Seriously?!?! You gotta be kidding me!

[~Mi Vida Loca~RN]

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.

[WKShadowNP, DNP, APRN]

Amen!

[Lunah, MSN, RN]

But that's what the urgent care centers are for! There are about 15 within 20 miles of me. THere's no reason for any ER to be taking "reservations", yet all 4 hospitals do.

I know, and I agree — the concept is nuts. But my point was that you can't make a reservation for anything that is a true emergency — if you state your complaint as "chest pain" or anything else that triggers concern, it won't let you make your "reservation." So these are low-level, fast track complaints. But yes, an actual urgent care would be more appropriate, or hey! How about a primary care provider? But when these things happen after hours or on weekends, or in locations without urgent cares, this is how the ERs sort their low-acuity patients in a way that helps keep the main ER from being overrun while making patients happy. I guess it's a win-win, though it may seem to us that it's eroding the concept of "emergency."

[Oemgee, RN]

Had a homeless guy on the floor in mid winter, there for hypotension. Lots of history of substances and so on. The hospitalist kept him because he kept having intermittent low BPs... That is, until I pocketed his nitro tablets during bedside report while he was busy making demands of the other nurse. We immediately went and labeled his nitro and placed it securely in his bin in the med room to be given back when he left. No more hypotension!

Same patient, still there because it was the weekend, was caught the next night removing a bottle of hand sanitizer from a dispenser and placing it under his gown to take back to his room, presumably to mix with the endless sodas he called out for constantly. After that I ended up telling my manager that it seemed that he fully intended to camp in that room until spring with self inflicted issues and that we had to turn away patients that night with actual cardiac issues because we had no beds. The patient was discharged that day.

[Oemgee, RN]

Psych consult assessment in the ER. PT kept repeating he was suffering from Psycho Ceramics and nothing else.

Might it have been psychosomatic?

[TriciaJ, RN]

Anyone can get a date if they set their sights LOW enough.

Ma Vida is obviously being too picky.

[NurseLife88, ADN, RN]

So this one was used as a teaching moment while i was still in nursing school, but has stuck with me. We would get a readout for the day on our own pts. along with 1 case study pt. of someone who had been recently admitted. This day the case study pt diagnosis says "Maggots." That is it and nothing else, just maggots. Of course we don't quite know what to think of this and proceed to discuss with our clinical instructor. Turns out a man had been admitted for an infestation of maggots throughout most of his posterior. Very sad case actually and involved some sad abuse in the form of neglect, but you would not have known that by his simple dx of maggots!

[~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN]

Ma Vida is obviously being too picky.

My requirements:

W2 (not for income, but to verify you're working)

Drug Screen

Background check

Proof of divorce

STD check

3 personal references and 2 employer references.

Do you think that's too much??? I've been single for 5 years. Could this be why???

Sincerely,

Hopeless in Wilmington

[LadysSolo]

I think you're right on! And in this day and age, if your prospective partner doesn't require the same from you, they are crazy and not worth dating. Today, often "self-employed" means "I want to stay home and play computer games with someone else supporting me." And genital herpes is forever, and "separated" means "I am keeping my wife around so I can't marry anyone else and they can't make me." You have to read between the lines.

[~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN]

So this one was used as a teaching moment while i was still in nursing school, but has stuck with me. We would get a readout for the day on our own pts. along with 1 case study pt. of someone who had been recently admitted. This day the case study pt diagnosis says "Maggots." That is it and nothing else, just maggots. Of course we don't quite know what to think of this and proceed to discuss with our clinical instructor. Turns out a man had been admitted for an infestation of maggots throughout most of his posterior. Very sad case actually and involved some sad abuse in the form of neglect, but you would not have known that by his simple dx of maggots!

One of the most disgusting things and smells I have seen and had to encounter with a patient was a pt with a history of alcoholism, he was homeless, hx of GI bleed and various other ailments. EMS brought him in and he literally had flies flying around his crotch. He had went on a bender and passed out under a tree in the summer, where he remained for many days . He was covered in feces and vomit and GI bleed and he had maggots coming out of his perineum; that had tunneling to I don't know where. He had flies coming out of places flies weren't meant to be. I had an amazing tech with me that day that saw me turn pale and diaphoretic and nearly pass out. The smell was just too much. He told me to get out and he had it. (not rudely, he was worried I was legit going to pass out and I am not the type to just pass off my work) He cleaned that patient.

Multiple patients in other rooms got sick. We put cans of coffee grounds in the halls to help diffuse it and iodoform. It was terrible.

I bought that tech lunch for the week and when I got to pick someone to go up in the helo ride from Air life denver on thanksgiving, I picked him.

[mmc51264, BSN, MSN, RN]

didn't realize that putting things in one's lady parts for safe-keeping was such a big thing. We did have a woman that "kept" her Fentanyl patches there so no one would steal them from her while she was sleeping (she lived in a group home)

Not to mention my first experience with a pessary (I was a fairly new grad and had not had any experience with them). I had an older woman who needed to be dis-impacted. She shot that thing out of her lady parts all the way across the room. After that happened 2 more times, I told her maybe we should wait until we were done getting the feces out of her rectum.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

didn't realize that putting things in one's lady parts for safe-keeping was such a big thing. We did have a woman that "kept" her Fentanyl patches there so no one would steal them from her while she was sleeping (she lived in a group home)

Not to mention my first experience with a pessary (I was a fairly new grad and had not had any experience with them). I had an older woman who needed to be dis-impacted. She shot that thing out of her lady parts all the way across the room. After that happened 2 more times, I told her maybe we should wait until we were done getting the feces out of her rectum.

I had a patient who kept her artificial eye in there "so no one would steal it". It came out when she pooped one time -- the young student who had her that day nearly fainted when she saw the eye ball lying in the poop!

[AvaRose]

One of my coworkers had a patient today who she had to call Code Grey on 3x in about 2 hours. He had DT's and had been admitted for seizure but today he decided to demand more Ativan by telling the nurse that he would just have a seizure so someone would pay attention to him (we had a Code Blue at the same time). I'm not quite sure how he planned to have a seizure on command but after the 3rd Code Grey and the patient throwing a punch at security he was transferred to IMC (I guess they can do more for him?)