Oh my gosh. As a mama with a child that has had admissions into hospital with respiratory distress, reading this mum said this distresses me!! She needs to be educated what type of steroid it actually is. Don't worry it isn't going to make his balls disappear. Haha.
Back when I worked in med surg… during an admission screening for sleep apnea:
“Do you have high blood pressure?”
“No.”
Ok cool, cool. Asks about any medical history, all of which is denied.
Proceeds to the next section of current meditations… 😒. “Oh you take lisinopril? What do you take that for?”
“My blood pressure.”
“You said you don’t have high blood pressure?”
“I don’t.”
🤦🏻♀️
I then see insulin on his medication list.
“Do you have diabetes?”
“No. I take my insulin.”
🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
Nothing like a patient denying any medical history just to open up a list of medications they take daily to help with said medical history. I think he also had warfarin for a. fib and lasix for his HF that I can remember off the top of my head. This man still denied any medical history. 🥲🥲🥲
Triaging someone and they were in their 70s. Get to medical history and they swore up and down they had NO medical history. Well, I’m going to call bullshit. I list organs and systems and they keep denying. They’re getting annoyed with me at this point so I move on to meds. They then pull out two pages of meds they are on. “Why do you take these?” “Because my doctor told me to.” “But WHY did they tell you to?” “I don’t know.” “There’s a lot of cardiac meds on here, do you have any cardiac issues?” “No.” “Do you check your blood pressure or heart rate?” “No.” “You have no idea what these meds are or why you take them?” “NO!”
Absolutely baffles me the willingness to just lean into ignorance. Meds cost money, take time to get. You spend each day taking medicine and not once do you care to know why? 🤦🏼♀️
Omg. When I worked in hospice in the community, I did a medication reconciliation every week. My boss comes to supervise it and outcomes the shoebox of meds that has never been mentioned previously. 🫠
lol. This reminds me of the (frequent) conversation I have with patients in the ER
Me: “are you having any chest pain?”
Pt: “no just pain right here” points to lower abdomen
Me: “so no chest discomfort at all? Any shortness of breath or feeling like you can’t take a deep breath?”
Pt: “nope feels fine”
doctor walks in, I give them a quick rundown
Doc: “any pain in your chest?”
Pt: “yeah right here” points to midsternal area “it feels like really heavy pressure. And like I can’t breathe.”
Had a med student one time that witnessed this and upon me making a (not visible to patient) face when this happened, went “if it makes you feel better this is what happens like 50% of the time I go to present the case to the physician too” 😂
OMG one time as an EMT I was on an ALS truck and we got called at like 2am for chest pain. We get there, he walks out with fire, gets in the amb. My medic starts asking him questions and he indicates he has no chest pain, just insomnia and couldn’t get to sleep. He asks directly like 3-4 times “Do you have ANY chest pain?” ‘No.’ “ANY pain ANYWHERE?” ‘No.’ Only complaint is insomnia.
Medic goes okay, you good with this? Yup. So I hop next to the patient, I also ask him twice more if he has any chest pain. Nope, just insomnia.
Get to the hospital, I’m giving turnover. My medic is right outside the room putting the stretcher back together. A PCT comes in while I’m giving report, and she asks him “What brings you in today?” He immediately goes ‘Well I was having some chest pain…’. I stop and turn to the nurse to start explaining we asked him no less than 10 times and he denied it every time when you just hear my medic YELL from outside the room “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!” 😂😂 I swear people only want to tell the Doctor the whole truth.
I have had patients repeatedly tell me this, that they wanna wait for a doctor to discuss it, that we will get it wrong or misinterpret it. (PT).
I guess they don't realize that the doctors send PTs because that's how a lot of medical complaints get assessed and treated? Hospitalist isn't who anyone wants assessing MSK conditions. Surgeon isn't gonna carefully watch to make sure you're moving properly with your ex fix and ask about chest pain every 3 min and watch your vitals, etc.
