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 ?

Some of my all time personal favourite "Dumb presentations to the emergency room" are;

-Being drunk,

-Being drunk and requesting detox until social security check arrives (read "keep me sober for a couple of days until I can get good and drunk again")

-Seeking narcotics

-Welding flash burns (ie not wearing a welding mask while welding)

-THAT guy from "Jackass" (with the toy car up his butt)

Generally I found that on any given night there would be plenty of malingering drunks, also, when both parties from a drunken altercation arrived at the same emergency room for treatment, that was fun, however as I worked the graveyard shift on Friday/ Saturday nights, what do you expect?

    kids

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That will start next week, and I'm wondering how it is going to effect our stupid is as stupid does patient load. People with insurance or private pay will be escorted to the finacial counselor upon being dismissed from the exam room and then the FC will ask them to pay some amount and set up payment arrangements. They will not receive their discharge instructions or prescriptions until they have finished with her. I imagine people that really need to be in the ER for things like lacs, and fxs won't blink twice, but I am hoping that it will at least discourage the repeat visitors we have coming in for stupid things time after time. I am hoping that once they have to face the FC once and get asked how they plan to pay the bill, then they won't want to face that again. Unless they figure out that we have no FC during certain hours and time their complaints to correspond with that time. How long do you think it will take for them to figure THAT out?!?!?! Anyway, it will be interesting to see how it works. All I know is that I wouldn't want the FC job for ANY amount of money! I can't imagine how nasty some of these people are going to get.

JMHO, Pam

Let us know how it works out.

They tried this in my area a few years ago and got nailed for it within a couple of weeks.

The problem was their holding the discharge instructions until payment arrangements were made.

Something about their being a publicly funded hospital and having to treat regardless of the ability to pay...so they could not discuss money until after treatment (and discharge is part of threatment).

Now they treat & discharge but you can't physically exit the building (thanks to a remodel) without passing thru the financial department.

Had another great one this past weekend. Tell me if you ever got this one: middle age female presents to ER with c/o generalized rash (looked like eczema) for 2 weeks (yep - 2 weeks) asked why she didn't see her PMD, she states she "didn't have time". VSS, no acute distress - as she watches me mark her chart "non-urgent" she asked if we were busy. I replied, "Well, it is the weekend and this is a trauma center - we have several high acuity patients so you may have to wait for awhile." (I figure honesty is the best policy - why mislead her?) Well, I'll be darned. As an after thought, she suddenly remembers that she is also having chest pain. Ofcourse that bought her the LAST mon bed and a cardiac work up (which was negative) but hey - she got seen quicker ... never mind that the work up took even more of her time and she complained the whole time. I guess the "chest pain" BS call has unfortunately became public knowledge as a means of getting seen quicker. Geez ...

Specializes in Medical/Surgical/Maternal and Child.
Gee, let's see:

-broken acrylic nail

-child vomited once, now sitting on mom's lap eating chips and drinking coke

-laceration too tiny to be seen by the naked eye ("it was bleeding just a minute ago" as patient squeezes the alleged laceration trying to make it bleed again)

-totally well, but needing a work excuse for a sick day sometime last week

-child sleeping all day (up all night crying the night before)

-prescription refill (could be anything from bp meds to oxycontin)

-viagra request

-mosquito bite (yup, just a plain old mosquito bite with no allergic reaction or infection)

-child "lethargic" (mom's words) as kid is running up and down the hall and, you guessed it, eating chips and drinking coke

Oh Wow Rainbow, I wouldn't count out that mosquito bite now with the threat of West Nile Virus and other yukky things mosquitos can cause...

:crying2:

tink you are right about using the chest pain to get in the fast lane....my DON told me if i ever wanted to get through er fast to c/o chest pain and act like i had dyspnea...by the way i love pic of sleeping cats

I used to work with this triage nurse who just loved the expression "therapeutic wait", at first I was a little shocked but I must admit that the expression has grown on me somewhat.

I'm sure I don't need to (or probably want to) elaborate.

Suffice to say, there is limited scope for deterring inappropriate presentations

or unreasonable demands, but the "therapeutic wait" ensures that they don't get it all their own way at least.

I'm on dialysis and have Medicaid, so when anything happens to me-- like when I had a badly sprained ankle-- I get told to go to the ER by the dialysis unit. My nephrologist isn't going to do anything not directly kidney-related, so I have to go to the ER because I don't have any other doctor. (But you can bet your a** I make sure it's a real emergency-- and I don't bring six friends with me, either!)

This is completely true, a couple of weeks ago it was around 0200 on a Sunday morning. It was actually not too busy. Man arrives with his wife with him, she is sitting in the waiting room and he comes in to triage and says he wants "to have my wife checked out to see of she has been sleeping around" (he didn't use the word sleeping). Stated they were "doing it" when he put his head "down there" and thought he could smell a condom. Wants the doctor to check her out to see if she has been unfaithful. All the while the wife is just sitting in the waiting room, patiently. I told him that my physician was not going to examine her for this complaint and that maybe they needed to seek some counseling for this concern, opened the door and said "have a nice day". I have received numerous laughs over this one.

and do 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 :)

The Dad, who brought his kids to the ER for their school vaccinations. School was starting the next day and the children would not be allowed to attend until they were up to date on the immunizations.

The problem was that Dad had all summer to get them vaccinated, and kept putting it off. He was really P.O.'d when the ER staff told him they do not do school vaccinations in the ER and to call the clinic in the AM.

Specializes in Geriatrics/Oncology/Psych/College Health.
This is completely true, a couple of weeks ago it was around 0200 on a Sunday morning. It was actually not too busy. Man arrives with his wife with him, she is sitting in the waiting room and he comes in to triage and says he wants "to have my wife checked out to see of she has been sleeping around" (he didn't use the word sleeping). Stated they were "doing it" when he put his head "down there" and thought he could smell a condom. Wants the doctor to check her out to see if she has been unfaithful. All the while the wife is just sitting in the waiting room, patiently. I told him that my physician was not going to examine her for this complaint and that maybe they needed to seek some counseling for this concern, opened the door and said "have a nice day". I have received numerous laughs over this one.

I think we have a winner. Judges?

Specializes in med-surg.

We had a patient present to the ER with a piece of aquarium tubing stuck in his member; he had been advised to do this by a "physician" of questionable reputation. Needless to say, this gentlman spent a long period of time as a patient and almost lost his member to the infection. "always ask for a second opinion if you are uncomfortible (ouch!) with the first!

These trivial complaints are generally not covered by any form of insurance and even medicaid is cracking down on non emergent visits. The patients are usually very angry when they receive a bill for $600.00 in the mail. More and more hospitals are becomming more and more aggressive at collecting on these bills also. The way to treat under educated consumers who utilize a resource for the wrong reasons is to hit them in the pocket book. Paying a huge bill will get them to think about visiting their primary care physician first or trying home treatments. People just dont want to think any more. They'd rather go crying to "Mommy" aka the "ER" than to try to take care of it themselves. We've created a very dependent society.

I work for an HMO, so the patients only have to pay their co payment-usually $50-100--and they still complain about the "high cost" of an ER visit.

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