Glen Beck's hospital experience

Published

http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/3502/

What do you all think of this? There are several things about his tirade which rub me the wrong way but I really want to hear what you all have to say.

Specializes in LTC.
Here's a silly question. Did Glen Beck actually "write" the article or did someone type what he had spoken? You have to sign in to "hear" the audio and it costs to do that and I'm not that interested. If it were the case that it was him speaking, that would make total sense of the bad grammar.

Just wondering.

I think the words that we read are actually a transcription of what he verbalized in the video that was released to youtube.

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Specializes in Emergency Dept, ICU.
I don't work in the ER, but if a post-op patient came into the dept c/o SEVERE pain and difficulty breathing, anxious, unable to sit in a chair--shouldn't he be assessed right away?

Well I do work in the ER (as I have always) and if every patient who checked in with " SEVERE pain, difficulty breathing, and anxiety" was assesed immediately, all the patients who couldn't talk or who were cyanotic or having an ACUTE MI would be complely overlooked.

The patients who yell the loudest do not get seen first in the ER, it is strickly the sickest whom get seen first.

Hemmoroid pain, anxiety is deff. a urgent but NOT EMERGENT priority.

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I find it interesting in his babbling that he didn't admit in the article that his fear of the medication could because he is a recovering alcoholic.

He talks about that on his radio show all the time. Glen Beck is always going off on some tirade.

He says "Well, that evening he wanted to put me into the hospital and the last place I wanted to go was the hospital and my wife, much to her chagrin, let me make the decision on going to the hospital and I didn't, and I went home for about two hours."

OK if I was having trouble breathing and all these issues I don't think my family members would have "let" me go home. Who lets a person who just came out of surgery make decisions? My husband always wants to go home after a procedure, he has had heart caths, a stent, a cornea transplant and the most recent the lift hip was replaced after being badly damaged from playing football. Within 5 minutes of waking up he wants out. I have never "let" him leave. We wait until he is properly discharged in the appropriate time frame to avoid a come back visit to the ER!!!!! Anyways he NEVER knows what he is talking about himself after some of those procedures.

My husband has hallucinated that one of his nurses was the wife of the Count of Monte Cristo because she had gold rings on her fingers and he thought she found them in the treasure box of gold that they found in the movie, and he thought one of his doctors was a 12 year old kid pretending to be a surgeon to "trick people." With that being said who in their right mind would let anyone go home thats babbling like that like his wife did.

TIme for the Becks to take some responsibility for the post op decisions they made.

Like a previous poster said "celebrity drama"

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That was a very well written post and it was a good reminder of what can and does go wrong.

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I meant that well written post message to EndGame not to myself..........OMG hahaha what an idiot I am sometimes.

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TIme for the Becks to take some responsibility for the post op decisions they made.

Bingo.
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Specializes in LTC, Cardiac Step-Down.

Five things not to do in the ER

Many things about this article disturbed me, but I think the most disturbing part was this:

"Beck says his wife literally held him up in the emergency room, while nurses looked on and chatted about their holidays."

Why are nurses made out to be the bad guys here, as well as in most media stories (like the one about the patient that died in the ER in LA)?

It would also be interesting to see some ER nurses' responses to the so-called "five things not to do in the ER".

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Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.

It is unfortunate, but, I hate to say that I have witnessed things like this happen at my hospital. I do not work in the emergency room, so, I don't have first hand knowledge on the dynamics, but, I can see that the medical staff working there is overwhelmed. However, I have seen nurses become very rude and antagonize patients and their families. Once, my son came to my clinic (when I was an aide) from school. As soon as he walked in, he held his chest and collapsed in front of me. I went to one of the doctors I know and asked him to see my son, and he immediately brought us down to the peds ER. My son has a social phobia, and does not express himself very well. He always assumes that he is bothering people even when he has a legitimate reason, and many times, he would mumble when he speaks. When we got downstairs in the ER, the nurses noticed that I had a hospital ID on. I told them that he was complaining of chest pain, and then, the doctor that escorted us there had gotten the pediatrician. Immediately, he ordered an EKG and bloods. One of the nurses refused to do the EKG until my son took his shirt off. The way she said it made it seem as though she was not concerned that this boy was clutching his chest and crying. I pushed her out of the way, removed his shirt and did the EKG myself. Then, they didn't know what tubes to use to draw for cardiac enzymes. I drew his blood. I then said that I will be the one to do what needed to be done and interact with the doctor because they already showed me that I cannot trust that myself or my loved ones would be treated where I work with care and courtesy (heck, they come to my clinic and want to be seen first, don't they??).

