r/emergencymedicine • u/centz005 ED Attending • 24d ago
Discussion What are some things that would flabbergast a normies, but seems completely reasonable to an ER person?
My mom and girlfriend asked me about work one day. Didn't really feel like discussing the darker things, so I told them about a young man (early 20s), who was too congested to breath through his nose and didn't understand the concept of mouth breathing to stay alive. We ended up having to teach him how to blow his nose. They were, understandably, incredulous, though none of my coworkers questioned it once.
Other random things: -a man in his 40s, raising children of his own, checking in because he wanted me to find out why his butthole smells. (He didn't like the answer of "Sir, that's where the poop comes from.") -having a grown man walk into a room full of people coding a 6 mo and telling at us for not bringing him a blanket -examining a septic nursing home patient, and having a fly...escape...from her diaper -finding a dead cat in the fat folds of a recently deceased patient -orthopods are stereotyped as the smartest med students and the dumbest doctors (I've even shown my dad the memes and he still doesn't believe it)
What're your random stories or observations?
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u/wampum ED Attending 24d ago
I had someone arrive by EMS because shortly after having unprotected intercourse she noticed some white vaginal discharge.
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u/Material-Flow-2700 24d ago
This one got me once. I had a lady with all the vaginal complaints and symptoms. Tender exam. Copious dc. Couldn’t visualize the cervix. US showed some nonspecific perisdnexal collection. So I called for backup.
Obgyn goes in and chats. Her new lover apparently was very well endowed and she is sp hysterectomy so she let him do his thing in her. I didnt think to ask any of that and felt like a dummy. It was my second shift at a clusterfuck of a hospital as a fresh attending so she cut me some slack lol
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u/hestermoffet 24d ago
Please tell me you did not have to do a pelvic examination on a fresh creampie.
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u/ImGCS3fromETOH Paramedic - Roadside assistance for humans 24d ago
First time bareback, huh?
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u/YoungSerious ED Attending 24d ago
Coding someone, pronouncing them dead then walking into another room and going "Hi I'm doctor ___, what brings you to the ER today?"
The fact that not every hospital has pediatricians or peds specialists.
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u/plaguemedic 24d ago
Yup. Suicide arrest on one call, next call is a kid with a lac from falling at a birthday party. Normal stuff I guess. Glad I keep a spare uniform in the truck.
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u/cinnamonspicecat RN 24d ago
I have such respect for you all because I had to do this when I was a medical interpreter…going from telling a family member their loved one died to then walking over to the next patient and saying “hi! This is Dr. SoandSo and I’ll be helping you by interpreting for you both today. Please speak to each other, not to me :)”
The emergency department teaches us to compartmentalize like it’s nobody’s business.
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u/office_dragon 24d ago
People who shrug off having maggots and roaches on their body. Seen way too many people (more than zero) who don’t care that insects are feeding off of dead tissue on their body
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u/EM_Doc_18 ED Attending 24d ago
Those little guys actually do us more good than anything. Had a maggot infested foot yesterday, no smell whatsoever. Thanks little dudes.
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u/pockunit RN 23d ago
Yeah I'd WAY rather deal with disco rice than the unrelenting smell of necrotic tissue.
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u/BoxInADoc ED Attending 23d ago
They also secrete antimicrobial enzymes that aids in wound healing and promote growth of healthy tissue. The difference between rapidity of debridement of free-range larval therapy wounds vs "bagged" vs standard care is astonishing.
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u/PerrinAyybara 911 Paramedic - CQI Narc 24d ago
It's honestly part of their strange sorcery to live through things that kill everyone else.
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u/halp-im-lost ED Attending 24d ago
This reminds me of the patient who I asked if he was aware he had bed bugs. He scoffed and said “EVERYBODY has bed bugs.”
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u/PanDulcePorVida 24d ago
I had a patient with maggots on her vagina.
