Doctors and Nurses share the moments when they had to explain common knowledge to their patients. Stories range from eating plastic bags to mysterious stomach pains. Some of this can not be made up.
“That Means They Have Cancer Right?”
“Paramedic here. I was driving with my partner and patient in the back. Patient was fine. Patient’s boyfriend was riding in the front with me and apparently saw a golden opportunity to ask a question that had obviously been on his mind for some time.
Him: ‘So when cats and dogs eat grass, that means they have cancer, right?’
Me: ‘Ummm. No. No it does not.’
Made for an awkwardly silent ride the rest of the way. Not even sure why he would ask me anyway.”
Stomach Pains?
“Patient comes to ER, 19 year old male, I’m getting his history.
Me: ‘Why are you here today?’
Him: ‘Every morning when I wake up my stomach hurts.’
Me: ‘How long has it been hurting?’
Him: ‘All my life.’
Me: ‘Well what is different today that’s made you come here?’
Him: ‘My girlfriend doesn’t think that is normal.’
More questions, exam by ER physician, lab tests. The abdominal pain always goes away after he eats. Always. He wakes up hungry. He thinks it is pain. So I had to tell the patient to go get a burger.”
It Doesn’t Say It’s Inedible!
“Not a doctor (yet) but an ER tech for about two years. Mom comes in with her baby, plus two more older kids. Complains that the baby hasn’t gone to the bathroom in a while and won’t stop crying. As I’m settling them in with one of the nurses, the baby is bawling, like opera singer lungs bawling. Suddenly mom whips out a white plastic shopping bag and sticks an end in the kids mouth, says, ‘This is the only way she stops crying.’ Nurse and I share a look and immediately order an emergency x-ray on the kid’s stomach. Turns out she had ingested a good amount of these bags and it was blocking up in her stomach. Big deal, potentially life threatening. When we confront the mom about her baby feeding habits, her only words of defense are, ‘Well I checked all over the bag and I couldn’t find anything that said non edible.’ You absolutely should not eat plastic bags. Mom had been letting her baby teeth on plastic bags because she didn’t know they weren’t edible.”
The 18th Month Long Pregnancy
“I’m a nurse and I have twin brothers. I was with my brother and his girlfriend and we were talking about having children and she said she couldn’t believe our mum had another child after how hard it must of been for her to be pregnant for 18 months. Yes, she thought twins equaled an 18 month pregnancy. In retrospect, I’m impressed she knew human pregnancy lasted for 9 months and she did the math correctly. I had to use my medical knowledge and common sense to correct her.”
Water Allergy
“I see some crazy stuff, but one thing that stands out was the time I was admitting a guy to the hospital. I can’t really remember what for but he was about 400lbs, diabetic, heart disease, you name it. Anyhow I’m at the computer going over some admission questions with him and his 10 family members who are crowded in the room with him. A few minutes in he starts complaining that he’s thirsty. He needs something to drink RIGHT NOW. So I get on my phone and call the nurse assistant and as her to bring in some ice water. As soon as the words are out of my mouth the whole family screams ‘NOOOO! NO WATER! HE’S ALLERGIC TO WATER!’
Well this is gonna be a problem. Turns out the guy had been drinking nothing but Sprite and sweet tea for years because of his ‘water allergy.'”
“I Just Really Like Chicken Wings”
“Had a patient come in once due to weight gain that she thought was due to being pregnant. Made sense, except she’d taken more than half a dozen pregnancy tests and they were all negative. She was convinced she was pregnant though, and wanted me to check. I tell her ok, I’ll do a blood test, since we can detect pregnancy earlier with that, and she refuses. She says she wants to do a stick pregnancy test, and have me look at it. So I say sure, and lo and behold, it’s negative.
Little more questioning, and it turns out she’d been eating literally nothing but chicken wings for weeks. When I asked her why in the world she would do that, she replied that she just ‘really liked chicken wings.’ So there is the answer.”
Couldn’t Decide Whether To Laugh Or Cry
“Family medicine RN here.
I had a mom call our triage line because her 1 year old daughter had been diagnosed with an ear infection and she was concerned that the doctor prescribed an ‘overdose’ of antibiotic.
I pulled up the record and her daughter had indeed been seen in the office the day before, diagnosed with an ear infection, and given a prescription for amoxicillin suspension (the kind that’s bright pink and tastes like bubblegum), 2 teaspoons twice a day. Very normal prescription.
I explained that this looked like a perfectly reasonable dose for an ear infection.
She said ‘but 2 teaspoons doesn’t even fit in her ear!!!’
