Things Patients Have Taught Me NOT To Do

kerric511 · Mar 31, 2010

If you are having an MRI done, we REALLY need to know about those "personal" piercings.

ooooohhhhhh, I've seen that one..... twice. Now I make it a point to ask. Seriously.

futuremedic · Mar 31, 2010

I taught myself this from personal experience.

Do not, when you are walking two dogs (one of which is quite large) think that the big one is going to go in the opposite direction that you are. Resulted in me flipping over him and breaking my right scaphoid. Twelve weeks in a very uncomfortable cast when you are right handed is not fun!!! :crying2: :uhoh3:

rachelita · Apr 12, 2010

If you are an organ transplant recipient, do not just decide to go off your antirejection meds because things are "going so good". An awakened, ****** off nephrologist, a dose of 1000mg SoluMedrol, and an impending admission to ICU later, the patient is still not concerned!?!

Maybe these apply especially to Florida: 1)Don't get crazy with the fishhooks. They get hooked into hands, ears, lips, eyes (yuk) and noses. Occasionally a poor, little kid comes in with one, but more often it is someone with some alcohol on board. Snakebites seem to happen more often to drunk people too. I guess that makes you more likely to play with snakes :)

2) When travelling to another state for the winter, maybe you should bring your prescription meds. So many people "don't bother" to bring their Lasix with them.

When they come in with acute exacerbation of CHF, they are always totally clueless as to why! Then we once had a guy with chronic urological issues who neglected to bring his self cathing suppplies with him and refused to go to a medical supply store to get more. So, periodically throughout the winter, he would show up simply wanting the staff to put a cath in him. He was morbidly obese, so it was challenging to even find the member. I try to put on my good customer service Press Gainey smile, but it can be exasperating.

allnurses Guide · Apr 17, 2010

Then we once had a guy with chronic urological issues who neglected to bring his self cathing suppplies with him and refused to go to a medical supply store to get more. So, periodically throughout the winter, he would show up simply wanting the staff to put a cath in him. He was morbidly obese, so it was challenging to even find the member. I try to put on my good customer service Press Gainey smile, but it can be exasperating.

Maybe he can't find it either.......

FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I · Apr 17, 2010

Excellent footnote JBudd. :up:

AR_RN · Apr 19, 2010

One I've learned that I don't think I've seen here....

Don't take your girlfriend's psychotic meds thinking they will help you sleep, then wait three days for the resulting erection to "get better" before you seek help. It gave new meaning to the term "blue balls". :eek:

EmilyCCRN · Apr 27, 2010

This thread is great!!!!

Here are some of mine:

...never fall asleep with your toothbrush in bed with you, as you might "accidentally roll over on it", causing it to get lost in your rectum bristle-end first!

...never use your (dirty) urinal is a storage container for all of your bedside items, including your cell phone, a tube of lip balm, and your dentures.

...never be a 400-pound, 24-year old frequent flyer for DKA, with muliple, previous amputations due to your out-of-control diabetes, let your muliple baby-mamas visit you at the same time. And if you are going to let your THREE baby-mamas and your SEVEN+ small children visit you at the same time, please have them do it before ONE IN THE MORNING. [i'm still not sure how they all got in that night, but security had a great time trying to escort them out.]

...when your crack-addict girlfriend overdoses, don't pull up in front of the ED and push her unconscious body out onto the sidewalk, then drive away.

...when your meth-head boyfriend presents to the ED with a mangled hand after punching a cement column, don't tell the nurse, "He's totally high on meth right now. [Really? We couldn't tell!] He just needs to sleep it off for a few hours in the ER and then he'll be fine." [um, no. We are not the Hilton.]

...don't elope from the hospital still wearing a gown, pushing your IV pump/pole, then get on the city bus with said IV setup.

...when you're admitted for severe pancreatitis and are made NPO, don't sneak out of the hospital (still in your gown) and go to the convenience store across the street to buy an entire bag of junk food to bring with you back to you room. And when you eat some of this junk food and become even more violently ill, don't scream at the nurses that "it's your fault I feel like sh*t!"

...don't present to the ED with "pain during urination", begging for narcotics, then contaminate your clean-catch urine sample with blood from a cut on your leg. When you come out of the bathroom with a bright-red "urine" sample and fresh blood running down your leg from said cut (that you purposely caused when you were in the restroom), don't be surprised when we follow up with a straight cath to obtain a second urine sample. Then, when the urine comes out clear and comes back from the lab with no bacteria and no trace of blood, don't be surprised when we don't give you the narcotic prescription you've been screaming for since you arrived.

