ER and strange phenomena

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Specializes in Emergency Medicine.

I'm having just "one of those days".

Anyone that's been in emergency medicine for any length of time knows that sometimes $#!T really does happen...

Not that I'm here to whine or vent. Stepping back from it all and observing, it just seems to be all crazy and there is no good explanation for any of it. I'm calling it strange phenomena...

There are so many times weird things happen and it's different things that are going wrong.

I'm not talking about the holiday's where families finally go to see gramma that 1 time each year. They get all concerned that she seems a bit "different" from last years visit so something HAS to be wrong, right? Then sends her to the ER and you get 8-10 nursing home patients at once. :lol2:

No, I'm talking about times like today where it seems like everyone on coumadin is falling down. I call it "gravity-bursts". Gravity has been more active today reaching up and grabbing people on coumadin and slamming them to the ground. I have had 4 patients that have fallen down, they're on coumadin and all have cranial bleeds. Amazing. I can go a month or two with no hemorragic strokes and today... .

Anyone else care to share similar clusters of problems or strange phenomena?

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Specializes in Critical Care (SICU/Trauma).

I have found that in my SICU, February seems to be the month for spontaneous head bleeds. I think they put out the numbers and saw we did more coilings, cranies and ventriculostomies that month than all year long.

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Specializes in Peds/Neo CCT,Flight, ER, Hem/Onc.

I always hated working on full moon nights. Weird stuff truly did happen on them.

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Specializes in ER, Trauma.

Amen! Seems like way too much coincidence sometimes, full moon has been studied and ruled out. Don't see a psych patient for weeks, then people in far different corners of the county all decide to hang themselves. Just can't be a coincidence. And watch for my soon to be published book: SUICIDE; Getting it right!

Love the "gravity bursts" idea, I used to call them extremely localized earthquakes.

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Specializes in psych, addictions, hospice, education.

The full moon theory may have been studied and ruled out, but I believe it has validity in it anyway. Strange things just happen around the full moon and new moon...

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I usually get a group of patients who will suddenly have sky high blood pressures and fevers.

Then I always have a few patients that will be fine all day and then spike temps around 7pm. They get Tylenol, the fever goes away only to come back the next day at 7pm. Although I may be slow and missing something with what is actually going on.

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Specializes in Pediatrics.

In peds, we get about 3-4 new diabetics with DKA all within a weeks time (great cohorts!), then go several months without anyone with diabetes.

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Specializes in Post Anesthesia.
I'm having just "one of those days"...... I call it "gravity-bursts". Gravity has been more active today reaching up and grabbing people on coumadin and slamming them to the ground. I have had 4 patients that have fallen down, they're on coumadin and all have cranial bleeds. Amazing. I can go a month or two with no hemorragic strokes and today... .

Anyone else care to share similar clusters of problems or strange phenomena?

I Love "Gravity Bursts" .

I don't work ER but I have often seen the same "cluster effect" you decsribe. For 25 years we seem to get a few post op bleeds in a row, then a run of IABP patients, those go away and a burst of peri-op CVAs happen, then a run of ETOH withdrawl- post op psychosis, (orjust plane wacky patients). Next come the ectopy patients- always the same pacer for brady, or RVRAF, or junctional- Then back to post op bleeds.

On top of that is always seem to follow rooms- Jan and Feb rms 1&2 weren't lucky, April and May it was Rm 6, all summer it seems to be bed 4? Yep, strange phenomena .

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

Yesterday I had three patients with wacky kidney stuff at the same time -- one had only one kidney at birth, one had one kidney removed (cancer, I think?), and another had a pelvic kidney. Things really do come in clusters ...

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Specializes in ER, Trauma, ICU/CCU/NICU, EMS, Transport.

3 stroke alerts within 5 min of each other the other night.

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Specializes in Psych.

Hot summer days and cool sommer nights when all the alcholics are outside drinking, we seem to get a lot of people with suicidal ideation.

The week after flu shots in the nursing home, It's code brown all night, every night for a week.

Overnights after hot dogs and beans supper. :eek:

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Specializes in ER/Ortho.

Two weeks ago I had 3 patients in one night who were either injured at other hospitals, had something go wrong in surgery at another hospital etc, and ended up at ours to correct the problem. I have been on my floor for over a year and never gotten one patient like that, and it was three at the same time. I called it law suit row.

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