I had to ask to put her on hold for a minute because I could figure out whether I wanted to laugh or cry.”
In Need Of A Manicure
“I work at a hospital. We had someone come into A&E because they needed their nails redoing… They genuinely thought it was a good idea to go to accident and emergency to have their fake nails taken off and redone because they had gotten too long and become uncomfortable. Had to politely tell her that we don’t do that here.”
Sweet Tea Diet
“My brother is a general practitioner in rural Tennessee. Enough said, right?
He says most of his patient visits go about like this:
MD: ‘Well, person, you’re pre-diabetic, have high blood pressure, and are complaining about joint pain. Have you been exercising and cutting out sugar and carbs?’
Person: ‘Yeah I have, doc, but it doesn’t seem to help. Do you have any better meds you could prescribe?’
MD: ‘Well, let’s talk about your diet. How much water do you drink a day?’
Person: ‘I don’t like water, so I get extra ice in my sweet tea every day to make sure I get enough water.’
MD :(explains how that’s not enough water by a long shot) ‘How much sweet tea are you drinking every day? Those can have a lot of sugar in them.’
Person: ‘Well, I get a large one from Hardee’s/McDonalds/wherever on my way to work with my breakfast, and another one on my way home for dinner. Then I have a glass or two when I get home.’
MD: ‘That’s a lot of sugar. And a lot of fast food if you are eating it twice a day. What do you eat at home?’
Person ‘I don’t like to cook so I usually don’t eat anything but little Debbie snack cakes at home.’
MD: ‘Those have a lot of sugar too…’
Person: ‘I thought that all I had to do was cut out Mountain Dew! Now you’re saying I can’t eat my food or my snacks?! What are you suggesting I do? Eat salads for every meal?! Why can’t you just up my meds?!'”
“Had A Heart Attack And Thought Nothing Of It”
“I was working in GP and had a patient scheduled for an appointment. I looked through his notes to gain an idea of why he may be seeing me and saw he’d been seen a few times with knee pains/shoulder pains and the like. The guy is in his 70s, so it’s probably just arthritis. I’m thinking I’ll do an examination of his sore joints and ask a few questions, prescribe some painkillers and it’ll be a quick one.
Call him in and he walks in sits down and is cheery as anything.
‘What seems to be the problem then, sir? I notice you’ve had some issues recently with sore joints’ I ask.
He then proceeds to tell me about this sore knee. So I check his knee and take a history and it all seems fine. Ask anything else and he’s like oh actually my neck is sore too. So I check his neck and nothing untoward to be found there either. At this point he’s like ok well thanks doc I’ll be off then.
I say to him oh good glad we could help. And you have no other pains at all before you go?
He then sits back down and tells me he’s been having central, crushing chest pain radiating down his left arm and into his jaw since last night and has been feeling breathless and when it happened, he had an impending sense of doom.
I’m sure you all recognize signs of a heart attack there. He had all the classic textbooks symptoms.
I called an ambulance and he was rushed to hospital. The man came in complaining of arthritis and when he was about to leave decided to tell me he’d had a heart attack the night before and thought nothing of it
What Is Thirst?
“Well, here in México we have something called social service (Our college education is free in some institutions, so we have to pay for it with one year of free work in a rural area).
So the first month a woman in her 30s came to consult because she was feeling weird in the mornings since forever. I asked what her symptoms were and she told me that every day she wakes up feeling her mouth dry, and that feeling disappears in about one or two hours. ‘Well lady, how much water do you drink?’
‘Hmm, one or maybe two glasses, one at breakfast, and one middle-day.’
‘Do you know what thirst is?’
‘Yeah, when you drink water so you can go to the bathroom.’
So I had a conversation that took one hour long about what thirst is and how it feels, also I had to told her that she needed to drink more water.”
Sometimes You Need More Than A Demonstration
“We had a diabetic patient who kept coming back with extremely high sugars. We asked him if he was following the regiment we taught him…testing his blood sugar, using the sliding scale, measuring the correct dose of insulin in the syringe etc. He went through all the steps and it sounded like he was doing everything right.
We asked him to demonstrate the steps he took so we could observe and correct any mistakes he may have been making. He did everything write until the very last step. He drew up the insulin in his syringe, pulled an orange out of his bag, injected the insulin into the orange, then ate it.
Turns out when he was taught to practice how to give himself subcutaneous injections with oranges, he didn’t realize he actually needed to inject himself for the insulin to do its job.”
