Chief complaints that made you laugh?

Nurses General Nursing

Published

I work in the ED and get a kick out of the wording that is sometimes used to summarize a patient's chief complaint/reason for coming in.

Tonight, one of the patients was entered in the computer as "COUGHING SOB". No comma. Stupid but made me laugh.

I also gave a coworker some crap about a patient she entered in the system as having a chief complaint of "suicide". I told her I didn't think we could reverse that.

Have you read any strangely-worded chief complaints? Silly-sounding diagnoses?

Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho, ASC.

Taking a pre-op history over the phone, I asked if the patient had ever suffered from depression or anxiety:

"No, I don't have anxiety but sometimes I have a little cough and sometimes I have a little diarrhea."

Another day, same question (to a 50-something woman):

"No, no anxiety or depression. Oh wait! One time, I was tubing on the river and the boat was going too fast and it gave me anxiety. I had to say 'slow down! slow down!' "

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Specializes in ER.

Registration staff had entered "dirahaha" for diarrhea....now it's all we say for diarrhea!

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Specializes in home health, dialysis, others.

I've been chuckling quite a bit!

"Horseness - it hurts when I talk" (Had been at a noisy concert, screaming for hours) ANd the spelling here is what the intern wrote on the initial eval!

Diarrhea - pt had 2 stools in 8 hours, both firm. She said she never went more than once a day.

problem w/private parts - - pt had been masturbating with a circular object that got stuck on his member. It had to be cut off. {The object, you silly nurses, not the member!!!}

Chest pain - after getting thru a large part of a cardiac workup, turns out the patient had been doing a ton of yard work, and strained many muscles in his chest and arms.

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This is not a chief complaint ,

I would have liked to see the chief complaint the nurse wrote for this problem.

In Korea this gentlemen apparently had become very lonely and lied down face first on a metal bench that had circular holes in it and proceeded to make love to the bench:eek: ..:sstrs:...........well this very bright gentlemen obviously got swollen and stuck to the bench .............fire department had to cut the benchs legs off and bring the metal part of the bench with him attached to it to the ER................now I would have loved to see the nurses face who recvd this guy in the ER and would have loved to see his chief complaint written on paper..........

The picture that appeared in the newspapers was this guy face flat against metal grid arms and legs sprawled out to either side being carried by firemen (obviously you know what was sticking out the other side right ):hehe:............I couldnt stop laughing what the heck was he thinking............

Angela

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My contribution:

"staff infection"

"bone coming through gums" in a 5 month old

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DX: Pregnophobia. Pt has been using condoms and prayer.

Treatment: tubal ligation

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i love my

pre-ictal pts,

dont like my

incarceritis pts

and the all time fav

tdfd (too drunk for detox)

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Specializes in ICU, Telemetry.

We had a guy who had everyone in the place rolling in the floor -- and this was in the paper. He'd lost his car and license d/t multiple DUIs, so he got a moped. Showed up in our ER all scraped up, covered in kudzu, because he got drunk again and this time fell off the moped. Not only was a GDAFO (got drunk and fell over) he started his own personal code GDAFOM -- got drunk and fell off moped. The article in the newspaper was hysterical.

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Specializes in PCU/tele.

"bored"

"period" in a 20 some yo lady

"positive pregnancy test"

"male problems late teen male

"i dont know"

"possible sliver to finger"

"oily skin"

"cant sleep"

"needs catheter bag changed"-- at 330 AM no less!

..... and then America wonders whats really wrong with healthcare costs in this country!!

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Specializes in med-surg, psych, ER, school nurse-CRNP.
We had a guy who had everyone in the place rolling in the floor -- and this was in the paper. He'd lost his car and license d/t multiple DUIs, so he got a moped. Showed up in our ER all scraped up, covered in kudzu, because he got drunk again and this time fell off the moped. Not only was a GDAFO (got drunk and fell over) he started his own personal code GDAFOM -- got drunk and fell off moped. The article in the newspaper was hysterical.

And what part of the South are you from? You gotta watch the kudzu, it's a killer!

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