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#1
Non-Clinical Clinical Prognostic Indicators
Good Prognosis:
-Your doctor hasn’t seen you yet, and you’ve been waiting for (insert average wait time) hours.
-You’re in a bed in the hallway.
-Your complaint consists of “months” or “years” of pain/nausea/headache/X Y Z.
-You’ve come to the emergency department for a second opinion, despite multiple subspecialist evaluations.
-You answer yes to every symptom the doctor asks you about.
-You get a blood draw, but no IV.
-The only medication you’re given is tylenol.
-Your doctor says the words “probably” and “virus” in the same sentence.
-You are talking on your cellphone, playing a game, or chit-chatting.
-You are talking on your cellphone, playing a game, or chit-chatting and the doctor has to ask you to stop.
-You “just wanted to get it checked out.”
-Your primary care doctor sighs on the phone when the emergency physician calls him or her.
Bad Prognosis:
-You get not one, but two IVs.
-You remark, as my GI bleeder did last night, “Boy, I’ve never been to a hospital so attentive and efficient!”
-You get your own personal doctor to take you to the CT scanner.
-Multiple doctors, nurses, and staff greet you in your room.
-The triage nurse walks you to your room and points at you while speaking to the doctor.
-You get a room all to yourself.
-You get a monitor.
-Your monitor keeps beeping, even though you’re not doing anything.
-Your doctor keeps checking on you.
-Your doctor sticks a finger in your bottom.
-You don’t argue with the doctor about getting this treatment or that one.
-You are kind, good-natured, and have been a good person in this life.
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#2
Bubba said...
I will seek and find you.. I shall take you to bed and have my way with you. I will make you ache, shake & sweat until you moan & groan.I will make you beg for mercy, beg for me to stop. I will exhaust you to the point that you will be relieved when I'm finished with you. And, when I am finished, you will be weak for days. All my love, The Flu
-ER Doc
4 comments:
Would it be okay with you if I use the letter from the flu on my blog?
You know it's a bad thing when you call in from the road about your patient having been ejected from a vehicle/is intubated because of an overdose of Ativan chased down by Vodka/CPR is in progress/well - I think you can see where this is going - and a cast of thousands meets you on your arrival. And I've never had it happen if the call was BS because even if the scenario were not like the ones I describe, somehow the nurse or doc taking the patch can tell.
It usually scares the crap out of me when it happens that way.
When I saw that comment by Bubba, I almost laughed until I peed. Not much regarding the flu is making me laugh these days. Thanks!
Hahaha, that just made my day.
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