Sir.—While working on a pediatrie infectious disease service some years ago, I spent a significant proportion of my workday restarting intravenous needles that my patients, with remarkable ingenuity and incredible anatomic contortions, had managed to pull out. After a particularly frustrating night with 11 such restarts, I came to the somewhat laborious conclusion that the genesis of the problem lay partly with the physician's failure to communicate the medical benefits and therapeutic import of the intravenous infusion. In this regard, I have composed a set of instructions (with apologies to Maki and co-workers1 and others2) that details the pharmacologie merits of the intravenous infusion to even the least informed and most hyperactive patient.
A Needle in a Tay-Sachs (Instructions to a Child)
Push 'em, pinch 'em, move 'em, squeeze 'em;Hide behind the door.Lie real still, but don't call nursey;Let the doctor snore.When at last