Things that leave you stunned.

I'm pitying the poor Physical Therapist -- not only does everyone know the size of his bladder, but about his skin problems and cath, too.

.

• >90% burn patient (high 2nd and 3rd) stay alert long enough to use a cell to call his wife one last time

• toddler with herpes from nipple line down and across perineum up to the scapula. mom left her with family that abused her as well.

• guy went thru guardrail and it entered the cab split it - cleanly severed his leg at the knee. The guy self extricated and dragged himself to the road (50 yards) to get help. He stayed alert - a police office brought me the leg after beating on the ambo door and handed it to me (sandal still on foot!). Patient asked if I would be able to put it back on? Not right now.

• A female late 30's with a hemoglobin of 1.3 - history of non-specific vag bleeding over months. Lot's of family, drama and in the midst of squealing and all the "BS" stuff that was going on it was getting out of hand. I made patient stand & participate in the move to get her over. Vitals were ok - she was black so hard to get a real fix on color - MM were a bit pale.

• c-section under - no drugs. Severe distress and the baby needed out. Infiltration of lido in incision line. The baby out - mom was screaming so much she that could be heard in the adjacent building

• Flew a patient that had been in hospital for 3 days with CP, heparin gtt, on tele. Patient kept having CP and she was sent for a CT that had her disecting from the carotid to renal junction - with diminished pules on the effected side

I'm sure I'll think of more. I have some I need to think about to post of not.

Practice SAFE!

I posted this on another thread, but had so much impact on me, I'll share it again.

Pt dx with HIV in early 90s, obviously life-changing diagnosis. Currently homeless, smokes a lot of crack, spends quite a bit of time in prison. Really nice, really smart guy (poor choices, obviously). Anyway, looking at lab trends from last few years, it's noted that his CD4 is always normal, and he's never had a viral count. 2 HIV tests later--he's negative. A life-altering false positive.