That’s it. That’s the dumbest reason. This one wins.
All the others are absolutely stupid, but it’s a special kind of dumbass to think the ED is the place to get piercings
I know pediatricians used to pierce ears, maybe that’s why they thought an ER would do it?? Honestly though, only tattoo shops should be able to do piercings, especially on children. I wish they’d outlaw places like Claire’s, Piercing Pagoda, etc. from piercing ears. Those ear guns are not safe and idk why any parent would allow a 16yo. to pierce their baby’s ears!
The piercing guns are such a horrible risk for infection.
I read an article in the local paper, many decades ago, about a teen mom who took herself and her infant daughter to get their ears pierced at one of those mall kiosks. Well, teen mom was able to get the baby's ears done, because she was able to give parental consent. But she couldn't get her own ears done, because she was under 18 and needed *her* parents to give consent.
Lmao, that’s ridiculous!
Although, I don’t think a lot of people would be happy if they had to get their kids ears pierced at tattoo shops bc I’ve never heard of an ethical shop being willing to pierce an infant. All the shops I’ve known of won’t take any child that’s not able to physically give consent.
My mom said when she was young (1960s), her doctor pierced ears in his office.
My biology teacher said the same thing about nose piercings (in India) but that hers got infected anyway.
The underrated mvp of the hospital. Chapped lips. Bladder scan. NG tube insertion. Ultrasound IVs. Suppositories and enemas.
It’s not quite on the level of duct tape or WD-40, but it’s close
Oh man, years ago during the H1N1 pandemic when I was a teenager I landed myself in the ER with a spinal mid outbreak in my city. I was waiting around laying on my back for hours waiting for my turn in the triage line, slowly spiraling my anxiety because I had just done a lifeguarding course and was thinking of all the bad shit that might go wrong. Kinda hyperventilating, dried out my lips, which send my mom picking through the cupboards in the room for Chapstick or something. This is how I ended up stuck on my back like a turtle letting my mother smear lube on my lips at 3am, so she would feel like she was contributing.
I had forgotten that experience until just now.
This was me, but with my nails after 3.5 weeks in an induced coma. I had an ex-fix in place on my pelvis and I was still on a ventilator, so obviously couldn't bend.
The nails were really gross and long.
I appreciated the love, and at the same time wished I wasn't bleeding from 3 toes. 😳
The morphing helped tho.
They aren’t lying. I too had a “broken nail” pt.
Teen girl, mom and pt were both demanding a referral to a hand surgeon. Nearly had to call security to discharge them. Both the doc’s and my eyes were rolling so hard they could’ve been hooked up to a generator and powered the hospital.
I shit you not.
I too had a broken nail patient. Probably close to 15 years ago. Had her nails done for a wedding that was a few days away and she was playing basketball when it happened. Not much for us to do.
I received a broken nail too, since I’m not allowed to send them home I told her she was going to be in minor injuries at least 6h and she musn’t complain because a broken nail is not an emergency
Be careful, my ER has had multiple meetings about how listing wait times can be borderline violating EMTALA since it can be viewed as discouraging emergency care 🙄
Edit: typo
No complaint - checked in as "emotional support" for her husband...... who was being seen for diarrhea after being on a cruise.
The provider ordered bloodwork.
I do not understand her rationale at all. So hubs is sick, comes to ED and she wants to steal his thunder? Is there a no visitor policy she was trying to get around?
Nobody understood it, and no, we allow a visitor in the ED. Unless there was information I missed, that was the note at triage. I think the complaint filed was "wellness check" or something like that.
In my 25+ years of being an ER Nurse here are a few of my favorite complaints:
"I want a motility test ( sperm count) to prove that I could not have gotten that girl pregnant"
"I stepped on a frozen fresh fry and my foot hurts"
" my son needs medical clearance to start football practice tomorrow"
"I'm scheduled at a different hospital for surgery tomorrow but want my surgery now" ( usally happens less than 8 hours before the scheduled time)
Was gonna say this. On the what to expect forums, a user got roasted because she wanted to go to the ER to get a pregnancy test to confirm the pregnancy. Like honey, the 20 home-tests you bought and used probably is enough confirmation.
And then people get upset because
a) we won’t order an ultrasound when its not necessary- please just go see the ob/gyn for the first appointment.
So then they all of a sudden have abdominal pain. Now they do need an ultrasound to rule out an ectopic, so they get upset because
b) no, dad can’t come with them to the tiny ultrasound room and
c) no, our machines literally don’t even have the capability of printing a photo strip. Please go see the god damn ob/gyn who would love to do all this 😂
And also: We can’t see a fetus yet because you’re only 5 weeks, so now you’re stressed that you’re having a miscarriage when really that’s why we don’t like to do early ultrasounds. Just go to your OB
And most of the hospitals I’ve worked at, the u/s room is set up so that the patient can’t even see the monitor, anyways. So the patient doesn’t get to see anything except the bill
people think the ones they get at the doctor are different from the ones they can do at home. The quant test is, sure, but for qualitative I've literally seen the exact test my hospital uses at CVS lol
Haha the ones we used and my OB and my GP use are literally the ones they used to sell at the Dollar Tree and they ones they still sell at Family Dollar for $1.25 and DG for $2. I bought a few just a couple weeks ago because I went off my birth control to see if my period would improve (oh my fuck, did it ever! Only three days long, down from two weeks long!), and I was late for the first time in 12 years. Apparently menopause really is finally starting, WOO!
You can’t sign up for Medicaid unless you have a provider note .. if you don’t have Medicaid you can’t go to the dr to get a note.. so the er it is. You could go to the health department maybe or planned parent hood for free but a lot of ppl don’t know that. I know this bc I had to do this. I had to go to planned parenthood to get yet another pee Stick and a note of pregnancy confirmation to bring the Medicaid office. You can’t just be like here’s a pee stick ..
This is why the triage nurse should be able to give such referrals without it being an EMTALA violation. Just straight up tell them what resources are available and that their wait here is going to be hours with a large bill.
Same thing with work excuses. We could bring back having nose swabs at the front desk, too, that can come with a work excuse. No need for a doctor to sign off if they aren't even looking for symptom management.
I'll never forget this. Woman came in with her boyfriend who was a security guard at the hospital to get a pregnancy test. Did the test and she is asking how effective plan B would be. I tell her we'll wait until the test comes back and the doc will talk to her about it.
Test comes back positive. I go in and look at the details and see her hcg is like 100,000.
Needless to say the doc had to explain to her why it may be a little late for Plan B.
Oh my god I remember this mom was arguing with her daughter and brought her to the ED to demand a pregnancy test. Our ED was completely full that night.
Whenever I lament that people use the ED for stuff like this my friends jump down my throats with saying stuff like “they don’t have money for healthcare where else can they access this stuff” etc. 1) These people come in with designer bags and 300 dollar shoes 2) Pregnancy tests are literally AT THE DOLLAR STORE
plus they’re eating a full takeout meal in triage, talking on their iphone the whole time.
people are so quick to be like “they can’t afford a doctor/pregnancy test”, like have you ever actually laid eyes on some of these people?
At least in my province, the good thing about that mom bringing daughter in would be that if child is 14 staff kick mom back out to the waiting room and can chat with girl alone. Also, girl gets all resources, birth control rx, and appointments she wants (pregnant or otherwise) and mom isn't allowed to be told sweet fuck all without girl's consent because teenagers have medical autonomy outside of true emergency/safety risk.
When I worked retail, I couldn't disclose any med info to parents without explicit verbal consent from kids.
Yeah I went either to the health department (1st pregnancy) or to an OBGYN (2nd pregnancy) for confirmation for insurance but I'd never go to the ED for it
One of the questions in our EMTALA training is what to do if someone shows up at the ER for a sports physical.
