Private message to Madam Pomfrey

[alt_sally_anne]

I don't know which adults are going to be there for the CCF training week. I was just wondering if I will see you?

Thanks,
Sally-Anne

Comments

[alt_poppy]

Miss Perks, so nice to hear from you.

Congratulations on your acceptance for the Combined Cadet Force training.

I will not be on staff for that event and have not heard many details of the planning.

I do hope you enjoy the time there and benefit much from the programme.

[alt_sally_anne]

Thank you.

I'm sorry you won't be coming. I had questions about how you'd heal some things. They're things I've seen in the past you see, and I was wondering how hard they are to heal if I run into them again.

The first is if someone has an injury somewhere in their stomach from a fall or a blow, and you don't know what it is. I'm sure you could heal that in a minute but is there anything that could be done with just basic healing charms that might help, at least a little? If it was going to be a while before we could get to help? A lot of the time injuries will get better on their own eventually but I would think if it wasn't getting better on its own that would mean something was really wrong. Hypothetically.

The other is broken bones that won't set properly. If a finger got really badly crushed, say in an accident with equipment, and the bone was staying crooked, would Skele-Gro fix it?

Thank you. No one's hurt at the Stretton's, don't worry, I'm just thinking about how sometimes I've run into muggles here who are injured or sick and it would be very nice if I could help people who need it.

[alt_poppy]

Your interest in hypothetical medical cases is admirable. I'd suggest, if you have time and inclination, that you might find Dillinghurst's Diagnostic Puzzles an interesting read. The cases she describes are sometimes a bit extreme, but they illustrate a great range of circumstances and challenge the budding Healer to think with the sort of logical precision necessary to identify the relevant information whilst eliminating the extraneous in a patient's presentation in order to reach a clear diagnosis for even complex or obscure maladies.

There is, however, a difference between honing one's diagnostic skills and offering to treat people suffering severe injuries or ailments. In the fist case you mention, an internal injury that is not healing on its own requires treatment by a trained Healer. It would be most irresponsible to attempt to treat such a patient, even, I dare say, to alleviate pain because doing so could interfere with diagnosis and treatment when a Healer arrives.

Exception might be made if there is no possibility at all of reaching professional help. In that most dire case, it would do no harm to relieve the sufferer's pain by means of a palliative charm or a pain relieving draught.

Improperly set bones are, again, a matter for specialist care, and Skele-Gro would do harm rather than good (unless you began by removing the bone altogether--which would be irresponsible in the extreme!). There are certain potions one might brew to reduce pain and to encourage the body to slowly absorb any bone fragments that may be contributing to the problem, but this is not magic to be performed by the untrained lay witch or wizard.

I expect that bone setting and fracture care will be among the topics you might address during your August fortnight, but I do not know that for a fact.

[alt_sally_anne]

That sounds like a very interesting book. Thank you for the recommendation.

I am really looking forward to the August training. What worries me a bit is whether the Strettons will ask me to Heal their muggles, when they are sick or injured, once I have a bit of training. I don't want to make someone worse by accident, but I don't want to leave someone suffering who isn't going to get any other sort of care, either.

Perhaps when I get back to school you can talk to me about how trainee healers are supposed to deal with that sort of problem? Where they don't really know how to fix something, and know that a real Healer would, but also know that the patient is not going to see a real Healer? Because surely that happens. And how do you say to someone, 'I'm so sorry but I might make you worse instead of better.' And what do you say if they say afterward, 'I would rather take that risk and have you try.'