...don't have your wife drive you to the hospital when you're having crushing chest pain, because when you code in the car three blocks from the hospital, we may or may not be able to resuscitate you. [in this case we did. We shocked him out of v-fib twice and did chest compressions for over 40 minutes. After we got a rhythm back, we rushed him to cath lab and opened his LAD. He walked out of the hospital a few days later. But for the love of Pete, please call 9-1-1 next time!]

...if you're in the middle of a massive MI, don't repeatedly yell at your RN as she transports you to the cath lab, "I'm not like those lazy [enter your "favorite" racial slur here]. I have insurance. Check my wallet! Don't kill me because you think I don't have insurance!" [i am normally super professional at work, but I actually yelled back at this guy, "I don't give a CRAP if you have insurance. Every patient we treat here gets the best possible care, EVEN YOU!"]

These are from my mom, who is retired after working as a 911 operator/police dispatcher for 23 years.

Don't call 9-1-1...

...when the light bulb in your refrigerator goes out and you want the fire department to came and change it.

...when you haven't had a BM in two days.

...to demand that an ambulance be sent because you "have a rubbah stuck in my pu$$ay"

Ahhh, these are all great! Keep 'em coming! :)

rph3664 · Apr 27, 2010

...never be a 400-pound, 24-year old frequent flyer for DKA, with muliple, previous amputations due to your out-of-control diabetes, let your muliple baby-mamas visit you at the same time. And if you are going to let your THREE baby-mamas and your SEVEN+ small children visit you at the same time, please have them do it before ONE IN THE MORNING. [i'm still not sure how they all got in that night, but security had a great time trying to escort them out.]

How do people like that find sex partners, anyway? He wasn't a pimp, was he?

I recently saw one of those shows about the LTC for obese people that had an 800-pound guy on a ventilator, and the nurse once caught him with three women in his room, that could best have been described as groupies. How could any woman be that desperate?

EmilyCCRN · Apr 27, 2010

How do people like that find sex partners, anyway? He wasn't a pimp, was he?
I recently saw one of those shows about the LTC for obese people that had an 800-pound guy on a ventilator, and the nurse once caught him with three women in his room, that could best have been described as groupies. How could any woman be that desperate?

I honestly have no idea! People are strange, to say the least.

Penelope_Pitstop, BSN, RN · Apr 29, 2010

How do people like that find sex partners, anyway? He wasn't a pimp, was he?
I recently saw one of those shows about the LTC for obese people that had an 800-pound guy on a ventilator, and the nurse once caught him with three women in his room, that could best have been described as groupies. How could any woman be that desperate?

If I ever go for my doctorate, that is going to be my dissertation subject. How these fools find love and I haven't had a date in...crap, I don't even remember! Then again, I most likely wouldn't like the partners these people have. :confused:

EmilyCCRN · May 1, 2010

Did I mention that I love this thread?

Here are more "gems" I have personally encountered:

...when you can't pee, don't wait THREE days before telling anyone about it, or else you might wind up in the ER where they insert a foley and drain 4.5 LITERS of urine from your grossly-distended bladder. If you do decide to do this, you might wind up keeping that foley for quite a while. :uhoh3:

...when you're in a semi-private telemetry room and the patient in the next bed goes into v-fib arrest and the code team rushes in to code the guy, don't scream "Where's my grape juice? You said you would bring me more grape juice!" at the nurses. They're a tad too busy at the moment to address your "urgent" request. :banghead:

...don't *repeatedly* insist on defecating in the trash can in your hospital room instead of in the toilet (that's actually closer to your bed than garbage can!). [The worst part of this story was that the patient's husband was "helping" her to use the trash can as she was weak and wasn't supposed to be getting out of bed without a nurse, anyway. I repeatedly told the patient and her husband to CALL FOR HELP if she needed to get up, and that the trash can was NOT a commode! I was a brand new grad RN when this happened. Never, in my wildest dreams, did I think that I would ever have to explain that a toilet is the "preferred" place to deposit one's BM!]

pca_85 · May 1, 2010

Say it again LOL! Trashcans, plants, water fountains...........none of these even closely resemble a toilet.