What was the MOST ridiculous thing a patient came to the ER for?

And did you have to treat them?

I am just curious. Your stories always seem to either crack me up or shake my head in amazement.

Thanks for sharing ?

Mosquito bites, spider bites, spinach scares.....what about the BATS!! One person comes in with a possible bat bite, the newspaper runs a story about a bat that bit someone and was caught (the bat, not the person..lol) and tested positive for rabies and OMG.....how many jumped on that bandwagon! And....how many got treated and probably never did their follow-up...why, you might ask? Well, since you asked, I'll tell you...because we are a NOT FOR PROFIT hospital and we turn down no one. We are the only hospital in town and we get it all. I wonder how many of our non-paying customers even batted an eye at the thousands of dollars we spent on all those treatments. The hospital is so "customer satisfaction" oriented, until they developed a protocol. Since bat bites may not be visible due to the miniscule size of the bite, if someone feels that they may have been bitten by a bat, they automatically get the 2-step treatment. grrrrrrrr... there goes my raise..

any thoughts on this?

I heard of a man who killed a bat and was looking at the dead bat poking around its mouth and stuff. The bat had rabies and the man got rabies just from the saliva and no bite.

Specializes in ER.
OK - dumb question - I understand that you can't refuse to treat someone in the emergency room. Can you refuse to see an obvious non-emergency like the hangnail?

You technically cant refuse to treat it..but then again, how do you?? Most hopspitals may want money up front for stupid crap like that though.

bras (new ones) are available through the salvation army, associated charaties, many woman's charities,

just to name a few places. sources like the the welfare board, food pantries have lists of who in a given area handles such clothing issues. if this mystery patient's only bra had had to be cut off in many hospitals, they would have had resources for her to visit.

as a previous poster pointed out, having to request a new bra was a nonissue, compared to having a potentially life-threatening problem go untreated.

people get upset over oddball things frequently, but what they rant, rave and complain about usually isn't what they're really bent out of shape over.

kathy

shar pei mom:paw::paw:

i know it isn't you that posted the offensive comment but nevertheless...

i was a paramedic before i was a rn and i have cut clothes off of trauma victims. i get that. but why would a nurse think cutting a patients only bra off would be funny and post that in this thread?

several months ago i had to go to the ed and radiology was wheeling my stretcher to take some xrays and my shoes fell off the stretcher and they even ran over one of them and if i had not protested they would have left my shoes lying in the hallway. i guess they thought the rn would pick them up? i dunno.

I know it isn't you that posted the offensive comment but nevertheless...

I was a paramedic before I was a RN and I have cut clothes off of trauma victims. I get that. But why would a nurse think cutting a patients only bra off would be FUNNY and post that in this thread?

Several months ago I had to go to the ED and radiology was wheeling my stretcher to take some xrays and my shoes fell off the stretcher and they even ran over one of them and if I had not protested they would have left my shoes lying in the hallway. I guess they thought the RN would pick them up? I dunno.

i think you are mis understanding this thread....it is a vent thread.....the person who posted about cutting off the bra wasnt laughing at the cutting, but more nearly "shaking her head" at the thought it was more important than the patients life....

Specializes in ortho, hospice volunteer, psych,.
bras (new ones) are available through the salvation army, associated charities, many woman's charities,

just to name a few places. sources like the the welfare board, food pantries have lists of who in a given area handles such clothing issues. if this mystery patients only bra had had to be cut off in many hospitals, they would have had resources for her to visit.

as a previous poster pointed out, having to request a new bra was a non issue, compared to having a potentially life-threatening problem go untreated.

people get upset over oddball things frequently, but what they rant, rave and complain about usually isn't what they're really bent out of shape over.

kathy

shar pei mom:paw::paw:

i know it isn't you that posted the offensive comment but nevertheless...

i was a paramedic before i was a rn and i have cut clothes off of trauma victims. i get that. but why would a nurse think cutting a patients only bra off would be funny and post that in this thread?

several months ago i had to go to the ed and radiology was wheeling my stretcher to take some x rays and my shoes fell off the stretcher and they even ran over one of them and if i had not protested they would have left my shoes lying in the hallway. i guess they thought the rn would pick them up? i dunno.

just curious omg, if you knew that i am not the person who posted the allegedly offensive comment,

why, pray tell, did you direct your ill feelings toward me? i was merely stating my opinion on a public forum and basing it on facts gained through personal observation, experience and sitting on many agency

advisory boards. no one on here who read the thread thought the bra cutting was "funny" but the consensus was simply that patients sometimes don't realize that sometimes saving a life becomes more important than an article of clothing. the patient's bra was in a different category than your shoe. the person who ran over your shoe was a jerk while the bra cutter was merely doing his/her job.

i think you are misunderstanding this thread....it is a vent thread.....the person who posted about cutting off the bra wasn't laughing at the cutting, but more nearly "shaking her head" at the thought it was more important than the patients life....

thank you, morte! if we didn't all share our experiences and vent sometimes, we'd all either be in little rubber rooms (without our bras) or explode...

omg, please stick around and get to know us better because we're not a bad bunch.

kathy

shar pei mom:paw::paw:

I took care of a woman who called EMS after having a "really bad nightmare."