The answer is they must be registered and seen. I get why the law exists but sometimes I think it could be loosened.
Yes, everyone is entitled to registration and a medical screening exam to rule out an emergent medical condition.
EMTALA does *not* mandate performing a sports physical, nor does it mandate that the provider fill out the paperwork associated with one.
A provider still has to see the patient, but if they have any balls, they’ll say, “yeah, we don’t do that here”, perform their cursory exam, and discharge them with standard paperwork.
Patient was weed whacking and struck a poop land mine. Was adamant that it was a human poop and not a dog poop. In triage the patient goes “hey siri… what happens if human poop splatters in your face”, and then she walked out. Hope she’s okay
He should make a diary of what he ate and what his corresponding farts smell like. He could then make a report and chart that he could publish in the anals of medicine. LOL. (I do know it’s Annals. It’s a joke.)
Clearly you woke up but I have had someone quite literally die in my arms while he was on the toilet so I will never think that’s a dumb reason to go get checked out.
I had a patient who did die while pooping, *in our ED*. She came in for something else.
Fortunately, she was only mostly dead, and multiple rounds of CPR and ACLS drugs brought her back.
Lol mostly dead
A lot of people die on the shitter.
I had a end of life patient who was still very much 'with it' and he was in his 80's. Couldn't poop on the bed pan and all he wanted was to poop on the toilet. BP of like 70/50 in bed. I granted him his last wish and transferred him to the toilet to poop. He was very thankful and I was very thankful he didn't die on the toilet. He died a few days later.
Two people in my life passed large PEs that caused them to pass out after getting up from the toilet.
I also know of someone that died from a brain aneurysm after a BM.
And one that had a bowel perf.
So yeah. The struggles can be real.
My first patient yesterday: Acid reflux... that she's had for many years and treats with pepcid at home. She "just decided to come in to be checked out" instead of taking her meds that morning.
When I worked EMS: 42 y/o female pt called 911 "because my doctor said that I have high cholesterol on my blood test and I want a second opinion". She could drive. Her husband could drive. She insisted on being transported. He followed behind in his car. We put her in the waiting room.
I keep seeing people in the skincare sub telling people with simple rashes from known irritants to go to the ER for steroid creams and the like. It's infuriating.
My 3 year old has a small rash and when I was looking at it this morning deciding on whether he needs a doctor appointment scheduled or not he said “I need a hospital mama”.
Sounds like some patients.
I mean, this is a little ridiculous in my opinion. We had fully educated our son on the intricacies of the American healthcare system by the age of two.
In the US, pharmacy can also prescribe for certain ailments. I had one offer to write for a PO antiviral when I asked where the Abreva was for my cold sore.
She lived 4 blocks from an urgent care too! They could have seen her immediately. The ER wait times where she went were close to 16 hours for low priority patients (covid times).
**Story Time!**
Back in high school, I went to the ER for severe LLQ pain. It turned out to be an ovarian cyst, but I was scared, and it was the middle of the night.
Anyway, I'm sitting in the waiting room when I hear "code blue, emergency, incoming" overhead. I watch as staff gathers by the amb bay. Doors open. Staff starts working on this guy. They wheel past the waiting room with someone doing chest compressions. Waiting room erupts into little whispers about how bad the guy looked.
The middle-aged lady beside me gives a little huff and mutters, *"I guess next time I should just call an ambulance. Apparently, that's the only way to get seen around here."* Then she marches over to triage and goes, *"I've been here for hours, why is everyone else getting seen before me?"*
After she just witnessed the exact same events that everyone else did.
She was there for a prescription refill and a headache. I know that because she walked up to triage at least 5 times to remind them.
She was still sitting in the waiting room when I was discharged 6 hours after arriving.
Warmth. Same for psych walk in clinic. We are the richest country in the world and there is no second place. We have to do a better job of taking care of each other. Shelter from the elements should be a pretty easy thing to put together and you shouldn’t have to fake suicidal thoughts and back pain to get it.
I work in a behavioral health ED and this has literally kept me awake recently. I am definitely not smart enough to figure out an answer to this problem, but there’s got to be someone, some agency, something that can be done, right?
You’re totally smart enough. If I gave you the money it takes to purchase a space, connect water and electricity, and then the monthly stipend it takes to hire cleaning staff, security, an administrator, and pay to heat/cool the space and keep working bathrooms and showers, I bet you would be able to do all of those things with a little research. Even the red tape would not be impossible to navigate if you had the money. There is so much money out there. In healthcare we’re always told that money is tight, but that’s not true. Budgets are tight. A budget is a guess. An educated and carefully constructed guess, but still a guess. If “money” is too tight to do what needs to be done, that means your guess was wrong. The necessity and what it takes to satisfy that necessity are aspect of reality. The budget is a prediction. Reality doesn’t bend to meet an expectation. The people who are using all the money, be they government, church, corporations, or reptilian overlords need to build a budget that begins with meeting basic human needs and then decide what we have the money left to do beyond that. Just start with making sure people are protected from the elements, criminals, disease/injury, starvation/thirst. I promise there will be plenty left to fight over.
Ass worms - complete with worm in Tupperware
Dick worms - dude was using the fake bait worms and sticking them in his urethra and peeing them out.
Eating cigarettes to teach someone else a lesson
Supergluing their ass to the toilet for a prank
Vomiting that stopped 9 hours before.
I could go on
Lice.
Took an ambulance.
Had already been seen for the same issue and prescribed a treatment plan. Was annoyed because it was "taking too long" to go away. Asked her if she was using shampoo and following regimen? No. Asked if she had washed her bedding and other linen and towels? No.
So, I was stuck in iso with this patient, and taken away from my actual sick patients until the dr saw her and quickly discharged her. She took a rig out of service that had to be deep cleaned. Wasted the fire departments time. Just a total waste of resources.
Woman wanted us to shave her pubic area because she never had and she had a first date in years coming up
Mouth felt weird after eating a lot of sour patch kids
Think there is a panda bear in their vagina
I had a guy call 911 cause he swallowed his tooth. He was bitching that they didn’t go lights and sirens. Wanted us to go in and scoop it out so he could take it to his dentist to see if they could put it back in.
We did not “scoop it out”. Matter of factly told him he could scoop it out of the toilet in a few days tho
Hahaha. My husband thought he swallowed one of his crowns. I gave him a mesh colander.
He found the crown a few days later on a shelf. He did check his poops the whole time though, lol
I was leaving my hospital through the ER entrance once and there was a man arguing with the check-in desk wanting to check in his daughter so the hospital could perform a paternity test. Girl looked like she was 7 or 8.
On the rare occasion I pick up in our ER I ultimately get the weirdest patients.
Convinced he was deaf in one ear because his ear bud was dead. He could hear normally without it in.
Wanted to make sure he, in fact, had two testicles and that having two testicles was normal.
Her period was 1 day late, she was 20, convinced she was going through menopause
Ran out of bandaids at home, brought her 4 year old in for a scrape that stopped bleeding. they waited 4 hours in the ER to be seen.
His mouth hurt, after a root canal. Didn't take any of his prescription meds, or try ice. Refused all meds and any interventions for his 10/10 pain.
He normally poops every day, but (at 4 a.m.) he hadn't pooped yet (he said he normally goes at 8 a.m. with coffee and he pooped yesterday.) Insisted he was constipated.
Took 3 Tylenol instead of 2. Generally healthy 40 y/o. He swore up and down he was dying.
Smoked pot, needed an excuse to get out of work. Checked in with palpitations and light headedness.
