Triage complaints- the good, the bad, and the shocking.

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"I was raped by an octopus."

"I have severe, severe, severe, SEVERE, SEVERE cold sores!" (five severes, I counted. And one cold sore visible.)

Discuss.

Specializes in Emergency Room, Trauma ICU.

The best we've come up with is they though the child had an anxiety disorder??

Other than that I can't figure out WHY they would think a child being afraid of the dark is an emergency...

How about the 29 year old who had a bad dream and came in for it!!??!!

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Specializes in Med-Surg.

Oh God...I don't think I have ever facepalmed as much as I have reading this thread....

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Specializes in Emergency & Trauma/Adult ICU.
You also learn how to announce over the intercom for whoever lost their bag of crack in the lobby to come to the desk and claim it. This is hard to do with a straight face.

And you learn how to describe the plastic bag of dope without calling it "a Ziploc bag of dope". :sour:

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Specializes in Aesthetics, Med/Surg, Outpatient.

Pt who went to Hawaii and cheated on his wife. Came back home and to the ER because a glass bottle was stuck in his...er... there

Another guy came to my ER with long vegetables (carrots, celery) stuck up their. And asked my xray tech if it would be digested?! Wrong way buddy...

Another guy went to ER out of state cuz he had a "toy" in his (same thing) after "falling" on it. Turned out to be a docs kid

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Specializes in Emergency, Telemetry, Transplant.
Another guy went to ER out of state cuz he had a "toy" in his (same thing) after "falling" on it. Turned out to be a docs kid

We had someone come in 3 different occasions with toys stuck in his rectum. Each time he signed in with something that did not suggests the true nature of his problem (like 'leg weakness' or 'low back pain'). He never told staff that he had something stuck in his rectum, it was always in the course of diagnostic tests for his actually CC that the toy (and its location) was discovered. One of the times it was d/t a "fall" onto said toy (may the fall was because of his leg weakness?). It still begs the question, do you have those toys just laying around in such locations that if you fall (while walking around naked) that it will become lodged inside you? What if you have visitors?

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Specializes in ER, IICU, PCU, PACU, EMS.

I had a mother come in with her daughter to the ER so we could take her earrings off.

No skin growth over the closures, nothing medical - she just couldn't take them out.

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I had someone by squad yesterday for 'poop cramps' no constipation, regular bm's, had another bm in ER and was all better.

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Specializes in ED.

I had one gentleman tell me he came in because this is the only place that ghosts what bother him. Really?? Do you know how many people have died here? Or how about the ones that sign in with a complaint and when you ask them how long has this been going on, they reply about a year. So tonight is the night you picked to have this checked out? That's one that definitely needs some wait time to sit and think about life choices. We recently had a visitor sign in with a minor complaint just so he could get a medicaid cab home. His friend was admitted and he had no way home. When I pulled him in to triage, my first question was, "Exactly what are you here for, besides a medicaid cab home?" The provider also had a chat with him about abusing the system. We now have the number to report medicaid fraud hanging prominently in the nurses station.

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Specializes in Emergency & Trauma/Adult ICU.
I had one gentleman tell me he came in because this is the only place that ghosts what bother him. Really?? Do you know how many people have died here? Or how about the ones that sign in with a complaint and when you ask them how long has this been going on, they reply about a year. So tonight is the night you picked to have this checked out? That's one that definitely needs some wait time to sit and think about life choices. We recently had a visitor sign in with a minor complaint just so he could get a medicaid cab home. His friend was admitted and he had no way home. When I pulled him in to triage, my first question was, "Exactly what are you here for, besides a medicaid cab home?" The provider also had a chat with him about abusing the system. We now have the number to report medicaid fraud hanging prominently in the nurses station.

Be careful that your effort to stop Medicaid fraud does not result in an EMTALA violation.

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Specializes in ER, Med-surg.

"My right foot hurts really bad."

"Did you injure it?"

"No."

"How long has it been hurting?"

"Pretty much my entire life."

Sigh.

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I had this one the other night:

C/O headache since 1988.

Pt was 24 years old.

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Specializes in retired LTC.
I wish we could call social services on these parents for being too stupid to reproduce
I have a motto ---- "Stupid people shouldn't breed".
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