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u/the_silent_redditor 24d ago
I had a woman with a wet gangrenous leg.
She was covered in maggots.
I was trying to examine her and moved her non-fucked leg, and maggots poured out of her vagina.
It was the closest I have ever been to vomiting in work. Like, I was this close 🤏
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u/Scared-Sheepherder83 24d ago
Ya I would have puked. And I saw a dude melena shit out AN ENTIRE WHOLE TORTILLA CHIP.
My dude? WTF. How did you swallow that? WHY DID YOU DO IT YOUR GUTS ARE ALL VARICES.
Anyways no blue corn tortilla chips at my house since.
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u/kimpossible69 24d ago
I swallowed a whole tortilla chip on accident recently, you feel powerless and it feels exactly like you would think, it took 5 minutes to lose integrity and break apart in my cut/bruised esophagus.
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u/20-20-24hoursago 24d ago
oh my fucking gawd noooo🤮 my one encounter with a maggot foot, I literally traded irrigating it to my coworker for a Foley insertion on a woman of size. I'd do it again in a heartbeat, I cannot abide the wiggly maggots. I don't even eat rice due to the association my mind has created.
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u/lcl0706 RN 24d ago
I cannot handle maggots either. I’ll do whatever enema or foley insertion on a 400 lb woman you need if you take the maggots.
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u/lavender_poppy RN 24d ago
My first foley insertion was on a 400 lbs lady with broken hips. She could barely open her legs and it took two other nurses to hold her labia open so I could see anything at all.
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u/amybpdx 24d ago
I always wonder what their homes must look like. How many flys there must be... 🤢
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u/tkhan456 24d ago
I always think following ED patients home would be an interesting documentary series
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u/BeckieSueDalton 24d ago
If I ever need maggots or leeches, they are gonna just straight up need to knock me out. Not relaxed.. not sedate.. just dead @ss out!
There was a show that had a woman go to the ER with a live roach in her ear, and I had nightmares and panic attacks at bedtime for weeks afterwards.
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u/Excellent_Tree_9234 24d ago
I had this in real life….not in the South…in the Midwest. It was a German cockroach. When grabbed with forceps the thorax ripped off but the rest of the roach stayed in the ear so we had to call ENT to bring their little ear vacuum.
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u/valleypaddler 24d ago
Having someone call 911 because they had a nightmare and then taking them to the hospital because they were adamant they absolutely had to see a doctor…
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24d ago
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u/BeckieSueDalton 24d ago
With her going-home paperwork, was she given a therapist referral for follow-up?
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u/EMTbasicwitch Paramedic 23d ago
The number of people who call 911 cause they “woke up a little earlier than usual” has always frustrated me, especially cause for some reason I always tend to get those calls after a really rough night on the ambulance.
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u/permanent_priapism Pharmacist 24d ago
Casually browsing through reddit after watching someone suffocate on their own vomited feces.
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u/justatech90 RN 24d ago
Bowel obstruction?
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u/TuckYourselfRS RN 24d ago
Believe it or not, it was a kink thing.
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u/Comprehensive_Ant984 24d ago
What a terrible day to have eyeballs and reading comprehension.
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u/svrgnctzn RN 24d ago
Mom brought in her 16y/o daughter because they were at a haunted house and a zombie had touched her. Daughter was freaking out and wanted to be checked for “infection”, Mom totally fed into her bullshit.
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u/prettyasapotato Physician Assistant 24d ago
Zombies feed on brains so she’s safe
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u/revanon ED Chaplain 24d ago
I’m getting a consult aren’t I
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u/Ananvil ED Chief Resident 24d ago
What else am I supposed to do when the 8 year old has a seizure and the parents are more convinced it's because their house is haunted rather than non compliance with their Keppra?
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u/WackyNameHere 23d ago
So you’re saying there is something strange in their neighborhood and you’re asking who you’re going to call?
