I was taking a history on a patient, and, in order to receive appropriate compensation from the government, one of the things that doctors are required to ask about (regardless of whether it has any impact on the patient’s condition or care) is a patient’s social history.
“Do you smoke?”
“Nope. Never.”
“Do you drink alcohol?”
“A little … once in a while.”
At that point, the patient’s wife interrupted. “Sam, be truthful now.”
Then to me, the wife says “Doctor, he has two or three drinks every day.”
The patient got irritated and yells “Marge, will you shut up? For Christsakes! I used to spill more than that when I was younger.”
Then I was talking to one of the maxillofacial surgeons about a patient in his 20s with a tooth abscess that had progressed to Ludwig’s Angina. The surgeon was apparently frustrated because he had recently been taking care of multiple patients with the same diagnosis.
“His airway looks good, but he’ll need to be admitted for IV antibiotics.”
“Let me guess, the guy has about 10 teeth left in his mouth.”
“More than that, but they’re not in very good shape.”
“When are people going to learn that we’re not sharks? Our teeth don’t spontaneously regrow! Toothbrushes, people! Toothbrushes!”
“And floss, too.”
“Whatever”
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In keeping with the “Most” theme, this is probably one of the most funny moments I have had at work. I have one other one that I’ll use on another day off when I’m bored and don’t have much to write about. You’ve been warned that this is gross, so read at your own discretion.
One of the nurses with whom I used to work was always giving the docs a hard time. Sometimes it was deserved, sometimes it wasn’t. Either way, it was all in good fun and helped make the ED a fun place to work.
When I first started working there, she used to make a lot of smart-Alec comments towards me. One night a patient came in with a discharge that was presumably a yeast infection. After examining the patient, I asked her whether the lab would do wet mounts and cultures at night. Her reply was “Why – didn’t they teach you what yeast looks like in medical school?” Everybody laughed, thinking she was quite funny. Har harr.
I went back in the lounge to get something to eat out of the refrigerator. Seeing some of the leftovers in the refrigerator, an idea was hatched. I put a small amount of cottage cheese and a little bit of pineapple juice into a specimen container and shook it up really well. Then I put the container into a bag, put a patient label on it, and put it out on the counter.
After a little while I asked the nurse whether or not she was going to send the specimen to the lab. She looked at me and said “what isthat?” I told her it was the discharge from the patient that had left. She asked why we had to send it to the lab if I already discharged the patient. I said “Fine, if you don’t want to send it to the lab, I’ll get rid of it . . .” I then opened the container and tipped it upside down over my mouth, tapped the contents into my mouth, and started chewing.
It was as if someone pulled the drain plug out of her oil pan. Her ruddy complexion turned white and she ran out of the room. Later she said that she went straight to the bathroom and vomicked.
From that night forward, we grew to be good friends.
My wife and I don’t watch TV that much. Maybe the news in the evening and that’s about it.
Our kids, on the other hand, not only watch TV, but they download video clips on their iPods.
Daughter WhiteCoat showed us this excerpt from Family Guy where Peter gets all buzzed up on Red Bull. If the video below gets pulled down, just do a search on YouTube for “Family Guy Red Bull.” I have to admit that it made both my wife and me laugh pretty hard.
The problem was that our daughter was laughing at one part and we couldn’t figure out why it was *that* funny. In the clip, Peter starts milking a cow, then milks the cow too fast and the cow’s udders catch on fire. The cow runs away. A few seconds later, Peter’s son comes running through the screen with his crotch on fire. We were sitting there thinking “Did he just ride the cow and catch on fire, too?” “Did the cow come and attack him?” So we asked Daughter WhiteCoat why she thought it was so funny.
“Umm … because the Red Bull made things catch on fire when you pulled on them too fast … duh!”
Ooooh. OK.
Here I was thinking I had to have the “sex talk” with my daughter and she’s the one schooling me.
As more and more state databases come on line, those “patients” who feign pain seeking narcotic pain medications are finding it more and more difficult to find prescribers willing to oblige them. As a result, the patients are adapting by suffering acute injuries for which they need immediate narcotic pain medications to relieve their suffering.
Reality check: One or two falls is one thing. When you call around to other hospitals and to the physicians listed on the state databases and find that the patient has “fallen” a half dozen times in the past 10 days, it is quite another.
One such unsteady patient was brought by ambulance after falling on the ice. His feet slipped out from under him and he fell flat on his back “like one of those Dudley Doo-Right cartoons.” At least his description was colorful.
When the paramedics arrived on the scene, he gave them a hard time. First mistake. Dropping F-bombs, yelling at them, telling them he was hurt all over and not to move him. Well, they decided to look for injuries in the field, and in doing so cut off his clothing – including his down coat.
When he arrived, it looked like the Incredible Hulk had been attacked by Angry Birds. There was a trail of goose down wafting to the floor as the stretcher was wheeled into a room.
Immediately, the patient began demanding pain medication for his 10 out of 10 pain all over. He stated that he could not move because the pain was so severe. We stated that we needed to assess him for injuries, first. He then threatened to leave the hospital. We told him that was his choice, but he would have to sign out against medical advice. Then he said that his pain was too severe for him to move. He settled on repeatedly demanding that we call the ambulance back to take him to the hospital across town. Sorry, sir, but that isn’t happening.
We dutifully began trying to undress him when then the emergency department tech came into the room and asked with a smirk …
“Who molted?”
That comment must have triggered a release of endorphins from the patient’s pituitary gland. Suddenly he sat up in bed with rage in his eyes.
“F–k YOU!” The patient yelled.
