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.
A patient came in through triage for her scheduled 7am c-section and could not believe we bumped her surgery because her hubby stopped at McDonalds on the way in so she could eat breakfast....her response was "they told me not to eat anything at home before surgery but I ate it in the car". You seriously cannot make these stories up.
Hope she at least ordered a diet-water with her meal. UNBELIEVABLE
I literally just had an admit last night for chest pain/tachycardia. The patient had been at home eating when she thought she might be having an allergic reaction, so she used her Epi-pen (which she had had for 2+ years and never used before). Patient called 911 and was brought by ambulance to ER and admitted even after being in ER for 5 hours, vitals/labs stable. I asked the ER nurse during report "so she's being admitted for known side effects of epinephrine???!!!" Wow. Just wow.
Tachycardia, sure. Chest pain? More concerning. Was she just admitted for obs? That reminds me — when I was an active paramedic I had a patient who was elderly and used her epi pen, and I am pretty sure she accidentally hit a vein in her leg because she had blood running down her leg and had chest pain with intermittent runs of v-tach. Yikes. Her allergic reaction was pretty much fixed, though. lol
I guess this is actually a real reason to be in hospital.....but still......seriously HOW???????
Never underestimate your patients! lol. I worked in an ER that had a frequent flyer who liked to swallow all kinds of things — forks, safety pins, you name it. In mass quantities. Imagine an abdomen riddled with scars!
Morbidly obese patient...very morbidly obese. Pt admitted for cellulitis in her legs. She also had a known hernia that wasn't being address on this visit. I found her in tears because she was concerned about "the hole in her belly button" and how much she was leaking from it. After calming her down and listening to the whole story, I guess the doctor manually assess the hernia via her very large belly button area (probably less fat or the location of the hernia, not sure exactly). Anyway, she told the patient that the "hole was getting larger and would need to be surgically correct soon but not on this visit". I had to print out pictures of how the intestines protrudes through the stomach muscle...and that the "hole" was internal and her belly button was not leaking at all, in fact, nothing was leaking anywhere.
My mom is a retired ER nurse. When I was about 7, I was playing outside, when my mom arrived, and she told me. "If you ever feel the need to shove a bottle of coke up your lady parts, DON'T DO IT!". I of course said OK and kept on playing, I had no idea you could shove things in the lady parts anyway... Many years later, I asked her why she said that to me, and she chuckled and said that they had brought a 14 year old girl with a GLASS coke bottle in her lady parts. It created a vacuum and the more she pulled on it, the more the bottle tried to crawl in there. They had a really hard time getting the sucker out, and the girl was not only totally embarrassed but also in terrible pain.
Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
Never underestimate your patients! lol. I worked in an ER that had a frequent flyer who liked to swallow all kinds of things — forks, safety pins, you name it. In mass quantities. Imagine an abdomen riddled with scars!
Same here, we had a few FF from the prisons. One would shove anything and everything up his member. It was horrifying. He had to get a suprapubic cath because he caused so much damage to his member. So then he started messing with that.
Had another inmate that had a prolapsed rectum. Surgery finally refused to see him in the ER stating it wasn't a medical emergency. We would start putting it back in under CS in the ER. Or put a lot of sugar on it. He would sneeze and it would come right back out again.
Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
My mom is a retired ER nurse. When I was about 7, I was playing outside, when my mom arrived, and she told me. "If you ever feel the need to shove a bottle of coke up your lady parts, DON'T DO IT!". I of course said OK and kept on playing, I had no idea you could shove things in the lady parts anyway... Many years later, I asked her why she said that to me, and she chuckled and said that they had brought a 14 year old girl with a GLASS coke bottle in her lady parts. It created a vacuum and the more she pulled on it, the more the bottle tried to crawl in there. They had a really hard time getting the sucker out, and the girl was not only totally embarrassed but also in terrible pain.
Legit there is this phenomenon that woman think a lady parts is a flippen purse. We had a psych patient that was stripped down yet went in the bathroom and smoked. She hid a pack of smokes and lighter up her lady parts. :|
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whatdayisit11to7Nrse
47 Posts
Listen, swamp *ss is a serious diagnosis okay?! So is jungle butt. This is NAWT A LAUGHING MATTER