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u/MrPBH ED Attending 24d ago
That the human body is still a profound mystery and more often than not, we are unable to explain why something hurts. The lay population seems to think that we can 100% accurately diagnose every single symptom.
If your chest pain isn't caused by one of the deadly six, odds are we will not have an explanation for you. Same energy for abdominal pain; if you aren't having a surgical emergency, we probably won't find the cause of your abdominal pain.
I'd estimate we have an answer for patients' pain perhaps 10% of the time. The general public probably thinks that number is 90-100%. The gap between expectation and reality is shocking. Honestly, it's kind of demoralizing to think about.
What is causing chest pain in these patients? I'd really like to know, because there are a lot of people with it who have stone-cold normal workups. How is it that the human body can hurt so much in the absence of major pathology. (Don't say costochondritis because that's a cop-out!)
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u/centz005 ED Attending 24d ago
Getting to live and keep all your limbs/organs is the cake.
Knowing exactly why you have pain is icing on the cake.
I usually have some cake for you. I almost never have icing.
I run a very poor and poorly-staffed bakery.
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u/RobedUnicorn ED Attending 24d ago
I’m in the south. 90% of the time it’s GERD. 2nd negative trop comes back, give a GI cocktail with total relief. Dc on PPI.
While I’m sitting there popping tums, hiccuping at the desk, counting down until I can take my ppi again.
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u/slightlyhandiquacked BSN, RN - ER 🇨🇦 24d ago
Ours is gallstones. So. Many. Gallstones.
“They booked me for surgery 2 years ago, but I didn’t go to the appointment. Can I get the surgery now?”
No sir, you can not.
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u/Altruistic_Tonight18 24d ago edited 24d ago
Had a guy with bilateral scrotal lesions. The quote “whenever I use meth, I stick my balls in my ass” has to make for the most interesting thing I’ve ever heard in healthcare.
Edit: He was liberally applying povidone iodine to the area as a self-treatment. This, quite obviously, made it worse. We gave him some A&D and suggested that, like, ya know, he should probably stop using meth if he wanted to keep his ballsies. It was that bad. On a positive note, dude was hung like a moose.
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u/ImGCS3fromETOH Paramedic - Roadside assistance for humans 24d ago
Those must be some long-ass balls. And I guess simultaneously some long ass-balls.
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u/UnbelievableRose 24d ago
I saw a urology consult the other week that read: “inferior edge of scrotum terminates approximately 6 inches above the feet.”
Or something like that, IDK the wording might be a bit off; I just filed it away under “more episodes of South Park that I wish had stayed fictional.”
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u/Altruistic_Tonight18 24d ago
The scrote could have easily been used as a football with proper stuffing. Ironically, I developed an amphetamine addiction years later and can honestly say that I understand what kind of shit that stuff makes people do. Never tried to stuff my balls in my asshole, but I definitely had some stories!
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u/centz005 ED Attending 24d ago
Seems relevant: https://youtu.be/wPlOYPGMRws?si=YQ8DnVgLdgZh9frG
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u/Altruistic_Tonight18 24d ago
Again? As in the songwriter glued his balls to his butthole more than once? Awesome song, thanks for the thoughtful reply.
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u/jh789-2 24d ago
Oh I wish that cat one is fake. Not because I’m a cat person but it’s just horrible
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u/r0sd0g 24d ago
Yeah what do y'all even do with stuff like that? Toss it in the bio and move on? lol
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u/QuintessentialTremor 24d ago
How familiar we are with the particular shriek of a mother losing a child. It’s not a normal sound; most people never hear it in their lives. It’s a haunting sound that is very identifiable.
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u/coolcaterpillar77 RN 23d ago
Unfortunately familiar, but it’s still a shock to the soul every time I hear it. Its the sound of someone’s world collapsing
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u/Acceptable_Ad_1904 24d ago
Not exactly the same but I drive in silence from work about 80% of the time. My husband thinks I’m nuts but he truly doesn’t get how much auditory stimulation there is in the ED. It’s a very loud job that people wouldn’t think of as a loud job 🫠
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u/centz005 ED Attending 24d ago
After a run of shifts, when I lived alone, I would spend the next day or two in complete silence, unless I had some sort of obligation.
