Just occasionally in this job, I manage to reach the parts of a patient that other healthcare professionals just can't reach. And sure enough, this week a gentleman dropped his trousers in front of me.

I knew there was something up when he suddenly began to waddle as he entered the consulting room, and said "I think I'm going to embarrass myself here...". The chap was in his eighties, and for a moment I thought he was about to wet himself, but as I closed the door behind him, he clarified the situation by adding "I think my underpants are falling down", before asking "Do you mind if I adjust them?"

For some reason, despite his use of the word 'underpants', I assumed he was talking about his trousers, which looked a bit baggy and ill-fitting, so I cheerfully replied "That's fine" and stepped back, expecting him to hoik them up over his hips, and sit down.

Instead, he undid his belt and dropped them to the floor. Which might have been ok, were it not for the fact that he was right about the underpants. They were fast approaching his knees.

It was at that precise moment that I decided I had something extremely important to examine on my clipboard. Something which needed my full and undivided attention for... well, for about the same amount of time that he was standing semi-naked in front of me. I must admit, as I stared intently downwards, it did cross my mind that he was some kind of serial flasher, and that his whole intention was to get me to look at him. Something I had no intention of doing. I had visions of the two of us stuck forever in a permanent impasse of nudity: me refusing to look up, and him refusing to get dressed.

But as it turned out, he was just an innocent old man with dodgy pant elastic. Having fiddled with his ill-fitting underwear for thirty seconds, he successfully redressed himself, tightened his belt, and took a seat. I've never been so relieved to start a VA.