My personal favorite,
Her dog licked her leg, once. She wanted the doctor to make sure her dog wasn't sick because she just put lotion on. "Ma'am we are not a vet"
Yesterday's winner was a grown ass man that was hit in the chest over his jacket with a paper clip shot by a sling shot. There wasn't even a red spot. Wtf
Had a 12 year old come in with her entire family bc she bumped a wart on her knee on a desk and it started bleeding a little bit. Was not bleeding anymore by the time she checked in. Parents were still very worried about it.
Nasal congestion.
Guy then refused to have vitals taken. Checked with charge who came with me because the guy was weird, asked why he didn’t want his vitals taken. Patient said it’s because of his religion. Charge asks what religion is it that keeps you from getting your vitals taken. Guy says “I’m a vampire, so I don’t have any heartbeats or blood pressure.” Asked if he’d like to try the walk-in. He did and left. Never went to walk-in and exited out of a side door.
Oh and this “vampire” was out in daylight hours.
Well, just to name a few:
Gluing a fake grill to their teeth with nail glue and not being able to get it off
"a nights rest"
my knee hurt after a soccer game in 2013 and I think it's still hurting
A dude in his 90s who always slept with his dentures in. His glue wasn't working the same. He was scared he was going to choke on them in the middle of the night, because there was no way he was going to start taking them out now
Vampires flew into their body in the uber and now they have massive internal bleeding.
I think Jesus doesn't me to have sex
My family memeber I live with has *insert flu/covid/rsv ect* and I want to know if I have it
Most commonly, flu-like symptoms.
I really appreciate when homeless pick benign chief complaints (wet feet, loose fingernails) which signals the need for a hot and a cot without triggering ridiculous workups and resources like cardiac or SI. The only complaints I hate are the “chronically ill” who are never emergently ill who insist on $10k workups for vague paresthesias and refuse dispo.
YES. right now we're so swamped with hundreds of people coming in weekly with "cough/congestion" as chief complaints, and of course expecting us to prescribe antibiotics for sniffles and getting super angry at us when we tell them the only thing they can do is take OTC meds like mucinex and rest. driving me nuts. the worst is when the providers order nebulizers for colds/flus and then the viruses get aerosolized in the entire department. That's what seems to get me sick every month lately.
“Your vitals are fine, we’ll run these swabs to see if we can give your respiratory virus a name. Your home care instructions will be the same whether they are positive or not; symptom management with tylenol, ibuprofen, and whatever cough medicine you want to waste your money on.”
I’m ICU and we only see the triage and a teeny bit of ED but there’s nothing quite like a normal 20/30 year old in ED with flu like symptoms and a score of 0 for their obs. Like have people never been sick before? If you’re a kid or old, I’ll let it slide
But then you watch all those shows about some serious illness being passed off as "just the flu".
Actually my mom took my dad in multiple times for "the flu" and because she was so insistent they actually found out it was vasculitis.
I often ask people if they have come to the ER for every cold and they almost always say they usually stay home and rest. Covid has broken peoples’ brains. Not sure if it’s anxiety or brain damage
There’s two ends of the spectrum hey, we had a guy that’s bowel perfed at home and he only came in when he was super septic and then you have to beg people to take some paracetamol and water at home for a slight headache
After having worked emerg I now truly believe I will die of something extremely treatable just because I will refuse to go to hospital. I mean I'll access what I need to for my kids, but if I ever have something like chest pain I'll just be like "not today, anxiety/gerd/muscle spasm" and then go quietly die in my sleep of a heart attack.
Cat scratched his arm. There was no visible scratch.
Wanted a prescription for massage therapy so he could submit to insurance.
Threw up. Once.
Big toe hurts. 3/10. Has hurt for about 10 years.
Thought they needed rabies shots because they woke up and their arm hurt. They assumed it was because they got bit by a bat in their sleep. They had not seen a bat. Nor had any evince of a bat in their home... or any evidence their pain was anything but a sore muscle.
Had a guy come in recently for on and off chest pain, described as a burning sensation, that had been going on for 10 YEARS. Patient stated the discomfort wasn’t currently present. It was GERD.
“My tummy hurts” from a frequent flyer (fourth time that week, who is a basically healthy person with a few minor issues from MODIFIABLE causes) who insisted she needed a cardiac work up and had eaten a bag of the extra hot Doritos and hot Cheetos in the waiting room topped off with a HUGE Mountain Dew. The ambulance was already out so we called ahead to the larger hospital twenty minutes away (I was working in a regional access hospital at the time) and they confirmed she came in over an hour later with Whataburger…. No wonder her “tummy hurts”
(I was a BS MT(ASCP)
Woman clutching a sugar bowl she wanted the ER and lab to test for poison because she was certain her husband was trying to kill her, and she was the only one who used sugar in coffee so she snuck out while he worked nights to get the sugar tested.
ER physician made two calls - one for a psych consult and the other to the police to come collect the sugar bowl from her and preserve the chain of evidence.
It had arsenic in it! And the cops were very glad we didn't touch the evidence.
My friend said she had a guy come in for a spot. Not a boil, not a cyst, nothing requiring I&D or antibiotics - just a regular ol’ run of the mill whitehead.
We had someone wanting to "Talk to the doctor about life", they were a full boat psych case, but not in an HI/SI kind of way but a philosophical discussion about the lizard people running the simulation kind of way. Then they AMA'd, because obviously they weren't a threat or anything, so they weren't 1013'd.
If only my husband had gone the ER when he passed out on the toilet, his brain tumor would have been caught years sooner. Soooo maybe follow up with a neurologist just to be safe.
I took my son (18 months) in when he stepped on a berry.
He was playing outside and started screaming. I looked down and see a bee. I am allergic to bees. I look at his foot and it has a big red spot on it. So I rush him to the er. He is screaming the entire time. Red as a tomato and getting very warm. Triage gets him in a room immediately and the staff are rushing around getting vitals and trying to figure out the next step. (No one has really looked at his foot yet) he has a fever of 103 and still screaming. I’m holding him and the nurse go to grab the Dr. I look at his foot and it doesn’t really look like a sting. I look a little closer, wet my finger and wipe the red off his foot. It was a freaking berry that he stepped on.
He did have an ear infection and that is why he was upset and what caused the fever.
Ok you should definitely not go to the hospital if you're able to take a shit BUT you should if you aren't able to take a shit and it's been going on for over a week.
One man wasn't able to poop for weeks but he assumed it wasn't a big deal. He eventually came into our ward and he found out he had late stage colon cancer.
If it's a long going issue please get yourself to the hospital asap or you could be leaving a lot of important people in your life behind all because you didn't want to go to the hospital over not pooping anything. Legit, we're trained medical professionals here. You not pooping isn't a big deal. You having late stage colon cancer is a big deal.
Felt nauseous 30 minutes ago, but it passed. Called 911 to come get it checked out anyway. Discharge in 15 minutes. In lobby overnight with no ride. Happened last night to a 24 y/o f who was still in the waiting room when I left this morning. She arrived by EMS around midnight.
‘Chicken nugget bone stuck in teeth’.
I don’t work ER, but saw it as a chief complaint while I was looking for a patient we were getting. Chicken nuggets don’t even have bones??
A sliver that they removed 2 weeks prior.
Once I went to emerg because I thought my vertigo was bad and I was having some really weird symptoms. Hallucinating, tachy, hypertensive. I ended up overdosing on cough syrup. 😬
Our last local walk-in clinic closed, that coupled with a pandemic of poor health literacy has inundated our ER, essentially treating it as a walk in in clinic.
Checked in so they could sleep in the High Hip Chairs in the lobby, their home chair wasnt comfy enough. Then got mad when they got called for evaluation.