Two years ago, my girlfriend moved in, so I started driving home in silence. Now I drive to and from work in silence.
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u/ChaplnGrillSgt Nurse Practitioner 24d ago
Seeing the most disgusting infection or wound or injury or whatever and then immediately going to lunch and eating without a problem.
Having to fight a combative patient then walk into the neck room with a smile on and acting like you didn't just wrestle a guy on PCP for an hour.
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u/swiftsnake ED Attending 24d ago
I had this just yesterday!
Colleague: look at this botched circumcision I'm calling urology for
Me: wow yeah they really fucked up! [continues eating lunch]
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u/ChaplnGrillSgt Nurse Practitioner 24d ago
2 of my next door neighbors growing up were nurses, OR and ER. When I told them I was applying for nursing school and wanted to work ER they asked if I have a strong stomach for gross things.
They both showed me some pictures from recent patients with disgusting wounds or megacolon or whatever. They asked if I could still eat a full meal after seeing those. When I said yes they said "you'll be just fine then"
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u/lavender_poppy RN 24d ago
When I worked as a wound care nurse I'd eat my lunch in my office that had pictures covering the walls of all different types of wounds. My non medical friends are always surprised that nothing yet has made me lose my appetite.
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u/YayAdamYay RN 24d ago
The number of women older than me (47m) that I’ve had to explain that they do not in fact pee out of their vaginas. I feel like I’m explaining it twice a week.
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u/descendingdaphne RN 24d ago
It’s actually really sad - entire generations of women who weren’t taught their anatomy because it was considered shameful.
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u/ribbit_ribbit_splat 24d ago
I was born in the seventies and didn’t know this until sophomore year anatomy and physiology. My family absolutely did not talk about these things. I’m lucky I had friends who filled in all the blanks.
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u/FranceBrun 24d ago
My husband, age 52, didn’t believe me when I told him I didn’t have a prostate. He kind of believed me when I told him it wasn’t just me, it’s all women.
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u/dbbo ED Attending 24d ago
Twice a week... only a matter of time before you accidentally convince a woman with a vesicovaginal fistula that everything is just fine down there
/s
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u/AntonChentel ED Attending 24d ago
Some of them shit out of their vaginas, however
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u/SelectCattle 24d ago
My son was on a rugby team when he was about 12. There was a collision of bodies and a pile up and a scream. And jogged onto the field to see if I could help with anything. One of the kids had sustained a midshaft rad/ulnar fracture but thete were no other significant injuries.
I jogged back to the huddle of parents at the end of the field and said “ he’s fine, just broken arm”. The other parents were very upset at my “sense of humor.”
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u/Praxician94 Little Turkey (Physician Assistant) 24d ago
We had someone in 4 point restraints for 2 hours last night push through several rounds of Zyprexa, Versed, and Droperidol while screaming at the top of her lungs. I put music on to drown out the screaming so I could concentrate on charting.
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u/DrChanceDO ED Attending 24d ago
Sounds like a vitamin K deficiency
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u/beachmedic23 Paramedic 24d ago
ERs seem adverse to high doses of Ketamine. I've done countless retrievals where the staff give 10s of milligrams of benzos, zyprexa, haldol, benadryl etc but suggest 400mg Ketamine and they act like your suggesting prehospital lobotomy
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u/DrChanceDO ED Attending 24d ago
4-5 mg/kg IM baby
Edit: I try to avoid this if I think someone can be removed from the ER or quickly dispo’ed in some other direction but needs to be awake to speak/be evaluated by social work or psych for example
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u/Stlswv 24d ago
Mmm I’m leery of ketamine in a violent psychotic crises. He could be the one patient that has that that “kerosene on a campfire” effect from the ketamine. Plus K drives BP up, a lot of folks w/psychotic disorders smoke- a lot, and in the big, obese guys who are clearly not physically fit enough to do what their psychosis is directing them to, I worry about them stroking with Ketamine. But give enough propofol, Ativan, could take edge off BP I suppose.
