be smart, but years of medical school aren't part of the library master's degree curriculum. Trust me on this one. We'd get paid a lot more.
Secondly, if the doc says a kid has a highly contagious disease, parading said kid through a busy public building full up with other kids probably isn't the best idea. Really.
I did the only thing I could do - gave the woman a CDC printout on Scarlet fever, told her to follow her doctor's advice and asked her not to bring a sick child into the library again. Once she left (in a huff, of course; how dare ANYONE suggest she put the best interest of both the child and the public ahead of her own indignation!), I wiped the desk down with antibacterial solution, let the Branch manager know what had happened, and hoped no one else would catch it.
What would you have done?
This has been my entry for this week's LJ Idol. The topic was "Does this look infected to you?" Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!
Librarians have the answer.
Sadly, it's not uncommon for people to come to the library when they have a medical issue. It wasn't that surprising when one grey-haired lady showed up at the reference desk with an obviously ill little girl in tow. This child was miserable. Her face was flushed, her eyes were red, it was obvious she had been crying and she had this odd rash on her cheeks. The woman marched up to the desk and said "The doctor said my granddaughter has Scarlet fever. Says she needs to be quarantined. I think he's nuts. Does this look like Scarlet fever to you?"
First off, librarians are NOT medical professionals. We may be smart, but years of medical school aren't part of the library master's degree curriculum. Trust me on this one. We'd get paid a lot more.
Secondly, if the doc says a kid has a highly contagious disease, parading said kid through a busy public building full up with other kids probably isn't the best idea. Really.
I did the only thing I could do - gave the woman a CDC printout on Scarlet fever, told her to follow her doctor's advice and asked her not to bring a sick child into the library again. Once she left (in a huff, of course; how dare ANYONE suggest she put the best interest of both the child and the public ahead of her own indignation!), I wiped the desk down with antibacterial solution, let the Branch manager know what had happened, and hoped no one else would catch it.
What would you have done?
This has been my entry for this week's LJ Idol. The topic was "Does this look infected to you?" Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!
