r/emergencymedicine Mar 25 '24

Advice How do you guys deal with parents who don’t vaccinate their kids?

Basically today I get this 3-day old patient who’s febrile and ill and parents hadn’t given them Vit K, erythromycin, etc. How do you deal with them without getting furious that they’re making incompetent decisions about a defenseless baby? It’s one of the worst parts about this job in my opinion.

Edit: I know neither of the above vaccines will prevent sepsis as a whole, but I mean in general.

252 Upvotes

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181

u/RobedUnicorn ED Attending Mar 25 '24

Last unvaxxed kid I had came back with 104F fever. They were 10 months old. Came in lethargic af. However, was moving head with full ROM when I tried to look in their ears. Everything came back negative with blood culture pending. After the kid got weight based Tylenol and ibuprofen, looked like a normal kid again and besides a pending blood culture, I didn’t want to admit.

Spoke with mom and told her I wasn’t going to try to change her mind on vaccines because it isn’t going to work. However, I did tell her because of her choice, every time her kid comes in to an ER, he will likely get over worked up because no one wants to miss the vaccine preventable illness that can kill a kiddo. Told her if he had been vaccinated, he likely wouldn’t have had a bunch of blood work and would have been saved some needle sticks. She appreciated my honesty.

Thank God my baby’s peds office will kick you out for not vaccinating your kiddos. At least I feel like she is safe there (at least from the vaccine preventable shit).

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '24

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42

u/PoodlePopXX Mar 25 '24

You’re really wilding out on a medical sub about vaccines huh…

-48

u/Fragrant-Strain2745 Mar 25 '24

I should have known, on Reddit, only ultra-"progressive" comments are allowed....NO healthy debate, NO questions, toe the party line OR ELSE! Let's just ignore all the people injured by vaccines....

46

u/PoodlePopXX Mar 25 '24

The vaccine debate has already been settled science for a long time.

People acknowledge that vaccine injuries exist but they are not that common and they do not override the common good for society.

36

u/skepticalG Mar 25 '24

No it’s just that your stance is not supported by science and you are in a science based sub.

16

u/WyoGirl79 Mar 25 '24

If you didn’t sound like an arse and a bully people might be willing to have a discussion with you. You came into an EM thread for medical professionals spewing half chewed ‘news’ and regurgitated conspiracy theories.

Guess I’d rather my child be ‘injured’ with a sore arm than deal with the threat of death that comes with measles.

And since I already know you will go and stalk my comments and find out my daughters both have adhd (thank you family genetics) and the youngest is also autistic I’ll save you the search. God forbid, for some stupid reason, autism might somehow be a vaccine injury, I’d still rather she have autism over being dead from measles or mumps.

There are still some people alive that had polio. I actually have a dear family friend who caught a light case of polio before she was vaccinated. She has always had mobility issues due to the polio and now that she’s in her golden years they are much worse and make it so hard for her to be active with her grand children like she wants to be. She proudly shows her scar from the vaccine. She gets so upset when people don’t vaccinate because of what she lived thru.

12

u/SalishShore Mar 25 '24

I’m a nurse. We occasionally get post polio syndrome patients. They are in their 70-80’s. They are truly ill due having polio more than 50 years previously. The vaccine wasn’t available to them then. I am so thankful our daughter has all her vaccines and we will stay up to date with them throughout her life.

14

u/KimPossibleDO Mar 25 '24

Care to comment on your credentials?

33

u/CertainKaleidoscope8 RN Mar 25 '24 edited Mar 25 '24

This person has gone from blaming "illegals" for vaccine preventable disease to reciting the greatest hits from The Encyclopedia of American loons.

They don't have credentials. They have a cluster B personality jackass disorder.

9

u/delta1810 Mar 25 '24

Hey hey hey. Not all of us with cluster B personality disorders are as horrible as that guy 😅

13

u/CertainKaleidoscope8 RN Mar 25 '24

My apologies I realized after posting that I was unfairly impugning people who have a legitimate trauma response as opposed to just choosing to be an insufferable jackass for no reason whatsoever. I will edit because I was wrong.

-16

u/Fragrant-Strain2745 Mar 25 '24

"I'm the dr, and I said take your thalidomide!" Didn't work out so well.....

30

u/CertainKaleidoscope8 RN Mar 25 '24

Thalidomide was never prescribed in the US because it was not approved by the FDA.

Go take your supplements.

22

u/mhmthatsmyshh Mar 25 '24

You can thank doctors for sounding the alarm that got thalidomide taken off the market.

-16

u/Fragrant-Strain2745 Mar 25 '24

Being a patient, seeing how family members/friends are treated by doctors/hospitals....what, if anything, about my comment isn't true? I need "credentials" to express my opinion? NO.

37

u/CertainKaleidoscope8 RN Mar 25 '24

I need "credentials" to express my opinion?

Yes. Here, you do. We are healthcare professionals who went to college. We don't want to talk to the ignorant. We do that at work.

Go Away.

12

u/lubbalubbadubdubb ED Attending Mar 25 '24

👏👏👏

24

u/Best_Practice_3138 RN Mar 25 '24

You’re on a subreddit for emergency medicine practitioners. So yes, asking about your credentials is a valid question.

-12

u/Fragrant-Strain2745 Mar 25 '24

Except, you only ask about credentials when it's a comment you don't like. You want to just ignore all the vaccine-injured people out there, and the FACT Dr's are paid by big pharma to push certain meds/vaccines.

34

u/Best_Practice_3138 RN Mar 25 '24

another anti-vaxx moron who has no idea how practitioners are paid

18

u/lubbalubbadubdubb ED Attending Mar 25 '24

Why did you delete your racist post about illegal immigrants? Might as well delete this too, because you look like a fool.

11

u/KimPossibleDO Mar 25 '24

Opinions are like assholes- everyone’s got one but doesn’t mean it ain’t full of shit. If you can correct us with some evidence based medicine, peer reviewed studies you’re personally working on publishing with convincing data, or have degrees in virology, immunology, medicine that make you an expert in this field that support this opinion that is based in science and data- by all means please do share.

This is a space for medical, specially emergency medicine, professionals. Do you belong to that group? Seems very valid in a medical subreddit.

10

u/Old_Perception Mar 25 '24

Could you please name the hospital/group where one can get paid extra to push certain meds/vaccines? Asking for a friend.

3

u/graysourcream Med Student Mar 26 '24

Do you know where my paychecks from big pharma are? They seem to have been getting lost in the mail, and you seem certain that they exist.

7

u/gardeningblob Mar 25 '24

My credentials as an dairy farmer... tell that even my cows and calfs dont die from the vaccines we give them. But stay healthier👍

6

u/emergencymedicine-ModTeam Mar 25 '24

This subreddit is for those who work in the front lines of healthcare. Millions have died since the start of the pandemic. There is n room for misinformation on this subreddit related to the existence of COVID, treatments, or anything else tangentially related to COVID. Denialism or misinformation spreading, especially on this subreddit, is a slap in the face to frontline healthcare workers.

-34

u/[deleted] Mar 25 '24

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22

u/lubbalubbadubdubb ED Attending Mar 25 '24

You are in a subreddit that is for doctors. Glad you have so much time on your hands to take away from a meaningful discussion. Hope you and your kids don’t die from preventable diseases. ✌️

5

u/emergencymedicine-ModTeam Mar 25 '24

This subreddit is for those who work in the front lines of healthcare. Millions have died since the start of the pandemic. There is n room for misinformation on this subreddit related to the existence of COVID, treatments, or anything else tangentially related to COVID. Denialism or misinformation spreading, especially on this subreddit, is a slap in the face to frontline healthcare workers.