Stupidest reason to go to ER

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ER Nurses/MD's etc.

I am currently writing a "paper" on stupidest reason for someone to come to ER.

ANY input you can send me would be much appreciated. IF you'd like a copy of the FINAL draft, let me know.

THANKS in advance!

PS. My winning entry so far is:

A woman who brought 1 month old baby in at 2:30 (AM of course) because "it won't look me in the eye, It doesn't recognize me!"

Not kidding

Specializes in OR, OB, EM, Flight, ICU, PACU.......

Hey! Have you heard about the new OB_GYN drink new on the market? You mix a Pabst Blue ribbon with Shmirnov's Vodka. It's called a Pap-Shmir!

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Specializes in FNP, Peds, Epilepsy, Mgt., Occ. Ed.

Twentysomething female was on Depo-Provera for a couple of years and didn't have a period. She stopped taking the shots and went on an oral contraceptive. Now she is having "heavy" periods and "really bad" menstrual cramps. Motrin nor Midol have helped, so she comes in to her local critical-access hospital ER.

She drives herself and walks in, upright, normal gait, with no difficulty at all. This is a very small hospital and she happens to be the fourth "emergency" to arrive within the last 15 minutes so she's told she won't be seen immediately. (Vitals are normal)

44 minutes later, she gets impatient and leaves AMA, saying that she knows something is "really wrong" and she's going 40 miles up the road to a larger hospital.

A couple of hours later, when all the ER patients for the evening are finally cleared out, the staff take a moment to speculate that she is probably still sitting in the waiting room of the big ER, unless they are having an exceptionally slow night. When she left, she was about 30 seconds from being assessed by the NP.

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Specializes in OR, OB, EM, Flight, ICU, PACU.......

Had a pregnant friend ask me somthing similar: she wanted to know if it was OK if her and her husband had sex while she was pregnant and if the baby would be OK. Told her, "Sure! Where do you think dimples come from?" Still, couldn't have been as funny to her as it was to me.

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I do live in an area where EMS has to cater to every call. It is utterly ridiculous the way some abuse the system. The sad thing is it will never change with all the positive reinforcement we give bad behavior.

Toq

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Specializes in ER/Nuero/PHN/LTC/Skilled/Alzheimer's.

Oh, geez, lots of stories come to mind.....

How about a ramble of various symptoms ranging from chest pain to toothache, only to find out that the "emergency" is that they are out of their maintenance meds and thought they'd just pop in for some from the ER.

One of our docs is somehow over the EMS system for our county and when we get the toothachers, ear pains, ect. that are not emergencies, man he lets them have it for calling EMS for non-emergency transports. I don't call EMS for nothing now. If my foot falls off I'll just scoop it up and drive myself to the ER.

I do have to say there was one patient who we thought was psycho or something. She was a 60ish lol who had a hip replacement six months ago and kept calling EMS to bring her in for hip pain because she said she had no one to take care of her. We did xrays which showed no fractures or deformities other than p/o changes. Well, after she came back three days in a row, the last time with obvious hip deformity and rotation we thought she needed a psych eval since she didn't come in that way the day before and we kind of suspected she had done something to herself. Well, she got an admission that time and the ortho who did the surgery reported to the docs in the ER that her hip had been fracturing along the repair line the whole time and it finally just snapped, probably because of osteoporosis. WOW, I felt bad, thinking she was just some lonely old woman who was going batty and turns out she had something orth going on the whole time. My only question was, why didn't her ortho surgeon pick up on this on follow up visits?

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Specializes in ED, ICU, PACU.
Another stupid er visit--You think that you've seen it all and then comes another. A healthy, 40 y/o female came in for constipation and was given a po laxitive and dc'd. Several hours later she returned with the complaint of diarrhea. And she stated the same thing occurred two weeks ago!

She must be related to the lady I had yesterday that brought her "loose" BM in a zip lock baggie to have us "analyze" it to determine if she picked up a parasite while she was in Europe 6 months ago-no other complaints other that it was a bit softer than usual. While I was doing the assessment, she whipped the bag of __it out of her purse :barf01:. Just told her to save it for the docs and PLEASE put it away for now. Now that I think about it, I should have told her to take it with her on her next trip----would have loved to see airport security handle that one.

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Specializes in ER.
She must be related to the lady I had yesterday that brought her "loose" BM in a zip lock baggie to have us "analyze" it to determine if she picked up a parasite while she was in Europe 6 months ago-no other complaints other that it was a bit softer than usual. While I was doing the assessment, she whipped the bag of __it out of her purse :barf01:. Just told her to save it for the docs and PLEASE put it away for now. Now that I think about it, I should have told her to take it with her on her next trip----would have loved to see airport security handle that one.

Wow! Don't you just hate it when they start pulling out bags and containers? Never know what they're gonna have. My favorite is the vomit in the tupperware bowel. Think they wash and reuse those?

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Specializes in Hospitalist.
I think I'm pregnant...

I have a tampon stuck in my lady parts...

I have asthma and my throat is closing up (this is what the patient said at triage, and once in the room they said the following)...yeah, I'm not SOB or anything; I was diagnosed with an STD last week and I didn't fill my antibiotic, and I have discharge coming from my member...

My toe has been hurting for the past year; I stubbed it and it still hurts, but only every now and then, and I only feel the pain when I'm wearing these tight shoes...

Can I get a work excuse? Cough, cough...

Toothache via ambulance...

Don't you find that those who are the least sick complain the most, while those who are the sickest hardly complain at all? (I once had an 82 year-old in the ED who never rang their call light; was just waiting in his bed for testing and lab results...each time I checked on him, he was upright and smiling - sadly, he went septic on me really fast and I still remember him smiling, saying that he felt fine and didn't need anything at the moment :o).

The tampon stuck in the lady parts...one time, and mind you, this is probably the only time this will ever happen, we had a young lady who was a virgin and managed to tear her hymen with the tampon. The string, somehow, was threaded through a hole in the tear of the hymen. It took an act of God to get that tampon out of there. How the hell it happened, I have absolutely no idea. You couldn't do it if you were trying, but this poor kid was really stuck. She tried for 3 hours to get it out and finally came in.

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Young woman, of childbearing age, no significant history.....

"i've experienced lady partsl bleeding for almost a week"

the nurse I was working with asked the doc -- "are you gonna diagnose her with her PERIOD or do you want me to tell her?":chuckle

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When I was a little kid I was in the ER for one of my biennial visits to get stitches, and there was a pretty teenaged girl in the next booth who had been gardening in sandals and hoed her toe. Which is actually a perfectly reasonable complaint with which to visit the ER, but it was still funny. The doctor was actually giggling after she told him.

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Specializes in Hospitalist.
Wow! Don't you just hate it when they start pulling out bags and containers? Never know what they're gonna have. My favorite is the vomit in the tupperware bowel. Think they wash and reuse those?

I'd rather have that than the live rattlesnake that just bit the pt!

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Specializes in ER,Neurology, Endocrinology, Pulmonology.

Last week of April we have a celebration at a local university, all kids get drunk, crazy, etc. - typical weekend only more vomiting college students coming by ambulance.

One girl came by ambulance very drunk and agitated. Had to be put in restraints and watched 1:1. After she was no longer drunk (hours and hours in ER) she was still agitated, but could not be released because she was 17 ( must have been very smart to be in college already) and her parents wanted to pick her up themselves (They drove from another state).

To make the long story short pt was screaming at everyone, she started hitting the staff, because we could not let her out or do what she wanted us to do. Cops were called. She punched and kicked the police. Pt left in handcuffs. Result - pt would most likely be expelled from the University and have a record. Very stupid reason to go to the ER!

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