The tech then walked back out of the room and could be heard down the hall asking …
Yet another release of endorphins. The patient was suddenly able to get up off the cart and rip off his cervical collar. Seeing that he was able to spread goose down with each and every movement of his arms, the patient then stormed out of the emergency department cursing, shrugging his shoulders, and flapping his arms as if he were a reincarnation of some extinct dodo bird attempting his virgin flight. I have to admit that I was laughing while watching him walk out the door flapping his arms. You can’t appreciate it without seeing it.
The nursing supervisor happened to witness the patient’s display and his miraculous recovery from whole body pain so severe that he couldn’t move merely minutes before.
She casually turned to one of the nurses at the desk and asked …
Quote #1: Nurse talking on the phone said “Don’t worry, sometimes anal can be a good thing.”
Quote #2: Female tech in room with male patient said “You just put it in the hole and I’ll do the rest. Don’t worry, I’ll hold it there.”
Get your minds out of the gutter.
The nurse was talking to another nurse who called to the emergency department because she couldn’t remember whether the patient received one or two doses of antibiotics before being sent to the floor. The floor nurse was apologizing because she was being so “anal compulsive.”
The tech was holding a urinal for an elderly stroke patient.
Don’t feel bad. Most of the people in the ED were laughing, too.
After I’ve read through my EP Monthly issue a good dozen or so times, there are a couple of other medical magazines I enjoy. Medical Economics is one of them. I especially like the creativeness of the cartoons.
This cartoon about lack of primary care physicians made me laugh – in an ironic kind of way.
Over the police/EMS scanner in the ED we hear the following 911 call:
“I need an available unit to respond to 359 Main Street … 359 Main Street … for a report of a black and white raccoon that won’t come out from beneath a bed.”
I thought the same thing that you’re thinking. Black and white raccoon? Ummmm … does it happen to have really bad smelling farts?
We didn’t hear any more chatter over the scanner about the incident, so we were left wondering. Then a police sergeant happened to come to the ED later that night to take a report from a battery victim and we asked the sergeant about the call.
None of the officers on duty wanted to go on the call because they were thinking the same thing everyone else was thinking, and no one wanted to get sprayed in the face or have to Taser a skunk. Eventually one of them went to the scene and cautiously looked under the bed with his flashlight.
The “raccoon” ended up being an old blanket.
The person making the call was a little old lady in her 70′s. After the officer pulled the blanket from under the bed, she kept telling the officer “I’m not crazy, you know. I’m not crazy.” Sorry, ma’am, but when you have to make that statement more than once, it creates a rebuttable presumption that you are indeed crazy.
Thinking that zebras and raccoons can mate and produce a viable offspring that hides under beds … well … um … you all can be the judges.
A patient came into the hospital after being bitten several times on the hand by a squirrel.
What caused the squirrel to bite her, you ask?
Well it seems that the patient was in the park and saw the squirrel “limping.” So the patient scooped it up in her handbag and brought it home with her so that she could help the squirrel recuperate.
After further examination, the patient apparently thought the squirrel had broken its leg, so she wanted to fix it.
First, she gave the squirrel some Benadryl to sedate it. Never did figure out how she got the squirrel to drink the Benadryl. Maybe poured it into an acorn?
Then she tried to make a splint out of Popsicle sticks to tape to the squirrel’s leg. The squirrel wanted no part of it. The feeling of popsicle sticks being taped to his leg woke him from his slumber and was not appealing to him, so he bit the patient several times on the hand.
At that point, the woman dropped the squirrel and came to the emergency department. Said squirrel probably then limped to the fridge, got a beer and sat down to watch the Cubs lose again.
Frankly, if someone doused my head in Benadryl and then tried to tape a couple of sticks to my legs, I’d bite her, too.
This order was found in her chart.
Probably explains why the white paste in her mouth didn’t grow out fungus, either …
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P.S. For those non-medical readers that don’t get it, Anusol is a suppository that is supposed to be inserted in the rectum. This order is for the patient to get the suppository in her mouth.
Hey All, it’s ERP from ER stories doing a quick guest post.
The myriad of ways that the staff entertains themselves late at night when there is a lull in the action is boundless. In fact, White Coat has blogged about this.
There is the “Obituary Game” made famous on Nurse Jackie but widely known to have been stolen from Nurse K. (reading the Obits and taking bets on who the deceased was and what the cause of death was based on their name)
There was “Cane Ball” which we used to play in the ambulance bay in residency (basically stick ball using a cane and a ball of tape).
Recently, we had a sort of “What would it take” game between some docs and PA’s. Of course it rapidly degenerated into a sexual theme. Sort of “how much would it take for you to sleep with so and so?” or “Would you sleep with so and so, if….?” Basically we found quite a variation in tolerances between us.
It mostly revolved around a fairly revolting surgeon at our hospital who is both unattractive physically, lecherous and creepy, and grossly unethical. What we discovered was that the amount required by the women was a minimum of 500,000 dollars providing he wore a paper bag over his head!
A variation of this was “Would you Rather?” where you have to make a choice between two very unpleasant options – basically the lesser of two evils. Some choices we were given:
Would you rather fracture your penis or your femur? (I chose the femur)
Would you rather get pancreatic cancer or glioblastoma? (I chose GBM)
Would you rather get a chest tube or a DPL with no Lidocaine? (I chose the DPL)
And of course the old classic, Would you rather be beautiful and stupid or brilliant and hideous? Man, that’s a tough one!
Anyone else have any good late night time-killing games?
Then I was talking to one of the maxillofacial surgeons about a patient in his 20s with a tooth abscess that had progressed to Ludwig’s Angina. The surgeon was apparently frustrated because he had recently been taking care of multiple patients with the same diagnosis.