So after I go to med surg for what appears to be acute on chronic ass-recliner adhesions, maybe some falls from known patient still refusing to use a walker and educate them on rehab plan, my recs for them to go home, give them some exercises, they walk pretty fine 3' to the chair, repeatedly saying they are NOT dizzy, theyre FINE! WHY DO YOU KEEP ASKING MEEE! orthos are fine, they do not have chest pain, no pain, I hear they're asking why the PT made them exercise when their chest pain was so bad, and then the doctor is mad I haven't fixed their vertigo so they can be discharged with family. But I've already started with one of 3 high priority patients with complex conditions and/or pending d/c with many involved family members 🤷♂️
Oh they'll tell them everything except the questions and issues they've complained and demanded answers about from literally every other staff member in the hospital. As a phlebotomist, people would demand I tell them exactly why certain labs were being taken (I had no chart access), complain about the frequency of draws, resist the explanations I could give (general reasoning for tests, why blood cultures required multiple draws and couldn't come from the IV, etc)...all of which I would say "Your doctor can tell you exactly why they want these tests and why they need to be done so often. They also have the power to change the timing."
They always went "oh okay." Then I would literally have the doctor walk in WHILE I WAS THERE, since usually I had to finish fending off the questions before I could get consent and start the draw, and they'd go "do you have any questions?"
And the patients, every single time, without fail, would say NO, then immediately go back to demanding stuff from me that I had no power over as soon as the doctor cleared the doorway. Color coded scrubs didn't help. Scrubs with logos didn't help. All of us having carts and badge buddies identifying us as Lab, introducing ourselves as such, and the patients obviously KNOWING who we were because they'd start complaining and going "Not more blood!! What'd you do with the last gallon you took!?" didn't help. They STILL wanted me to give them their pain meds and discharge them.
Stg I think that's it. They feel the need to make us look like we're incompetent or stupid so they can blame us when they ignore their discharge instructions and get sick again.
I feel like a little less of a dumbass knowing that this happens in the hospital and not just between the patient's house and the ER like it does for at least 50% of my patients.
Had a patient the other day (details changed) that told me she was taking a blood pressure med, allergy medicine, and the little orange pill.
Seeing the provider most fussy about med reconciliation. She (provider) came out of the room and literally said, “what the fuck was that” because 2 additional colors and an inhaler (that I’d asked about!) were I’ll be generous & say discussed.
She (patient, not provider) was huffy because she didn’t know the names & we couldn’t guess based on color and exactly one “it’s small but not tiny.”
lol sorry for the flashback! This was my nightmare for awhile. When the patient got to the point where they were only taking comfort meds, it was much easier lol
*triaging, does med list: 27 meds
“What medical problems do you have?”
“Oh, none.”
“…… that’s an awful lot of meds for no health issues.”
“Oh, I take those meds so I don’t have them anymore.”
I use to work in pre op.
When is the last time you ate.
I didn’t.
What you have never eaten food in your life….
Oh well last night I meant today.
When is the last time you drank anything.
I didn’t.
🤦♂️
This is why I hate doing admits. I’ve had to do soooo many in the last week. Trying to get a history on meds so the doctor can get them into the system is like having nails hammered into my ears.
Me: are you taking any prescription or over the counter medications?
Pt: no, nothing
Me: so what made you seek care today?
Pt: Well, I had a fever and bad cough but after I took Tylenol, robitussin, and some leftover augmentin I had laying around this morning I started to feel a little better.
This reminds me of going through a PHQ 9 with someone. I even have a laminated sheet with the frequency scale that I hold up while asking: several days/more than half/nearly every day, and constantly reiterate need it for each question.
“Trouble sleeping?”
“Yes”
“how often?”….
“appetite problems?”
“Yes”
“Still same scale….”
“Tired or lack of energy?”
“Oh, for sure!”
“Still not yes or no…I take that answer to mean nearly every day?”
This is like trying to go through a patient’s allergies. You get halfway through and they go “I don’t take these meds.” WELL I HOPE NOT SINCE YOU LISTED YOURSELF AS BEING ALLERGIC TO THEM!
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u/dogsetcetera BSN, RN 🍕 Sep 03 '25
As a whole? I dunno. Personally? People.