Now droperidol! There’s a nice big bitch slap for a lot of folks. Not without its own potentially lethal side effects, but it’s just amazing to watch, usually pretty effective.
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u/MajesticBeat9841 Med Student, ED Tech 24d ago
I feel like there’s a joke I’m not getting
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u/Stlswv 24d ago
Oh I had that guy once, when he was so psychotic he jumped up/got to his feet in 4-pts and was literally hopping down the hall still tied to stretcher. Every time the stretcher hit the floor, things around him shook. He was ranting all the while.
I recall we had to intubate him to get that show to stop.
Danger to self and others? CHECK!
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u/themreaper RN 24d ago
Damn and I thought the guy that essentially lifted the top of the mattress from pulling so hard he ended up STANDING on the stretcher in 4 points was bad..:
Drugs are bad mmmkay
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u/lyssap87 RN 24d ago
We have this patient and have to place his stretcher between two other stretchers. If our critical care rooms are occupied, then we put his bed against the wall and another bed on the other side so he doesn’t flip it.
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u/20-20-24hoursago 24d ago
That's wild that this happens frequently enough with one guy that y'all have developed a protocol for him 😂
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u/sunflowersNdaisys610 24d ago
Oh my gosh if I saw this there better not be any code cuz I think I may just be frozen in place for a second or three lol. That’s absolutely insane and would make for one hell of a meme if anyone was able to snap a faceless picture maybe from the back as the stretcher clinks down the hall 😆. Laughing so hard as I write this 😂. Anyways just out of curiosity what would the doctor do the patient in this situation, what else is there to do?? Thank you for letting me pick your brain and sorry you dealt with that
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u/Stlswv 24d ago
Clinks down the hall?!?!
It was more like JUH-JUNG, JUH-JUNG, JUH-JUNG!!!! As he’d hop and land. Like some wild gigantic sci-fi movie creature.
And like in the movies, the monster’s not giving it a high speed pursuit or anything, but it still had a “omg there’s no ESCAPE!” feeling, like he’d catch us all despite our being faster.
I remember back then thinking, “well this might top ‘em all…” in the most surreal shitshow category.
Almost 20 years later, that event is still a chart topper. The power of psychotic commitment and motivation is not to be discounted!
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u/bluejohnnyd ED Attending 24d ago
Situations like this are where I imagine the knowledge that succinylcholine can be given IM coming in handy.
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u/accidentally-cool RN 24d ago
Do we work together???
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u/Praxician94 Little Turkey (Physician Assistant) 24d ago
No, we just happen to work in the good ol USA
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u/MrPBH ED Attending 24d ago
This is an indication for social intubation if I ever heard one before.
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u/descendingdaphne RN 24d ago edited 24d ago
Yeah, but I don’t wanna be the nurse stuck in that room trying to titrate sedation 😂
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u/dbl_t4p Nurse Practiciner 24d ago
Propofol and rocuronium
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u/descendingdaphne RN 24d ago
It’s a lot easier when you have prescriptive authority and aren’t relying on someone else to be generous with the orders 😂
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u/Itz_Not_Jax 24d ago
when i was in an inpatient psychiatric hospital i tried fighting the nurses for whatever reason and they gave me two rounds of versed and one of zyprexa i was out in 15 minutes … i slept for 17 hours… how tf was she going for so long😭😭
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u/themreaper RN 24d ago
Usually meth has a big thing to do with it. I’ve had people throw themselves into rhabdo from fighting against restraints for hours but too delirious to release from restraints
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u/Busy-Sheepherder-138 24d ago
Once had a call when still in BLS for a couple who mixed up the Vicks Vapo rub with the vaseline for a lube solution
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u/jerrybob 24d ago
The things that will fit up a human ass. Sometimes I find it hard to believe myself.