After talking to her a bit while I did my assessment, I discovered that she was having a lot of anxiety issues related to her "moving out of my apartment." But, just for a bit of perspective, she wasn't having financial issues, wasn't having to move to a bad neighborhood, wasn't moving out of state, just making your average, everyday, move from one apartment to another.

We gave her some PO ativan and sent her back to home to continue packing.

Specializes in ER, ICU, PACU, Corrections, cardiac.

How about the patient who had a tubal ligation on Monday (the usual labs including negative pregnancy test were done), did a home preg test on Wednesday because "she had it anyway", it came back positive so she came to ER insisting on a blood test.

Well, there's a lot of truth to what you say, but the really sad thing is that an awful lot of these people just don't have a primary physician, and this is their only entry into the health care system. We have all these ridiculous things being brought to the ER, and we also have the people coming in who should have had medical treatment long ago, but have no MD and no insurance and no $ for health care.. Pretty sad state of affairs.

Savvy

Sad but true... if u don't have insurance or primary physician where do u go to? public clinics? you're lucky if they will schedule u within a month.

Specializes in Emergency/Trauma/Critical Care Nursing.
Great thread! I have seen:

-I was watching Diagnosis X..... Well, you might have some rare condition. My teeny ER doesn't happen to have the one doc on the east coast that specializes in that working tonight. Sorry.

-The umbilical cord dropped off.

-'I had a scratch a few weeks ago. I don't remember when my last tetorifice was. I've been waiting 30 minutes, why can't the doc just see me quick? This is why I would never come to this place for a real emergency.' Ummm.... he's arranging an airlift.

-Yeast infection.

-30 minutes after triage, presenting complaint of 'baby spits up'. The parents announce they are leaving now- 'We've waited too long and the ped is back from lunch...."

-I took the smiling Bob pill, got a headache, just want to make sure it's ok to proceed as planned.

-I got this letter a couple of days ago so I want to make sure my child doesn't have lice. He didn't.

-Sunburn. Not even pink.

-Sunburn, fairly bad a week ago, healing now.

-Saw the doc two hours ago, took a pill 30 minutes PTA, no better.

-Overheard a stranger at the store talking about 'the mursia'. Wants a 'salve in case it's catching'.

-Had a fever/threw up/had an itch/ etc. yesterday. Resolved now.

-A pt brought in by EMS after a minor fender-bender. No damage to either vehicle. Pt refused repeatedly a c-collar or backboard and even signed the paper. Refused again at the ER. Refused the soft-collar at D/C even though we never mentioned one and it wasn't ordered. Also stated to the doc upon initial assessment- 'I just need documentation in case I sue for whiplash.' Good luck with that!

-Elderly pt, family in for the yearly visit. They brought pt to the ER and dropped the pt off! Pt states to me "I don't know why the beep I'm here."

People are interesting, that's for sure.

:lol2:

those two sounds like pts i have at least once a shift, oh lord u made me laugh till i cried with that lol thanks!:yeah:

Specializes in Emergency/Trauma/Critical Care Nursing.
In the ER was a guy who came in saying he had " groin pain" he acted very peculiar and it was hard to get a history and definitive c/c. Said he could only talk to the male doc. So when we finally get him in the back, I try to talk to him and explain to him i work for a fire dept as well and I work with all men and I am very understanding....come to find out, he came to the ER cause he had masterbated earlier in the day and now " can't get it up" for his wife who would be coming home and wanted sex. He said if she found out he had masterbated she would kick him out and divorce him so it was easier to come into the ER and complain something was wrong.

For all the BS that came into the ER, some of them were miraculously healed after a nice 8 and 12 hour theraputic wait :)

:lol2::yeah: thats hilarious, thanks for that i needed something to put me in a better mood

Specializes in Emergency/Trauma/Critical Care Nursing.

good for you, you caught on quick! lol

A few yrs back had a 32 yr old female arrive by EMS... she walks off the rig through our doors holding her fingers to her carotid "I have no pulse" and denies any other complaints. Ems giggling and shaking their heads.

Triage-------------->

Toq

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