Seriously?!?! You gotta be kidding me!

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Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.

Ok here is another thread we can hopefully get going for nurse veterans and young nurses to see what's to come. What are some of the craziest chief complaints or diagnosis you have seen. I don't want to limit it to chief complaint because that tends to be associated with only emergency.

I could name so many but to start the 2 that made me roll my eyes and say Seriously??

Pt came in with a complaint of "excessive anal sweating" stated that his butt crack had profuse sweating and it was impeding his life. Even after D/C came back hours later for same thing. I can not tell you how hard it was to keep a straight face during that triage.

Another patient came in OFTEN with complaints of feeling faint after excessive masturbation. :| His last D/C he was instructed to cut back on masturbation but apparently it was still an issue and he would come in for near syncope.

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I just did my final role transition in the ER. A nurse grabbed me to start an IV on a guy with reported abdominal pain. The nurse started questioning how long the pain had been affecting him, the patient replied "an hour" while texting away lol!! The nurse told the patient we would be back and then told me "We will let the doctor deal with that one." Its not a crazy complaint but I was amazed someone would come to the ER after having a stomach ache for an hour!

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Had a patient roll into PCU with a red toe. That was it. No other hx. A red toe, in a PCU bed.

MRI done, nothing. Blood cultures, clear. Pt requested to have the toe amputated....AND THEY DID.

She was on the unit for like a week.

Most ridiculous thing I've seen in 12 years.

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

Into the ER with a complaint of right foot turning green. Wouldn't you know, it came right off with an alcohol prep. :D

Seen on an ER tracker: webbed toes coming apart. Guess you can't fight evolution. Or Darwin. Or something. Lol

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Specializes in Critical Care; Cardiac; Professional Development.

Patient was having burning with urination. Discovered her contraceptive ring had been somehow inserted in her URETHRA. All of us were scratching our heads on that one. Had to have been some lube involved somewhere, surely.

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Fortunately, all the providers I've worked with try real hard to give plausible admitting diagnoses. So nothing too exciting from me... although I did see one person admitted to a psych unit for depression... the person had a history of tbi and was nonverbal/noncommunicative at baseline. Not sure how they knew she was depressed... the psychiatrist was even going to do ECT on her. Ugh.

Amusing to think there are ICD 10 codes for some of these though.

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Patient was having burning with urination. Discovered her contraceptive ring had been somehow inserted in her URETHRA. All of us were scratching our heads on that one. Had to have been some lube involved somewhere, surely.

Oh. My. Dear. God.

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Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
I just did my final role transition in the ER. A nurse grabbed me to start an IV on a guy with reported abdominal pain. The nurse started questioning how long the pain had been affecting him, the patient replied "an hour" while texting away lol!! The nurse told the patient we would be back and then told me "We will let the doctor deal with that one." Its not a crazy complaint but I was amazed someone would come to the ER after having a stomach ache for an hour!

Oh yes very common. Or vomiting and you ask them how many times and how long "just once a few hours ago"

Or it's abdominal pain for 6 months and all of a sudden at 1400 on a Sunday it became an issue. lol

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Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
Had a patient roll into PCU with a red toe. That was it. No other hx. A red toe, in a PCU bed.

MRI done, nothing. Blood cultures, clear. Pt requested to have the toe amputated....AND THEY DID.

She was on the unit for like a week.

Most ridiculous thing I've seen in 12 years.

Wow not infected or anything huh?? That is crazy, especially the amputation. Did they give a reason for the higher acuity bed?? Like crazy white count and assumed cellulitis or something?? I would love to know what the insurance company said on that claim.

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Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
Patient was having burning with urination. Discovered her contraceptive ring had been somehow inserted in her URETHRA. All of us were scratching our heads on that one. Had to have been some lube involved somewhere, surely.

You just reminded me of one. Pt presents with complaint of "my lady parts is closed shut", we all look at each other with that knowing "Maybe this isn't a bad thing and maybe we should found out how to make this a thing"

Of course we didn't think it actually closed shut

So patients story was that her and her boyfriend went to have sex and it was too painful and they couldn't do it because her lady parts had closed shut. Stated it was fine two days prior. So set up the bed and all that for the exam.

Doc goes into the room with a standby and wouldn't you know that the patients lady parts had ACTUALLY BEEN *CLOSED* SHUT!!! She left out that she had a colposcopy that morning. (would be surprised she even was trying to have sex but nothing surprises me anymore when it comes to that) Turns out that used a ton of betadine and the patient never cleaned after or they didn't.

End result was that the betadine was so tacky and there was so much of it that the opening to her lady parts had literally been stuck together.

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Wow not infected or anything huh?? That is crazy, especially the amputation. Did they give a reason for the higher acuity bed?? Like crazy white count and assumed cellulitis or something?? I would love to know what the insurance company said on that claim.

Reason I was given was because the doc didn't want to have to go down to the med surf unit.

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Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
Reason I was given was because the doc didn't want to have to go down to the med surf unit.

WOW, I can't believe anyone let that fly. What BS!

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