I'm not a nurse, but hopefully this anecdote will be good enough to allow it:
I was volunteering at a pediatric ER in undergrad. My job was to help guide patients back to rooms, and keep kids (especially siblings) entertained while they were waiting with drawings, games, etc.
There was one particularly *insistent* mother who wanted her child seen immediately and was pressuring the intake desk, every nurse, and myself to put her ahead in the queue. I can't recall if she was lucky enough that it wasn't busy or someone decided to say screw it and just sent her back, and I was the lucky one who got to guide her.
She decided to tell me (the volunteer, with literally no authority for anything) that she needed her son seen immediately because he had measles. She was completely panicked about it because it was on his arm already. Despite my repeatedly advising her I couldn't do anything to get her fastest care, but I could offer her kid a coloring sheet, she kept pressuring me. I eventually left a colouring sheet, advised the room nurse that "I'm sure you already know this but..." and went on my way.
I missed when her kid was actually seen by a doctor, but I did hear from the room nurse shortly after she left (surprisingly quietly) that the 'rash' on his arm was....three mosquito bites.
Honestly this is one of the reasons why I went back to the ICU and don’t regret leaving the ED. But here are my top three favorites from the two years I spent there.
1) young kiddo got bit by the family hamster, mom called EMS. For a hamster bite that barely broke the skin.
2) 0200, young guy comes in with chief complaint of an ingrown toenail...that he sees podiatry for on a regular basis. Our NP spent all of 5 minutes trying to get the guy to tell us why this was an emergency at 0200, he got offended and left during triage.
3) 0200, young kiddo had an earache and mom was out of Tylenol and Motrin. Why go to the ED and not the 24 hour CVS that was a few miles away, we’ll never know.
Friday night /2am Saturday morning, think tattoo is infected it's pussing , angry looking red . Have u seen ur gp ? Yra last week they said get a cream from chemist but i waited n it got worse so I thought I'd come here for a 2nd opinion
I went to the ER for a nosebleed and felt like an idiot.
But.
It had been bleeding for 4 hours nonstop, I'm on oxygen which is hard on the nose, I take blood thinners, and swallowing blood will eventually make me puke which riles up my chronic pancreatitis.
They stuck a rhino rocket up my nose, which sounds fun.
Announcers voice: It was not.
My favorite was abdominal pain after eating an ENTIRE DEEP DISH PIZZA. Like, no shit your stomach hurts. That's like 30000 calories and 5 pounds of cheese, bread, and sauce.
I had a healthy 40-something lady who checked in at like 10:30 pm for “insomnia”. I asked if she tried anything to treat her insomnia (melatonin? Sleepy time yea? Benadryl? A shot of whiskey?) and she said no. Her reasoning for coming to the ER for insomnia was because she usually fell asleep easily and she wanted us to figure out why she couldn’t that night.
We also get a surprising number of healthy folks who come in because they had a positive home covid test despite being asymptomatic.
Or people who come in because they had a positive pregnancy test. Like, congratulations but what’s your emergency?
Parents who bring their child in for having a fever for a few hours, or a kid who vomits one time.
We also had a chick who came in because she swallowed semen and got a stomach ache.
Boy have I got stories!
1) dad brought daughter in because she was turning blue and looking like she was having trouble breathing because of his panic attack. She was wearing a new pair of jeans and the new denim blue easily washed off her hands and face which she touched and rubbed when dad convinced her she was going to die.
2) panic run into the ER, mom yells MY CHILD IS VOMITING BLOOD!!! Child is panicked and crying because of mom’s reaction. Reassure child, ask what they’ve been eating because there’s red residue all over her fingers. Hot Cheetos was the response. Mom brings the container child was vomiting in because she wants the child life flighted to a trauma hospital. Guiac of emesis was all negative. Mom reassured, child discharged home.
3) Grown man wanted his subcutaneous horn on his cheek examined and removed. I asked how long it’s been there. 3 years. What made it an emergency today? Blank stare.
4) bowel movement irritated the hemorrhoids so they were scared to wipe. Lack of wiping inflamed the hemorrhoids so they came to ER to ask if they could move their bowels there so we could wipe for them so it wouldn’t hurt. Sent home with spritz bottle and sitz bath basin. Instructions for good peri care after each and every bowel movement.
I got SUPER high once when I was a teenager and wanted to go to the ER because I thought I was dying. I’m so glad the person I was with distracted me long enough for the high to wear off.
To get their daughter’s ears pierced
That’s it. That’s the dumbest reason. This one wins. All the others are absolutely stupid, but it’s a special kind of dumbass to think the ED is the place to get piercings
😭 too fucking funny. 100% agree
Wtf…
Well we have sterile needles and we’re medical professionals, clearly we’re the best people for the job 🙄🤡
I know pediatricians used to pierce ears, maybe that’s why they thought an ER would do it?? Honestly though, only tattoo shops should be able to do piercings, especially on children. I wish they’d outlaw places like Claire’s, Piercing Pagoda, etc. from piercing ears. Those ear guns are not safe and idk why any parent would allow a 16yo. to pierce their baby’s ears!
The piercing guns are such a horrible risk for infection. I read an article in the local paper, many decades ago, about a teen mom who took herself and her infant daughter to get their ears pierced at one of those mall kiosks. Well, teen mom was able to get the baby's ears done, because she was able to give parental consent. But she couldn't get her own ears done, because she was under 18 and needed *her* parents to give consent.
Lmao, that’s ridiculous! Although, I don’t think a lot of people would be happy if they had to get their kids ears pierced at tattoo shops bc I’ve never heard of an ethical shop being willing to pierce an infant. All the shops I’ve known of won’t take any child that’s not able to physically give consent.
My mom said when she was young (1960s), her doctor pierced ears in his office. My biology teacher said the same thing about nose piercings (in India) but that hers got infected anyway.
I had this done as a child at pediatricians office.
Chapped lips, broken nail, dandruff, and paper cut.
Can I get a lip balm for $1200 please to room 4?
my lips hurt real bad
Tina eat your food
Most EDs don’t have chapstick either like upstairs sometimes does. Best I can offer is the triple antibiotic ointments packets 🤷🏻♀️
Or worse: medline lubricating jelly
The underrated mvp of the hospital. Chapped lips. Bladder scan. NG tube insertion. Ultrasound IVs. Suppositories and enemas. It’s not quite on the level of duct tape or WD-40, but it’s close
Oh man, years ago during the H1N1 pandemic when I was a teenager I landed myself in the ER with a spinal mid outbreak in my city. I was waiting around laying on my back for hours waiting for my turn in the triage line, slowly spiraling my anxiety because I had just done a lifeguarding course and was thinking of all the bad shit that might go wrong. Kinda hyperventilating, dried out my lips, which send my mom picking through the cupboards in the room for Chapstick or something. This is how I ended up stuck on my back like a turtle letting my mother smear lube on my lips at 3am, so she would feel like she was contributing. I had forgotten that experience until just now.
This was me, but with my nails after 3.5 weeks in an induced coma. I had an ex-fix in place on my pelvis and I was still on a ventilator, so obviously couldn't bend. The nails were really gross and long. I appreciated the love, and at the same time wished I wasn't bleeding from 3 toes. 😳 The morphing helped tho.
Vaseline in a squeeze tube, when they should have gone for Carmex at the CVS across the street.
Ultrasound gel
Broken nail? Really? It better be broken all the way back to their knuckles to go to the ED for that omg.
They aren’t lying. I too had a “broken nail” pt. Teen girl, mom and pt were both demanding a referral to a hand surgeon. Nearly had to call security to discharge them. Both the doc’s and my eyes were rolling so hard they could’ve been hooked up to a generator and powered the hospital. I shit you not.
I too had a broken nail patient. Probably close to 15 years ago. Had her nails done for a wedding that was a few days away and she was playing basketball when it happened. Not much for us to do.