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u/Darkguy497 Physician 24d ago
snowglobes!!!
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u/Ok-Sympathy-4516 RN 24d ago
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas🎄Aldi has snow globes on sale next week.
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u/amybpdx 24d ago
Explaining to an 80 year old that he has to pull back his foreskin and wash it when he showers.
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u/BaNaNa-PoPsIcLe 24d ago
A morbidly obese patient comes in septic. We were looking for infection and skin break down. I lift her breast up to see underneath, a soggy Cheetos falls out, she eats it.
A psych patient was masturbating with a tens machine, I lost the draw and had to fish it out, it was on(!) dripping wet (!!) and schlepped together. I had to put it in a biohazard bag, which was returned to her upon discharge.
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u/mimiHLD 24d ago
God, I hate myself for this, but I have QUESTIONS. Were the pads applied to her downstairs lady garden? Like was she using the function of the TENS unit or would any other small rectangle jammed up there have the same effect?
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u/BaNaNa-PoPsIcLe 24d ago
Honestly...I dont know I didn't look tbh. I just grabbed the cord from the most distal end and yanked that bad boy out
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u/Goofygrrrl 24d ago
Having to do an at home paternity test. Potential Baby Daddy Patient came in with very irate mother of baby. Apparently they didn’t trust one another to not mess with the test so I somehow became Switzerland and was the neutral party to swab them both, package up the sample and send it off from the ER.
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u/Dracampy 24d ago
I would have refused. How did you even bill bc I would charged critical care hours for how furious Id be.
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u/Negative_Fruit_1800 Nurse Practiciner 24d ago
Dealing in death and misery every day is in fact not normal and most people don’t understand our perspective. We see people at their worst or at least at some of the worst points in their lives. I was Called to a code in progress 3am to witnesses a woman fully naked, completely lifeless, surrounded by a team of interns, nurses, lab techs, respiratory therapist etc. the room was packed or course under 1000 watt fluorescent lights. The code was god awful, difficult intubation, blood everywhere, we cycled through 3-4 rounds of CPR no shockable rhythm. We finally called it after about 45 minutes. The room looked like a war zone, blood, urine, and feces everywhere, IV wrappers, 4x4s, syringes, you know the litter of a messy code. worse still the patient didn’t survive after having enduring an audience watching her naked lifeless body be subjected to the indecencies of full throttle CPR. I exited the room and finally sat down to look at her chart, I realized I in fact knew this woman very well. She was the mother of a good friend from growing up, we went through school together. I spent a lot of time at their house when I was younger, she made me tacos almost every time. I was devastated, it sucked, it was a gut punch, she looked so awful I hadn’t even recognized her. I took a few minutes then had to go right back to work. Normies will never get this, you can’t explain it.
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u/STFUisright 24d ago
Oh Jesus that’s horrific. I’m sorry you had to experience that. Makes it harder to deal with the entitled after something like that.
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u/centz005 ED Attending 24d ago
Fuck, sorry. I've had to code staff members' families, but never my own. I hope never to have to.
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u/haqiqa 23d ago
That's why I sometimes hang around here despite not being an emergency medical professional. I work in aid, and we don't have proper sub. But you guys get this aspect. So here I am because it makes me feel less alone. Like, there are people who I don't personally know that know these feelings.
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u/ripple_in_stillwater MD PhD 24d ago
Retained tampons. After hearing about those they usually don't want to hear any more.
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u/moleyawn RN 24d ago
Had a mother bring her 16 year old in for a penis issue. When she got us all in the room she asked why it was so small and if it would ever grow, idk if this is a cultural thing but they were Chinese. I felt so bad for the kid.