Gatorade In IV Drip
“I was a newly minted graduate with fresh and optimistic views on my life as a doctor. During my second week, in came this old lady and her family.
They would argue and complain about everything, from the food, the nurses they didn’t like and every single medical decision we made. She was very very sick so her management was just as complicated.
She had several children and they all didn’t like one another and would not talk to one another. Each time we would have to explain a long update to every single one of them because they ‘are entitled to hear it from a doctor.’
One of these stories being sitting down and explaining why you don’t give gatorade as an IV drip. They did not understand why we were giving ‘salt water’ to her.
Conversation with her son:
‘Look, she likes Gatorade, she is drinking it, so why can’t you give it to her through her drip?’
We explain why.
Son frowns. ‘But it’s isotonic.’
We explain again.
‘Yes but Gatorade has more electrolytes.’
We explain again.
‘Salt water just seems to be too cheap. Cant you give her something else closer to Gatorade? That has electrolytes?’
Continues for two hours. Wash and repeat every day during her admission.”
The Talk
“I worked labor and delivery. Had a very young mother come in, accompanied by her parents. She was just 12-13 and parents looked stuffy and kept telling her she was too young, etc. Her mother was silent the whole time but leaked tears for her constantly. While she labored, I received a call from a very young boy who said he was her boyfriend. His trembly voice explained that her father wouldn’t come to the hospital. I explained that I couldn’t give out information but he could talk to her afterward. I went in, told her he had called and she showed me a picture of him. He was white, straight red hair, pimply and tiny–the runt of the litter. About an hour later, her phys ed teacher stopped by to check on her, which I thought was odd. We didn’t get many teachers checking on students. He was as opposite of the boyfriend as he could get: tall, very muscular, beautiful smile, and rich, chocolate brown skin. The girl’s father accompanied her to the delivery room. Odd, but ok. The more she pushed, the louder she cried. In between, she kept say “sorry daddy””. Finally, out slid a very beautiful, chocolate brown baby boy. I thought her father was going to pass out on my delivery room floor. I did my usual “it’s a boy!” And said nothing else. I handed him off to a nursery nurse and got dad a chair. The new mom said “I’m sorry daddy,” over and over again. Her mom, now frowned up, came to see the baby, took one look, started asking God for forgiveness, and left. I sent her dad home a short bit later, admonishing him to react at home, not here. I set up a time for our counselor to meet with him before I left. After talking to new mom, she admitted her gym teacher had been giving her ‘special treatment’. I the talk with her and she said she’d only kissed the bf, but had stayed after school to be with her gym teacher. I’m state mandated to report child abuse, so I did.”
Upside Down Lung
“Pathologist here: Had a guy who had died suddenly and unexpectedly. I soon learned he was the recipient of a lung transplant about 15 years prior.
When I opened the man up, his transplanted lung was upside down. I flipped the lung into the proper position, and bloop. It flipped right back to upside down. That was quite alarming. The surgeons who originally performed the transplant incorrectly attached the organ. When he by chance entered the correct position, the lung flipped over, causing his pulmonary artery to seal shut, resulting in his death.
The man lived for 15 years with a lung that was dying to flip upside down. And it was only by sheer chance he didn’t move in such a way that allowed it to do so until the fateful day of his death. It is one of the most fascinating cases I have ever witnessed.”
“I Thought They Would Go Into Withdrawal And Die?”
“A 20 year old patient and her fiancé find out that she’s pregnant.
Me (part way through taking her history): ‘Do you smoke?’
Her: ‘Yeah, about a pack a day.’
Me: ‘You should definitely stop that.’
Her: ‘Well, my sister told me that if I stopped smoking, the baby would go into withdrawal and die.’
Me: ‘What?'”
Using Mustard For A Burn?
“I work in a burn ICU- which is a weird little specialty- but the number of patients and visitors that come in knowing ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING is very irritating.
Mayonnaise, mustard, and butter are not acceptable burn treatments. Leave the condiments in the fridge. I do not appreciate having to scrub three jars of mayo off grandma.
I had an incredibly sick patient with large burns, and ‘ARDS’- a serious respiratory complication that makes it very difficult to oxygenate someone- even with maximum settings on the ventilator and continuous medication to open up the lungs. He was then put in a rotating bed that we bolt patients into, and rotate them face down. He was also on continuous dialysis from sudden kidney failure.
Anyway- so patient was very very sick, had 10- 12 IV bags going at once- just a general mess of a person.
Here comes the family member with ‘medical experience.’ These are the worst- they always end up being a transcriptionist or a nursing assistant at a nursing home or something- but they enjoy coming in and trying to run the show.