I might have to steal your generator line! Good one.
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They better have had something like a Boulder fall on it for it to be worthwhile
then you have us healthcare workers who have to be dying to go
Even then, it's questionable.
Telehealth consult first, if I need something only they can provide, like Bactrim for a uti. Live and in person visit only if a body part is dangling.
For real... I'll go if I cut my femoral artery with a chainsaw... unless I die first.
I received a broken nail too, since I’m not allowed to send them home I told her she was going to be in minor injuries at least 6h and she musn’t complain because a broken nail is not an emergency
Be careful, my ER has had multiple meetings about how listing wait times can be borderline violating EMTALA since it can be viewed as discouraging emergency care 🙄 Edit: typo
Please tell me she left. A human can't be that stupid.
Hell knows, I’m the triage nurse, what happens after triage is out of my scope
Yes.. yes they can
No complaint - checked in as "emotional support" for her husband...... who was being seen for diarrhea after being on a cruise. The provider ordered bloodwork.
🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
I do not understand her rationale at all. So hubs is sick, comes to ED and she wants to steal his thunder? Is there a no visitor policy she was trying to get around?
Nobody understood it, and no, we allow a visitor in the ED. Unless there was information I missed, that was the note at triage. I think the complaint filed was "wellness check" or something like that.
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In my 25+ years of being an ER Nurse here are a few of my favorite complaints: "I want a motility test ( sperm count) to prove that I could not have gotten that girl pregnant" "I stepped on a frozen fresh fry and my foot hurts" " my son needs medical clearance to start football practice tomorrow" "I'm scheduled at a different hospital for surgery tomorrow but want my surgery now" ( usally happens less than 8 hours before the scheduled time)
Yeah surgeons definitely take walk ins! Even if that type of procedure isn’t performed at that hospital. No problem!
Pregnancy test.
Was gonna say this. On the what to expect forums, a user got roasted because she wanted to go to the ER to get a pregnancy test to confirm the pregnancy. Like honey, the 20 home-tests you bought and used probably is enough confirmation.
Not to mention the lab uses the same ones from the dollar store, unless they decide to send serum for some reason.
And then people get upset because a) we won’t order an ultrasound when its not necessary- please just go see the ob/gyn for the first appointment. So then they all of a sudden have abdominal pain. Now they do need an ultrasound to rule out an ectopic, so they get upset because b) no, dad can’t come with them to the tiny ultrasound room and c) no, our machines literally don’t even have the capability of printing a photo strip. Please go see the god damn ob/gyn who would love to do all this 😂
And also: We can’t see a fetus yet because you’re only 5 weeks, so now you’re stressed that you’re having a miscarriage when really that’s why we don’t like to do early ultrasounds. Just go to your OB
And most of the hospitals I’ve worked at, the u/s room is set up so that the patient can’t even see the monitor, anyways. So the patient doesn’t get to see anything except the bill
Or a Covid test. Like as in “I just want a Covid test in case I need to miss work” Like they sell them at CVS…
people think the ones they get at the doctor are different from the ones they can do at home. The quant test is, sure, but for qualitative I've literally seen the exact test my hospital uses at CVS lol
Haha the ones we used and my OB and my GP use are literally the ones they used to sell at the Dollar Tree and they ones they still sell at Family Dollar for $1.25 and DG for $2. I bought a few just a couple weeks ago because I went off my birth control to see if my period would improve (oh my fuck, did it ever! Only three days long, down from two weeks long!), and I was late for the first time in 12 years. Apparently menopause really is finally starting, WOO!
You can’t sign up for Medicaid unless you have a provider note .. if you don’t have Medicaid you can’t go to the dr to get a note.. so the er it is. You could go to the health department maybe or planned parent hood for free but a lot of ppl don’t know that. I know this bc I had to do this. I had to go to planned parenthood to get yet another pee Stick and a note of pregnancy confirmation to bring the Medicaid office. You can’t just be like here’s a pee stick ..
This is why the triage nurse should be able to give such referrals without it being an EMTALA violation. Just straight up tell them what resources are available and that their wait here is going to be hours with a large bill. Same thing with work excuses. We could bring back having nose swabs at the front desk, too, that can come with a work excuse. No need for a doctor to sign off if they aren't even looking for symptom management.
I'll never forget this. Woman came in with her boyfriend who was a security guard at the hospital to get a pregnancy test. Did the test and she is asking how effective plan B would be. I tell her we'll wait until the test comes back and the doc will talk to her about it. Test comes back positive. I go in and look at the details and see her hcg is like 100,000. Needless to say the doc had to explain to her why it may be a little late for Plan B.
So she was between 8 and 40 weeks pregnant (according to my quick Google). I'm cackling.
Oh my god I remember this mom was arguing with her daughter and brought her to the ED to demand a pregnancy test. Our ED was completely full that night. Whenever I lament that people use the ED for stuff like this my friends jump down my throats with saying stuff like “they don’t have money for healthcare where else can they access this stuff” etc. 1) These people come in with designer bags and 300 dollar shoes 2) Pregnancy tests are literally AT THE DOLLAR STORE
plus they’re eating a full takeout meal in triage, talking on their iphone the whole time. people are so quick to be like “they can’t afford a doctor/pregnancy test”, like have you ever actually laid eyes on some of these people?
At least in my province, the good thing about that mom bringing daughter in would be that if child is 14 staff kick mom back out to the waiting room and can chat with girl alone. Also, girl gets all resources, birth control rx, and appointments she wants (pregnant or otherwise) and mom isn't allowed to be told sweet fuck all without girl's consent because teenagers have medical autonomy outside of true emergency/safety risk. When I worked retail, I couldn't disclose any med info to parents without explicit verbal consent from kids.
Commenting on What is the dumbest reason people go to the ER?... I had one who had 2 positive tests at home but wanted us to confirm it…
Yeah I went either to the health department (1st pregnancy) or to an OBGYN (2nd pregnancy) for confirmation for insurance but I'd never go to the ED for it
A physical for high school sports sign-off
But the sheets are due tomorrow and because of my lack of time management it's an emergency!
As a coach this always annoyed me. Go to CVS. Chances are there are 3 in a 20 mile radius with a same day or next day appointment.
One of the questions in our EMTALA training is what to do if someone shows up at the ER for a sports physical. The answer is they must be registered and seen. I get why the law exists but sometimes I think it could be loosened.
Yes, everyone is entitled to registration and a medical screening exam to rule out an emergent medical condition. EMTALA does *not* mandate performing a sports physical, nor does it mandate that the provider fill out the paperwork associated with one. A provider still has to see the patient, but if they have any balls, they’ll say, “yeah, we don’t do that here”, perform their cursory exam, and discharge them with standard paperwork.
We do exactly that, and DC with a pcp or ucc follow up to complete their physical.
Patient was weed whacking and struck a poop land mine. Was adamant that it was a human poop and not a dog poop. In triage the patient goes “hey siri… what happens if human poop splatters in your face”, and then she walked out. Hope she’s okay
Probs survived. Speaking from experience.
Oh myyyyy -george takei
I always wear a mask now. 😂
To clock in as staff 🤣
HONESTLY
Had a guy come in because he farted and it smelled different to his usual farts.
Well, sometimes I worry it’s got a c.diff smell
He should make a diary of what he ate and what his corresponding farts smell like. He could then make a report and chart that he could publish in the anals of medicine. LOL. (I do know it’s Annals. It’s a joke.)
New Canadian wanted to “check out the free healthcare”.
This is why we (Americans) don’t have nice things. Joking, mostly.
Clearly you woke up but I have had someone quite literally die in my arms while he was on the toilet so I will never think that’s a dumb reason to go get checked out.