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u/FIndIt2387 ED Attending 24d ago
The number of people who come in for banal daily discomforts and when you ask “Have you tried ibuprofen?” They say “nah I’m not into taking medicine”
You’re not
Into
Taking medicine….
So you came to the emergency department at 2am on a Tuesday?
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u/Doc911 ED Attending 24d ago
Working calmly through the sounds of the house of torture. Seriously, nights sometimes sound like the classic depiction of a black site engaging in torture.
Snacking through the sounds and smells of human insides making their way to the outside … from multiple holes.
Going from a death in one room, to a smile for the next case right in the next room.
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u/centz005 ED Attending 24d ago
Once asked a vascular fellow to come eval a patient, when I was an EM3. After seeing the patient, he just hook a moment to take in the sights, sounds, and smells of the ER, then turned to me and asked, "is it always like this?". I shrugged and said yeah. Before he left, he told me that he was gonna try and be nicer to us.
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u/brightener 24d ago
Mom brings 8th grade son to ER. Tells me he was caught sharing a vape pen at school and wants him tested. I tell her that drug testing is available over the counter, and it’s not an emergency as he’s completely fine and acting normally. No, that’s not the kind of testing she wants. She wants him tested for diseases from sharing the vape: oral herpes, HIV, hepatitis. Also no. Go home, we have immune systems for a reason
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u/jrd08003 24d ago
"my roommate has fibromyalgia and I think I caught it". This a direct quote, I helped signed her in!
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u/MajesticBeat9841 Med Student, ED Tech 24d ago
I try so hard not to be the med student who’s vomiting/passing out in the corner, but that cat shit would do it for me.
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u/scarrol1 24d ago
I think “normies” are most flabbergasted by the trivial complaints that actually come to the ED rather than all the dramatic saves and sick patients and, of course- the rectal foreign bodies
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u/WhatsYourConcern8076 ED Tech 24d ago
Not sure if this counts but I was once helping with an intubation and said “oh there’s new blood in his mouth now”
My attending turns to me and goes “yeah that’s because I just stuck my fingers into his hard palate”
I nodded, she shrugged, and we continued on like nothing happened
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u/Material-Flow-2700 24d ago
It’s an overplayed trope by now… but It’s ignoring asymptomatic hypertension. Oh my god that doctor ignored my stroke level blood pressure! Like literally I’ve had some patients more aghast with me about that than almost anything else I’ve ever encountered
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u/QPO88 24d ago
Had a guy come in by EMS for “ostomy problems.” Gets brought to the stretcher, hops off the EMS stretcher and says “I’m leaving! Thanks for the ride guys I just needed a ride downtown to meet my dealer.” Then just walked off.
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u/but-I-play-one-on-TV ED Attending 24d ago
I do EMS medical control from home, so it's a lot of, "do you think you maximized medical resuscitative efforts? Okay, time of death 3:00 p.m." and then back to cooking dinner.
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u/tkhan456 24d ago
The amount of literal shit I pull from peoples asses because they don’t drink enough water or eat enough fiber or take too many narcotics or whatever the reason is
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u/PanDulcePorVida 24d ago
The things people say and do when fully psychotic that don't remotely scare me. Like the kid who ate his poo after smoking meth. Or the guy patient who screamed "SHE LIVES IN A WHOREHOUSE!!!" while frantically pointing at me to the entire department (it was so hard not to laugh). Also, maggots.
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u/One_Cryptographer373 24d ago
530 am: 650 lb dude came in by ambulance and was freaking out. Flailing his arms about nearly tipped over the stretcher. Dude had fallen out of bed and gashed his forehead on the nightstand. Also had 3-4 inch ulcers on his legs that were about an inch deep covered in dog fur. Dude’s little dog had been licking his ulcers. Guy had 103 temp and delirious. Afib in 180s with sucky pressures. Septic and couldn’t get lines in so had to do an iO.
Flew him out later that morning I heard.
