Things patients have taught me NOT to do...

Aren't we all just a plethora of good advice?? We should all collaborate and either write a book:
" Regular People, Dumb Choices"

or perhaps a daily desk calendar :

"DAILY SAFETY TIPS"
A daily guide to help you make the right decision when faced with everyday dilemas







Of course only nurses and other health care professionals would find it appropriate!! LOL

One reason our ERs are so full, are because of the first example. At least here in Phx, it seems a third of all moms rush any briuse or scrape to the ER...

And the second example is almost just as common...


Oh, don't take a bottle of pills WHILE calling 911 for the 3rd time this month...

And don't live 55 miles from a small clinic (with xray only), get thrown off your horse 10 feet in the air, land on your back, be short of breath, with excruciating belly pain, and drive past 3 hospitals, then go to said SMALL clinic, because "This is where my doctor is"

Can you say pneumo, lacerated spleen, and fractured vertebrea?

Please

This thread makes me think of two sayings:

"Beam me up Scotty, there's no intelligent life down here"

and

"Too bad common sense isn't more common"

One I learned as a child from a neighbor:

Never put your two year old son into a wobbly shopping cart with bottles of wine, then push said cart over a very bumpy sidewalk while you are falling down drunk. The cart fell over, the bottles broke and the little boy sustained numerous lacerations to his face.

One I learned from a patient many years ago: If you are male - don't try to repair the vacuum cleaner in the nude - especially if it is equipped with a "beater brush"!

Don't use Cinnamon Schnapps for a douche.

Don't scrape the dirt off your boots on a moving auger.

Don't shoot at the paramedic...it will delay your treatment.

Don't take a callus off your finger with a plunge router.

Don't wait to see if your girlfriend warms up before calling 911.

Happy Monday, everyone...off to work!

Never, never toss your lit cigarette into the commode after spraying your penis and scrotum with a jock itch medicine. (he actually blew himself off the commode, suffering 2nd degree burns to penis scrotum and singned his eyebrows) True Story

Do not decide that your IV is a snake trying to eat its way into your arm and then pull out a lighter to burn it off. Do not sit there in bed after your IV tubing has caught fire and melted onto you, watching the flames spread over your linens and to the curtains hanging over the window. This is a bad idea.

Do not use your shared heroin needles to inject your diabetic body with insulin when you are homeless and living on the street. When you develop a boil that spans the entire upper side of your body and armpit, do not let your "hot" homeless stripper girlfriend lance it with the same needle. Do not let this open wound fester and rot for three weeks before going to the ER, unless you think having a tunneling wound that is deep enough for the MD to put his forearm into is "cool". Especially do not do this if you don't wish to have your arm amputated secondary to gross necrosis and infection.

And a few from the nursery (and you thought all we did was cuddle babies!):

Do not get two women pregnant at the same time. Especially do not let these two women be sisters. When they both go into pre-term labor, do not bring them both to the same hospital. At said hospital, do not leave and allow them to meet up in the nursery to cuddle your babies and discover that they share more than genetics in common. When you return, and they start slapping each other with a baby in their arms, do not cheer one over the other, or encourage ANYONE to "beat her ****ing fat ***", especially if the "her" you are referring to is the one who you are presently living with. Do not laugh when one of them hits the nurse and gives her a bloody lip as she tries to break up the fight.


Do not get HIV from your current partner and then get impregnated by your former partner without telling him that having sex with you is going to kill him. Do not have a baby then forget to tell the doctors that you have a deadly disease, allowing them to discover this in four months when it is too late to treat the baby effectively. Do not then let your former partner impregnate his CURRENT girlfriend, thus forming a sick quadrangle of HIV infection that only two people know about.

Do not wait until your NICU nurse has left the room so that you can whip out a rusty knife and begin sawing into your new baby's Morphine drip before she returns. Do not place your mouth anywhere near the newly-sawed IV tubing and begin drinking the Morphine. Do not, under any circumstances, pretend that you weren't doing this when the nurse returns, and absolutely do not claim that "that sh** was like that" when you came in.

Do not get so ****** off at the nurses that you decide to unhook your two pound preemie from his/her leads and put him/her inside your coat pocket and attempt to take him/her home with you.

Do not decide that your baby is hungry when he/she is on NEC precautions and, upset that we aren't feeding your baby, decide to sneak a Coca-Cola onto the unit and feed it to your child with a syringe you found on a supply cart.

When your baby has had open heart surgery and has his/her chest still open, do not put your finger "in there" because you wanted to "feel it".

Do not visit the nursery with a friend and, when friend begins to change her new baby's diaper, say one of the following phrases REALLY loud:

"Ooh, girl, your baby's cat is FAT!"
"How come your baby 'aint got no nuts?"
"Where the ***k is his ***k?"

Do not attempt to pierce your penis with a upholstery needle, or use OraJel inside the urethra as a local anesthetic. Furthermore, do not use Neosporin inside the urethra to treat the resulting infection.

Patients vacationing in Florida have taught me:

Do not play with the cute little (extremely toxic) PIGMY RATTLESNAKES on the golf course.

Swimming in the ocean at night is not "the best time because you can't see the sharks". Surprisingly, the sharks CAN see you!

Do not think you are skilled enough your first time on a jet ski and drunk to cut in front of a speed boat.

Do not jump off the 3rd floor balcony of your vacation condo to
avoid being caught for under-age drinking.