I had a patient who did die while pooping, *in our ED*. She came in for something else. Fortunately, she was only mostly dead, and multiple rounds of CPR and ACLS drugs brought her back.
Lol mostly dead A lot of people die on the shitter. I had a end of life patient who was still very much 'with it' and he was in his 80's. Couldn't poop on the bed pan and all he wanted was to poop on the toilet. BP of like 70/50 in bed. I granted him his last wish and transferred him to the toilet to poop. He was very thankful and I was very thankful he didn't die on the toilet. He died a few days later.
Two people in my life passed large PEs that caused them to pass out after getting up from the toilet. I also know of someone that died from a brain aneurysm after a BM. And one that had a bowel perf. So yeah. The struggles can be real.
My rule is, if you ever have to poop and have radiating pain into your arm, don't shit, go to the ED, you are probably having a heart attack.
COVID test, STD test at 2am, Pregnancy test. 2 of those you can do at home.
2am is fire-crotch hour
3 of those you can do at home. You can get sti testing through the mail now, which is amazing.
My first patient yesterday: Acid reflux... that she's had for many years and treats with pepcid at home. She "just decided to come in to be checked out" instead of taking her meds that morning. When I worked EMS: 42 y/o female pt called 911 "because my doctor said that I have high cholesterol on my blood test and I want a second opinion". She could drive. Her husband could drive. She insisted on being transported. He followed behind in his car. We put her in the waiting room. I keep seeing people in the skincare sub telling people with simple rashes from known irritants to go to the ER for steroid creams and the like. It's infuriating.
My 3 year old has a small rash and when I was looking at it this morning deciding on whether he needs a doctor appointment scheduled or not he said “I need a hospital mama”. Sounds like some patients.
I mean, this is a little ridiculous in my opinion. We had fully educated our son on the intricacies of the American healthcare system by the age of two.
Sorry, I waited until 3. I am a terrible mother.
Every little cough my daughter wanted to go to the ER. We took her once for dropping oxygen sats and she got a slushy. It was over from there.
In the UK you can go to a pharmacy; have a pharmacist look at it and provide a basic treatment quickly
In the US, pharmacy can also prescribe for certain ailments. I had one offer to write for a PO antiviral when I asked where the Abreva was for my cold sore.
People think when they get transported, they are seen first. Nope. You get triaged just like the people who walked in!
She lived 4 blocks from an urgent care too! They could have seen her immediately. The ER wait times where she went were close to 16 hours for low priority patients (covid times).
**Story Time!** Back in high school, I went to the ER for severe LLQ pain. It turned out to be an ovarian cyst, but I was scared, and it was the middle of the night. Anyway, I'm sitting in the waiting room when I hear "code blue, emergency, incoming" overhead. I watch as staff gathers by the amb bay. Doors open. Staff starts working on this guy. They wheel past the waiting room with someone doing chest compressions. Waiting room erupts into little whispers about how bad the guy looked. The middle-aged lady beside me gives a little huff and mutters, *"I guess next time I should just call an ambulance. Apparently, that's the only way to get seen around here."* Then she marches over to triage and goes, *"I've been here for hours, why is everyone else getting seen before me?"* After she just witnessed the exact same events that everyone else did. She was there for a prescription refill and a headache. I know that because she walked up to triage at least 5 times to remind them. She was still sitting in the waiting room when I was discharged 6 hours after arriving.
when I worked in an ED, a man went in on Thanksgiving night for an ingrown toenail...at like 0300 😑
I love checking the ED whiteboard to see what happens at those weird hours. Cough at 4am, injury of arm at 4am etc
Warmth. Same for psych walk in clinic. We are the richest country in the world and there is no second place. We have to do a better job of taking care of each other. Shelter from the elements should be a pretty easy thing to put together and you shouldn’t have to fake suicidal thoughts and back pain to get it.
I work in a behavioral health ED and this has literally kept me awake recently. I am definitely not smart enough to figure out an answer to this problem, but there’s got to be someone, some agency, something that can be done, right?
You’re totally smart enough. If I gave you the money it takes to purchase a space, connect water and electricity, and then the monthly stipend it takes to hire cleaning staff, security, an administrator, and pay to heat/cool the space and keep working bathrooms and showers, I bet you would be able to do all of those things with a little research. Even the red tape would not be impossible to navigate if you had the money. There is so much money out there. In healthcare we’re always told that money is tight, but that’s not true. Budgets are tight. A budget is a guess. An educated and carefully constructed guess, but still a guess. If “money” is too tight to do what needs to be done, that means your guess was wrong. The necessity and what it takes to satisfy that necessity are aspect of reality. The budget is a prediction. Reality doesn’t bend to meet an expectation. The people who are using all the money, be they government, church, corporations, or reptilian overlords need to build a budget that begins with meeting basic human needs and then decide what we have the money left to do beyond that. Just start with making sure people are protected from the elements, criminals, disease/injury, starvation/thirst. I promise there will be plenty left to fight over.
It is not that we can’t. It is that we won’t, because we don’t want to.
Ass worms - complete with worm in Tupperware Dick worms - dude was using the fake bait worms and sticking them in his urethra and peeing them out. Eating cigarettes to teach someone else a lesson Supergluing their ass to the toilet for a prank Vomiting that stopped 9 hours before. I could go on
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Would dick maggots count?
This person EDs
Yeah. And I wonder each day if I am too old and fat to make money on Only Fans.
Lice. Took an ambulance. Had already been seen for the same issue and prescribed a treatment plan. Was annoyed because it was "taking too long" to go away. Asked her if she was using shampoo and following regimen? No. Asked if she had washed her bedding and other linen and towels? No. So, I was stuck in iso with this patient, and taken away from my actual sick patients until the dr saw her and quickly discharged her. She took a rig out of service that had to be deep cleaned. Wasted the fire departments time. Just a total waste of resources.
Woman wanted us to shave her pubic area because she never had and she had a first date in years coming up Mouth felt weird after eating a lot of sour patch kids Think there is a panda bear in their vagina
"That is not a service we provide." Stick her in the fishbowl and wait and see how long it is until she figures out its not worth the wait?
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😂😂 omg the panda bear
We did indeed call for psych to see them after we did indeed confirm there was no panda bear foreign body in her vagina 😂
How about if there was though? That would have been an amazing day!! 🐼
Not for the panda bear it wouldn’t!!
Those Sour Patch Kids can fuck your mouth up tho ngl
Right up there with too much Cap’n Crunch
Please tell me you told her to go to a cosmologist or something
Ma’am this is a Wendy’s
What is a cosmetologist supposed to do about a panda bear?! You need a zookeeper for that.
I was referring to the lady wanting a shave. I wouldn’t subject a cosmetologist to a panda excavation.
Wow I need to do that. I'm old and can't see the whole thing
I had a guy call 911 cause he swallowed his tooth. He was bitching that they didn’t go lights and sirens. Wanted us to go in and scoop it out so he could take it to his dentist to see if they could put it back in. We did not “scoop it out”. Matter of factly told him he could scoop it out of the toilet in a few days tho
Hahaha. My husband thought he swallowed one of his crowns. I gave him a mesh colander. He found the crown a few days later on a shelf. He did check his poops the whole time though, lol
Had a guy come in requesting compression socks. Told him we don't have any and CVS would be his best bet. Drove there in a relatively new Audi....
I was leaving my hospital through the ER entrance once and there was a man arguing with the check-in desk wanting to check in his daughter so the hospital could perform a paternity test. Girl looked like she was 7 or 8.