He was fine. I wrote a letter to the director of nursing and the chief operating officer and told them point blank that I would not want anyone I love to be treated in my ER. I know it is busy, overwhelming and frustrated. But, if they cannot demonstrate common courtesy to their own employees, how would they treat strangers that they see daily??

One of the things that I find incorrect about this article is that many communities do not have their own physician to contact if they are to visit the emergency room, or that their doctor works at the hospital, but is either on rotation in the clinic or on the floors. Basically, a person under these circumstances is at the mercy of that emergency room. At least if respect is shown towards the pain, fear and diagnosis of the patient, it usually has a calming effect, and a sense of trust is built.

I am only speaking from experience of my hospital. I have visited ERs over the years that offered prompt, swift service. I wish I can say that mine offers the same.

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Specializes in Education, FP, LNC, Forensics, ED, OB.

Posts #115 and #116 merged with existing thread.

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YIKES. I see a ton of people with a cold or diarrhea asking for the person in charge or for the administrator. It's often the ones least ill and injured that scream the most.

Having your doctor call if you are having say chest pains might not be a bad idea, but if it is something non-emergent that just takes more time away from the sick patients already being treated/waiting.

One thing the medical community seems to agree on is that patients are waiting too long. If they hired more people it certainly would help, but they all want to save money so patients suffer.

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Here is the e-mail I sent Mr. Beck:

Mr. Beck,

I read your rant about your experience after what I assume was surgery for hemorrhoids. You have some valid concerns. However, you praise your doctors and lambasted some nurses when it was your doctors who never should have allowed you to go home in the first place. Hemorrhoidectomies are notoriously painful and had you been admitted immediately to the hospital by your docs you could have bypassed the ER all together.

And for your info, "calling ahead" doesn't do anything in the ER. Do doctors really think we're going to hold off on the cardiac patient (in imminent danger of death, likely the guy who was called ahead of you) so we can hold a bed for their patient? ER's are triaged according to severity of illness.

Unfortunately it seems the triage nurse was unprofessional and I'm sorry about that, if in the ER again have your wife demand help. There is no excuse for the way you were treated though.

Also you seem misinformed about basic pharmacology...fentanyl is not only given to dying patients, it is a common opioid given to people in pain. It has a short half life, making it ideal to combine with other pain killers. No one would have let you stop breathing. The nice thing about all the painkillers you were on is that if you ever had been seriously in danger of respiratory failure all it would have taken is a shot of narcan to completely reverse the effects. A general rule of thumb is....if your patient is talking to you, they are not in respiratory distress. Patients who are truly in respiratory distress cannot talk....they can't spare the breath to do so. So, I can see why you telling a nurse you were having issues breathing may not have caused her to be alarmed. She should have talked with you more to discover the source of your fears though.

Also, if you were in serious danger of respiratory failure you wouldn't have remembered nurses asking you to breathe (that's common practice post-anesthesia); you wouldn't have remembered anything at all...you would have been sedated and intubated STAT. It bodes well for your respiratory status that you were never intubated.

Naomi R.N.

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I am a viewer of Glenn Beck's CNN talk show, and occasionally peruse his website.

Apparantly, Mr Beck had a hemmorhoidectomy during the Christmas break and (being a recovered alcoholic) had some pain issues; he could not get adequate pain relief.

So he phones his DR (who tells him he is calling ahead to the ER :icon_roll (riiiiiight) and heads to the ER, where he bemoans the fact that he had to wait in the waiting room for (eek!) 40 minutes before being called back.

Now, I agree with him that the triage nurse should not have been drumming his fingers on the door while waiting for his wife to drag him back into the triage area, but all the while Mr Beck is singing the praises of his glorious doctors (who discharged him from same-day surgery with apparently uncontrolled pain), he blasts ALL healthcare professionals as uncaring twits.

You can read his "harrowing" account here.http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/3502/

He also seems p'd off that he was subsequently so oversedated that he was afraid he would stop breathing. Well, yeah, Mr Beck, narcotics ARE pretty dangerous drugs, and require monitoring...which is it that you want, pain relief or sedation? He apparently wanted an anesthesiologist to sit by his bedside and hold his hand....after all, he IS a celebrity.

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