Some highlights from ‘medical expert’ before I kicked her out of the unit.
‘WHY AREN’T YOU PAYING ATTENTION TO HIS BRAIN WAVES!?’ (Yes she yelled everything.) She was pointing to the display on the ventilator- which has everything to do with breathing and nothing to do with the brain.
‘WHY ISNT HE ON PRO-PROPANOL!? ITS NEGLIGENT TO NOT HAVE HIM ON PRO-PROPANOL.’ She meant Propofol.
‘THE DRESSINGS ARE DIRTY YOU NEED TO CHANGE THEM IMMEDIATELY!!’ Ok I was over it at this point. One, it takes at least an hour or so to change a full body dressing while they are in the rotating bed, AND the patient was so sick that if we rotated him from face down, to face up to get the dressings on his front, the fluid shifting in his lungs would likely have killed him. Also burn dressings get ‘gross’ quickly.
I was super irritated by the time I kicked her out. Never kicked anyone else out since but she was a lot to handle.”
I Know My Body
“Doctor here. One we get commonly is ‘I know my body.’ Scoped a guy with knee pain – the joint looked perfect. Told him after the surgery, and he told us ‘no, my tendons are all torn. I know my body’
Told a lady she was pregnant. ‘No, I’m not. I just had a big lunch. I know my body’
Absolutely, when something doesn’t feel right and your doctor doesn’t want to listen, seek a second opinion. You know how your body normally feels. But if someone has performed an invasive surgery to look at your joint, or has seen a fetus on ultrasound, they probably know what they are talking about.”
That “Oh Right” Moment
“A dad calls in to the triage line for his baby.
‘Something is wrong with my sons mouth and he seems to be in pain.’
‘Ok, sir, can you describe to me what you see?’
‘There are these two hard white bumps, like they are growing out from his gums. They seem to be causing him pain. Do I need to bring him in?’
‘Do you mean his teeth?’
I could hear his realization through the phone.”
Mountain Dew Diet
“A few months ago a patient came to me and argued with me about his diabetes and why he was not feeling any sort of relief— I recommended the patient stop drinking 2 giant bottles of Mountain Dew per day, because that was one of the major factors making his diabetes worse, and was honestly what probably was a factor in causing it.
The patient said, ‘No that’s not it. I’ve drank this stuff my whole adult life and only got diabetes a few years ago.’ The guy left insisting his soda habit was fine… I insisted that it wasn’t.”
“Of Course He Was Very Mad”
“My cousin who is a doctor told me this story. He was in his first year in a clinic and people went there to have an appointment because he was good looking. Elder ladies loved him particularly. But this is totally unrelated, and the worst case was when this elder lady goes in with her granddaughter, around 8 years old. She had a severely infected wound in her head. Upon close inspection, he saw the wound crawling with small maggots and the smell was terrible. He was very mad, of course, and asked why didn’t she washed the wound and brought her earlier. She said she thought it would heal with time and was afraid to wash it.”
Apply Cream To The Infected Area
“When I worked as a nurse in urgent care, we had a guy with a bad abrasion on his leg stemming from a fall down a flight of steps. He was prescribed a topical cream, among other things. Directions on the tube: apply to the affected area. Sounds simple enough, right?
Follow-ups, we notice the wound was gross and not healing at all. He insisted he put the cream on the affected area and it just wasn’t working for him!
The doctor suspected something, so he had the patient demonstrate how he applied the cream so we can maybe offer some further help.
The patient says he can’t, because we’re not at his house.
And that’s where the stairs are.
This man was rubbing the cream on the stairs he fell down because the instructions said to ‘rub on affected area.'”
That’s Not How You Use It, But Good Try
“Last Christmas, I was on a morning clinic duty. This middle aged lady complained of shortness of breath, and tells me her previous doctor prescribed her an inhaler. So I naturally explain her that she may have been diagnosed incorrectly and I will try twice as hard to fix this problem. I ask her if she uses her asthma inhaler. She says she uses it all the time and goes through one a week! Now, at this point I know something is up with her. I ask her, politely, if she is sure she uses it correctly. I guess she got offended by my question and caught up on my sarcasm, she asks me if she looks like an idiot. Now, at this point my normal self would have kicked this woman out of the clinic, but I was in a bit of a pickle with my supervisor, so I emphatically say no to her but insist that she should show me how she uses her inhaler. She reaches back to her purse, gets her inhaler and proceeds to spray it to either side of her neck like it’s a perfume. It was a good try.”