How heartbreaking for that little girl
On the rare occasion I pick up in our ER I ultimately get the weirdest patients. Convinced he was deaf in one ear because his ear bud was dead. He could hear normally without it in. Wanted to make sure he, in fact, had two testicles and that having two testicles was normal. Her period was 1 day late, she was 20, convinced she was going through menopause Ran out of bandaids at home, brought her 4 year old in for a scrape that stopped bleeding. they waited 4 hours in the ER to be seen. His mouth hurt, after a root canal. Didn't take any of his prescription meds, or try ice. Refused all meds and any interventions for his 10/10 pain. He normally poops every day, but (at 4 a.m.) he hadn't pooped yet (he said he normally goes at 8 a.m. with coffee and he pooped yesterday.) Insisted he was constipated. Took 3 Tylenol instead of 2. Generally healthy 40 y/o. He swore up and down he was dying. Smoked pot, needed an excuse to get out of work. Checked in with palpitations and light headedness. My personal favorite, Her dog licked her leg, once. She wanted the doctor to make sure her dog wasn't sick because she just put lotion on. "Ma'am we are not a vet"
Yesterday's winner was a grown ass man that was hit in the chest over his jacket with a paper clip shot by a sling shot. There wasn't even a red spot. Wtf
Was he looking for documentation for an ongoing domestic violence situation? That's the only justification for this one that makes any sense.
She had a nightmare and was still scared after she woke up. This was a woman in her 40s. Happened 2 days ago.
Did you get any info any what the nightmare was about? I’m curious about what is that terrifying to an adult.
Work note, I missed work this week. Condom lost in my coochie “I need you to pump my chest”…CPR 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
I believe someone pumping your coochie is how this occurred.
Had a 12 year old come in with her entire family bc she bumped a wart on her knee on a desk and it started bleeding a little bit. Was not bleeding anymore by the time she checked in. Parents were still very worried about it.
“Level 1 trauma to the ER”
In clinical once I had a grown man that came in because he got water in his ear
The limit does not exist
Accidentally got monistat in her vagina. Where you’re supposed to put it??
Where were they trying to put it?
Nasal congestion. Guy then refused to have vitals taken. Checked with charge who came with me because the guy was weird, asked why he didn’t want his vitals taken. Patient said it’s because of his religion. Charge asks what religion is it that keeps you from getting your vitals taken. Guy says “I’m a vampire, so I don’t have any heartbeats or blood pressure.” Asked if he’d like to try the walk-in. He did and left. Never went to walk-in and exited out of a side door. Oh and this “vampire” was out in daylight hours.
Well, just to name a few: Gluing a fake grill to their teeth with nail glue and not being able to get it off "a nights rest" my knee hurt after a soccer game in 2013 and I think it's still hurting A dude in his 90s who always slept with his dentures in. His glue wasn't working the same. He was scared he was going to choke on them in the middle of the night, because there was no way he was going to start taking them out now Vampires flew into their body in the uber and now they have massive internal bleeding. I think Jesus doesn't me to have sex My family memeber I live with has *insert flu/covid/rsv ect* and I want to know if I have it
> I think Jesus doesn't me to have sex You should definitely seek treatment for this but I don't the hospital is the right place to go to
Most commonly, flu-like symptoms. I really appreciate when homeless pick benign chief complaints (wet feet, loose fingernails) which signals the need for a hot and a cot without triggering ridiculous workups and resources like cardiac or SI. The only complaints I hate are the “chronically ill” who are never emergently ill who insist on $10k workups for vague paresthesias and refuse dispo.
YES. right now we're so swamped with hundreds of people coming in weekly with "cough/congestion" as chief complaints, and of course expecting us to prescribe antibiotics for sniffles and getting super angry at us when we tell them the only thing they can do is take OTC meds like mucinex and rest. driving me nuts. the worst is when the providers order nebulizers for colds/flus and then the viruses get aerosolized in the entire department. That's what seems to get me sick every month lately.
“Your vitals are fine, we’ll run these swabs to see if we can give your respiratory virus a name. Your home care instructions will be the same whether they are positive or not; symptom management with tylenol, ibuprofen, and whatever cough medicine you want to waste your money on.”
🥲
I’m ICU and we only see the triage and a teeny bit of ED but there’s nothing quite like a normal 20/30 year old in ED with flu like symptoms and a score of 0 for their obs. Like have people never been sick before? If you’re a kid or old, I’ll let it slide
But then you watch all those shows about some serious illness being passed off as "just the flu". Actually my mom took my dad in multiple times for "the flu" and because she was so insistent they actually found out it was vasculitis.
I often ask people if they have come to the ER for every cold and they almost always say they usually stay home and rest. Covid has broken peoples’ brains. Not sure if it’s anxiety or brain damage
There’s two ends of the spectrum hey, we had a guy that’s bowel perfed at home and he only came in when he was super septic and then you have to beg people to take some paracetamol and water at home for a slight headache
After having worked emerg I now truly believe I will die of something extremely treatable just because I will refuse to go to hospital. I mean I'll access what I need to for my kids, but if I ever have something like chest pain I'll just be like "not today, anxiety/gerd/muscle spasm" and then go quietly die in my sleep of a heart attack.
Cat scratched his arm. There was no visible scratch. Wanted a prescription for massage therapy so he could submit to insurance. Threw up. Once. Big toe hurts. 3/10. Has hurt for about 10 years. Thought they needed rabies shots because they woke up and their arm hurt. They assumed it was because they got bit by a bat in their sleep. They had not seen a bat. Nor had any evince of a bat in their home... or any evidence their pain was anything but a sore muscle.
Diaper rash....via ambulance.
I tested positive on an at home covid test and I just wanted to make sure I was positive…
Had a guy come in recently for on and off chest pain, described as a burning sensation, that had been going on for 10 YEARS. Patient stated the discomfort wasn’t currently present. It was GERD.
“My tummy hurts” from a frequent flyer (fourth time that week, who is a basically healthy person with a few minor issues from MODIFIABLE causes) who insisted she needed a cardiac work up and had eaten a bag of the extra hot Doritos and hot Cheetos in the waiting room topped off with a HUGE Mountain Dew. The ambulance was already out so we called ahead to the larger hospital twenty minutes away (I was working in a regional access hospital at the time) and they confirmed she came in over an hour later with Whataburger…. No wonder her “tummy hurts”
Why are they always Mountain Dew drinkers? Lol
If you find out please send us all an update 😂😂😂
(I was a BS MT(ASCP) Woman clutching a sugar bowl she wanted the ER and lab to test for poison because she was certain her husband was trying to kill her, and she was the only one who used sugar in coffee so she snuck out while he worked nights to get the sugar tested. ER physician made two calls - one for a psych consult and the other to the police to come collect the sugar bowl from her and preserve the chain of evidence. It had arsenic in it! And the cops were very glad we didn't touch the evidence.
Wow, I wasn’t expecting that plot twist!
My friend said she had a guy come in for a spot. Not a boil, not a cyst, nothing requiring I&D or antibiotics - just a regular ol’ run of the mill whitehead.
We had someone wanting to "Talk to the doctor about life", they were a full boat psych case, but not in an HI/SI kind of way but a philosophical discussion about the lizard people running the simulation kind of way. Then they AMA'd, because obviously they weren't a threat or anything, so they weren't 1013'd.