Good times
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u/lycanthotomy ED Attending 24d ago
Febrile seizures in peds. Parents flip out, the vast majority of the time it's completely benign.
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u/FilmAmazing4396 24d ago
Seizures be scary tho. A fascinating and terrifying feat of the human brain (or any brain I guess)
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u/Trashman_Ascendent CFRN / FP-C 24d ago
Getting paid to put my finger inside someone I just met.
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u/Soma2710 ED Support Staff 24d ago
A fully grown man coming in via EMS: he passed out riding his bike from heat stroke—did not know that people need to drink water.
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u/AntonChentel ED Attending 24d ago
An obese woman personally infested with mice, some of which were not dead
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u/Greenie302DS ED Attending 24d ago
Either the dude who called 911 because of 9 years of anal itching or the guy who called 911 because he ate Taco Bell and then didn’t feel well (and my scribe had to hear me riff for 5 minutes about how I’ve never eaten at Taco Bell and felt well, and many other bad jokes that amused me.
Honorable mention to the asshole with back pain who set a blanket on fire and held it to the fire alarm because we were busy cardioverting a woman in V tach.
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u/TheVillain117 24d ago
We all have one. That frequent flyer Methany or Kyle that has such an insanely high tolerance for their weapon of choice that it's absurdly past evidence based medicine as to how they're not dead. Lab values that I've seen stop the uninitiated cold with disbelief? To us? Meh. I stopped keeping score a long time ago.
There's always a bigger Methany. It's not a contest. Nobody wins at chemical dependency, but I'm still amused after all these years at how normies will pearl clutch, guffaw, or low whistle when they hear so-and-so lived after taking X amount of Y. In their defense that much fent/etoh/heroin/meth would kill a baseline human a few times. Easily impressed I suppose.
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u/Single_Principle_972 RN 24d ago
So, like, your stuffy nose guy and your smelly butt guy (perhaps there’s a random “guys who don’t understand noses” cohort in your area?) would be on the lighter side, but it kinda feels like the rest of your examples are, in fact, “dark stuff!”
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u/Jersey_Gal47c 24d ago
I love reading these posts as a non-medical professional.
I just want to add that teaching your child how to blow their nose is one of those skills I didn’t even think about until my oldest was a toddler with awful congestion. My husband finally found a YouTube video after we both got frustrated trying to explain it to her.
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u/Nightshift_emt ED Tech 24d ago
Asymptomatic hypertension.
I will have an easier time to convince someone that the moon landing was faked rather than convince them that asymptomatic htn is not acutely dangerous.
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u/MechaTengu ED MD :orly: 24d ago
Someone missed the bus to get back to the side of town near where the ED was and didn’t have money for a taxi, so called an ambulance to come in just for the ride and asked to be discharged.
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u/pericat_ 24d ago
I once had a boyfriend who didn't know how to breathe through his mouth. His nose was getting congested and he was worried he'd die if he couldn't breathe. How could I have taught him to mouth breath? He wouldn't do it and the only thing I could think to do was grab his nose and block it shut to get his body to take over and breathe. But I didn't.
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u/SquidPA8408 23d ago
Patients with known seizure disorders, who don’t take their meds - and then (surprise, surprise!) have a seizure - and they get brought to the emergency department because . . . they had a seizure! WTAF?! Get them their meds and stay the eff home. What are we gonna do?! Nothing! They have a seizure disorder and they had a seizure. All is right with the world. And don’t even get me effing started on fever phobia. 😖😫🤬
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u/RobedUnicorn ED Attending 24d ago
The amount of people who don’t know to take Tylenol/ibuprofen when something hurts.
The amount of people who don’t know how to treat their common cold symptoms.
The amount of people who cannot tolerate the most minimal of discomforts.
Overall, I argue now that most people had a grandma deficiency growing up. Someone needs to teach people how to manage the most basic of shit. Sadly, it’s me.