What was the MOST ridiculous thing a patient came to the ER for?

Specialties Emergency Nursing Q/A

And did you have to treat them?

I am just curious. Your stories always seem to either crack me up or shake my head in amazement.

Thanks for sharing ?

Specializes in ED.

patient came to ER because water went into her ears while taking a bath.... honestly!

Last night. Bug bites. Not especially bad ones. Got drunk, slept on a friends couch.

I advised her not to do that again

i wasn't arguing that point and those types of patients are swift pains in the azz to everyone. i posted what i did because i get fed up arguing with a certain neighbor who is a surgeon and should know better, that some types seizures do not induce unconsiousness, or take away one's ability to realize one is having a seizure, or converse.

i'm really not trying to be difficult. never worked er, but i have worked psych and in drug and etoh detox, which did give me insight. i just get so &*^% sick of the public's and certain health professional's knee jerk reaction to some types of seizures.:D

some docs are really jerks. surgeons are among the worst, of course, but there are plenty of non-surgeons who are also jerks.

if a pt doesn't fit the textbook picture, they think the pt is lying, faking, or just plain stupid. how often do we actually see a textbook picture? i just pray for the day when they will have to be patients and can't get a doctor to believe them. perhaps then they will know, experience, and mourn for the unnecessary sorrow, frustration, aggravation, humiliation, and downright physical suffering they have caused their patients.

Specializes in Women's health & post-partum.
I just pray for the day when they will have to be patients and can't get a doctor to believe them. Perhaps then they will know, experience, and mourn for the unnecessary sorrow, frustration, aggravation, humiliation, and downright physical suffering they have caused their patients.

Like the one who, when hospitalized for back pain, was given a shot of (I think it was) trilafon. It was very painful, and he never again ordered it for a patient, I'm happy to say.

He was the same one who wanted me to give his delivering patient chloroform.:uhoh3: I wasn't licensed for that!

Specializes in ortho, hospice volunteer, psych,.

he was the same one who wanted me to give his delivering patient chloroform.:uhoh3: i wasn't licensed for that!

eeeeeeeeekkkkkkkkkkkkk!!!!:uhoh3::uhoh3::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::uhoh3::uhoh3:

Like the one who, when hospitalized for back pain, was given a shot of (I think it was) trilafon. It was very painful, and he never again ordered it for a patient, I'm happy to say.

He was the same one who wanted me to give his delivering patient chloroform.:uhoh3: I wasn't licensed for that!

How long ago was THAT? My parents were both born in 1933, and my grandmothers got chloroform and it was headed for obsolescence at that time!

I've heard that doctors - male or female - make the worst patients, regardless of specialty, and it's something they fear enormously too.

Specializes in Women's health & post-partum.

How long ago was the chloroform incident? About 1968, I think. The doc might have been old enough to have been practicing in 1933. He was probably somewhere in his 50s.

Specializes in LTC, CPR instructor, First aid instructor..

I had a young caregiver who went to the ER for everything from a runny nose to a tummy ache. :rolleyes:

These have probably been said before. I am not a nurse, but work in admissions.

Baby's umbilical cord fell off.....

Itchy bug bites.....

Left methadone clinic and didn't "feel" well? (I would imagine not)

Newborn won't stop crying? (again I imagine not)

So much retarded stuff on a daily basis - how's this... a teenaged girl brought in by EMS because her left foot stepped on top of her right foot and it hurt. Or - a family visiting their loved one in the nursing home was concerned and had them transported to the ER because their Alzheimer's was "getting worse" * duh.

I had a lady who came in by EMS on a particularly cold morning in the dead of winter because, after walking outside for a spell, her hands were cold.

Specializes in EMS, ED, Trauma, CEN, CPEN, TCRN.

Ooh, that reminds me of one! EMS brought in one of our local ETOH-ers because their hands were turning purple (it was cold outside) ... turns out this patient was wearing new jeans, and as the patient was walking with hands in pockets in the inclement weather, the jeans got wet and stained the hands. Good times!

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