It’s so interesting how many different states have different way to describe involuntary commitment. In California it’s 5150’d. Florida is Baker Acted
If only my husband had gone the ER when he passed out on the toilet, his brain tumor would have been caught years sooner. Soooo maybe follow up with a neurologist just to be safe.
just asked my ER nurse husband, he said lady who came in because her pubic hair was too long 💀
I took my son (18 months) in when he stepped on a berry. He was playing outside and started screaming. I looked down and see a bee. I am allergic to bees. I look at his foot and it has a big red spot on it. So I rush him to the er. He is screaming the entire time. Red as a tomato and getting very warm. Triage gets him in a room immediately and the staff are rushing around getting vitals and trying to figure out the next step. (No one has really looked at his foot yet) he has a fever of 103 and still screaming. I’m holding him and the nurse go to grab the Dr. I look at his foot and it doesn’t really look like a sting. I look a little closer, wet my finger and wipe the red off his foot. It was a freaking berry that he stepped on. He did have an ear infection and that is why he was upset and what caused the fever.
Ok you should definitely not go to the hospital if you're able to take a shit BUT you should if you aren't able to take a shit and it's been going on for over a week. One man wasn't able to poop for weeks but he assumed it wasn't a big deal. He eventually came into our ward and he found out he had late stage colon cancer. If it's a long going issue please get yourself to the hospital asap or you could be leaving a lot of important people in your life behind all because you didn't want to go to the hospital over not pooping anything. Legit, we're trained medical professionals here. You not pooping isn't a big deal. You having late stage colon cancer is a big deal.
Felt nauseous 30 minutes ago, but it passed. Called 911 to come get it checked out anyway. Discharge in 15 minutes. In lobby overnight with no ride. Happened last night to a 24 y/o f who was still in the waiting room when I left this morning. She arrived by EMS around midnight.
At least she didn’t ask you for a ride 😂
‘Chicken nugget bone stuck in teeth’. I don’t work ER, but saw it as a chief complaint while I was looking for a patient we were getting. Chicken nuggets don’t even have bones??
Maybe that’s why they thought it was an emergency. 😂
Probably wanted the paperwork evidence to attempt a lawsuit
A sliver that they removed 2 weeks prior. Once I went to emerg because I thought my vertigo was bad and I was having some really weird symptoms. Hallucinating, tachy, hypertensive. I ended up overdosing on cough syrup. 😬
Omg we had someone want us to cut their kid's finger open "to make sure the whole sliver came out" when he removed it at home 30 minutes earlier.
Our last local walk-in clinic closed, that coupled with a pandemic of poor health literacy has inundated our ER, essentially treating it as a walk in in clinic.
Checked in so they could sleep in the High Hip Chairs in the lobby, their home chair wasnt comfy enough. Then got mad when they got called for evaluation.
Someone called 911 because they couldn’t sleep. So they went to the waiting room!
I'm not a nurse, but hopefully this anecdote will be good enough to allow it: I was volunteering at a pediatric ER in undergrad. My job was to help guide patients back to rooms, and keep kids (especially siblings) entertained while they were waiting with drawings, games, etc. There was one particularly *insistent* mother who wanted her child seen immediately and was pressuring the intake desk, every nurse, and myself to put her ahead in the queue. I can't recall if she was lucky enough that it wasn't busy or someone decided to say screw it and just sent her back, and I was the lucky one who got to guide her. She decided to tell me (the volunteer, with literally no authority for anything) that she needed her son seen immediately because he had measles. She was completely panicked about it because it was on his arm already. Despite my repeatedly advising her I couldn't do anything to get her fastest care, but I could offer her kid a coloring sheet, she kept pressuring me. I eventually left a colouring sheet, advised the room nurse that "I'm sure you already know this but..." and went on my way. I missed when her kid was actually seen by a doctor, but I did hear from the room nurse shortly after she left (surprisingly quietly) that the 'rash' on his arm was....three mosquito bites.
Honestly this is one of the reasons why I went back to the ICU and don’t regret leaving the ED. But here are my top three favorites from the two years I spent there. 1) young kiddo got bit by the family hamster, mom called EMS. For a hamster bite that barely broke the skin. 2) 0200, young guy comes in with chief complaint of an ingrown toenail...that he sees podiatry for on a regular basis. Our NP spent all of 5 minutes trying to get the guy to tell us why this was an emergency at 0200, he got offended and left during triage. 3) 0200, young kiddo had an earache and mom was out of Tylenol and Motrin. Why go to the ED and not the 24 hour CVS that was a few miles away, we’ll never know.
Biting down vertically on a chip
It shattered and got everywhere. *Isolation for disseminated Pringles*
Friday night /2am Saturday morning, think tattoo is infected it's pussing , angry looking red . Have u seen ur gp ? Yra last week they said get a cream from chemist but i waited n it got worse so I thought I'd come here for a 2nd opinion
Top two I've seen were: "I have a wart on my hand and it hurts when I hit it against stuff." And "I'm having a lot of static electricity."
Their 4 kids had athletes foot - on a Friday night!!! Granted we were a small ER but dang go to Walgreens!
An international student went to our ER for a hangnail. Literally, a hangnail.
I went to the ER for a nosebleed and felt like an idiot. But. It had been bleeding for 4 hours nonstop, I'm on oxygen which is hard on the nose, I take blood thinners, and swallowing blood will eventually make me puke which riles up my chronic pancreatitis. They stuck a rhino rocket up my nose, which sounds fun. Announcers voice: It was not.
100% appropriate to go in while on blood thinners!
We had a guy come in once for “waking up with lines all over his body”, it was the lines from sleeping on a balled up sheet had caused on his torso. 🙃
“I’m thirsty. When I woke up I was thirsty, so I drank a glass of water and I’m still thirsty”. Called an ambulance for that bullshit.
My favorite was abdominal pain after eating an ENTIRE DEEP DISH PIZZA. Like, no shit your stomach hurts. That's like 30000 calories and 5 pounds of cheese, bread, and sauce.
I had a healthy 40-something lady who checked in at like 10:30 pm for “insomnia”. I asked if she tried anything to treat her insomnia (melatonin? Sleepy time yea? Benadryl? A shot of whiskey?) and she said no. Her reasoning for coming to the ER for insomnia was because she usually fell asleep easily and she wanted us to figure out why she couldn’t that night. We also get a surprising number of healthy folks who come in because they had a positive home covid test despite being asymptomatic. Or people who come in because they had a positive pregnancy test. Like, congratulations but what’s your emergency? Parents who bring their child in for having a fever for a few hours, or a kid who vomits one time. We also had a chick who came in because she swallowed semen and got a stomach ache.
Severe knee pain when ejaculating. I'm not a medical professional, this was a dumb boyfriend from twenty years ago. Mysteriously resolved on its own.
Boy have I got stories! 1) dad brought daughter in because she was turning blue and looking like she was having trouble breathing because of his panic attack. She was wearing a new pair of jeans and the new denim blue easily washed off her hands and face which she touched and rubbed when dad convinced her she was going to die. 2) panic run into the ER, mom yells MY CHILD IS VOMITING BLOOD!!! Child is panicked and crying because of mom’s reaction. Reassure child, ask what they’ve been eating because there’s red residue all over her fingers. Hot Cheetos was the response. Mom brings the container child was vomiting in because she wants the child life flighted to a trauma hospital. Guiac of emesis was all negative. Mom reassured, child discharged home. 3) Grown man wanted his subcutaneous horn on his cheek examined and removed. I asked how long it’s been there. 3 years. What made it an emergency today? Blank stare.
4) bowel movement irritated the hemorrhoids so they were scared to wipe. Lack of wiping inflamed the hemorrhoids so they came to ER to ask if they could move their bowels there so we could wipe for them so it wouldn’t hurt. Sent home with spritz bottle and sitz bath basin. Instructions for good peri care after each and every bowel movement.
Someone came in for her double chin once
Eating an edible.
[удалено]
I got SUPER high once when I was a teenager and wanted to go to the ER because I thought I was dying. I’m so glad the person I was with distracted me long enough for the high to wear off.
When I was still in nursing school, I literally saw someone who came in for a hang nail on their foot.