Curious to hear from baffled doctors and nurses about dealing with certain types of patients, Redditor babyhippo01 asked:
"Medical professionals of Reddit, have you ever had a patient so lacking in common sense you wondered how they made it this far. If so, what is your story?"
It's not rocket science.
Reading Instructions
"There is a reason the instructions for prescription suppositories say 'unwrap and insert' and not just 'insert.'"
– Artisanal_AF
An Afterthought
"I’m a pharmacist. One evening shift I was working a relief shift (not my usual pharmacy). A man comes in looking distressed."
"Man: I had sexual relations with a woman I do not intend to pursue a long term relationship with. (Yes. He said it just like that)"
"Me: okay. I’m assuming there was an accident or it was unprotected. How long ago did it happen?"
"Man: last night, at 7pm on the couch. (Woah TMI, I just need to know approximate time to know if plan B will work o.o)"
"Me: we have this medication called Plan B, and since the incident happened within 72 hours-"
"Man: oh yes, I got that for her already yesterday right after we finished. We want to know if there is anything we can do to know if she is pregnant now."
"Me: unfortunately not. She’ll have to wait 3 weeks or so to see if she gets her period, and if she doesn’t then she can do a pregnancy test then. Theoretically you could do a blood test for faster results, but that would also not be until a couple of weeks, at least."
"Man: we’re just really anxious because she really doesn’t want to be pregnant. Is there anything that she can take to prevent the pregnancy? Any multivitamin? Minerals? Food?"
"Me: she’s already taken it, which was the plan B. There are some other options but those are prescriptions. And no, there are no over-the-counter products she can take."
"Man: What about me? Is there anything I can take now to prevent the pregnancy? Any multivitamins or minerals?"
"Me:……………………………..No sir. There isn’t anything you can take now."
– V_imaginary
"Improper Specimen"
"73 here, former clinical microbiologist, LONG ago."
"Still, I found myself all over the clinical lab at times, not just infectious disease."
"So, one day, this 20-something guy (wife and mom in tow) walks in with a paper request for semen analysis, pre-computer era."
"Ok, not the most comfortable encounter, but I'm a professional and did this drill many times."
"He had not been briefed by the doc and had no idea how establishing infertility in males was done."
"Well, OK, a challenge, then."
"I took him aside and... using standard medical terminology told him how a diagnosis is made and what he needed to do to provide a specimen."
"He couldn't/wouldn't believe that I was asking him to masturbate into that container. Astonished!"
"Then he played dumb, as if the word was unfamiliar to him."
"We looped through the medical terms and procedure again, and I eventually resorted to every word I knew to describe the 'act.'"
"It was like a George Carlin bit!"
"A half hour later, he emerged from the toilet with two inches of urine in the cup. God Almighty."
"The report went back 'patient provided improper specimen.'"
– BrunoGerace
The following examples are relating to drinking problems.
The Giver Of Life
"Paramedic. Elderly woman complains that her mouth is dry and she felt a bit dizzy climbing the stairs earlier. Go through the whole rigamarole of getting a medical history, vitals, more detail on symptoms. Ask her what she's had to drink today."
"A cup of tea, ten hours ago."
"Any water? No."
"Guess what fixed it within five minutes."
– SpatchcockMcGuffin
Java Junkie
"Physical Therapist - Had a patient with neck pain and spasms, also complained of anxiety and heart palpitations. Asked about caffeine intake and patient revealed drinking and average on 15-20 cups of coffee daily."
– jdotbrone
Oh, you're not ready for these stories.
Man At The Mower
"Had a buddy who was an EMT, he was called out to a location for a gunshot wound."
"Apparently what happened is a father was mowing his lawn when he accidentally touched part of the mower near the engine and burned his hand. He got mad at the lawnmower, pulled out his pistol, and shot it. The bullet ricocheted and hit his son in the leg."
– Kretuhtuh
Immaculate Misconception
"Not me but my mother would pick up shifts as a nurse sometimes in Labour and Delivery and she had met a handful of women who didn’t know the baby was going to be coming out of their vaginas. Like no clue. My mom usually said something like 'how you got it in is how it’s coming out honey'. This was the late 90 early 2000s."
– QuailPuzzled1286
One Small Detail
"Rural ER doc here: 35 year old female walks in with right sided jaw/neck swelling. 'I think it happened because I ate some meat yesterday that my body is reacting to' … 10 minutes later : 'oh yeah, and I accidentally swallowed a bee and it stung me in my mouth right before this happened. Sorry I forgot to mention that.'"
– ThomasToHandle
Parents might be blamed for their kids' intelligence levels.
Some teachers could be responsible for overlooking teaching the basics.
Or maybe it's the rural locale where they were born and raised having something to do with it.
Whatever the circumstances, it's confounding that anyone capable of communicating and thinking for themselves can be so oblivious.
I have a feeling all of us should take a deep breath for what we're about to read. And maybe we should have a few shots of something. I get queasy at movies and television shows that take place in a hospital so this should be good.
Behind the Eyes
GiphyThe brother of this 60 year old guy tried to pull his eye off. Extraocular muscles were all torn, optic nerve stretched, sclera ruptured... he wasn't successful but it was half way done.
The guy was blind of his other eye.
The damage was unsalvable and we had to remove his previously good eye, due to the risk of infection.
So, he was left completely blind.
When we started to prepare for his discharge, social worker asked where was he going to live. "Back with my brother." "But he blinded you!". "Yeah... he was on drug withdrawal, he didn't mean it. And I have nowhere else to go".
The Sweet Lady
Surgical tech - not a surgeon - but this one still bothers me.
The sweetest, tiniest, elderly lady came in for (almost) total body skin grafts and multiple fractures all over her arms.
She was out for her daily walk in her neighborhood, was attacked by two dogs, and left for dead in a ditch for 4 hours. The people that found her drove by her once and thought she was a dead deer.
The dogs had ripped every article of clothing off of her. On their way back, they stopped because they had a bad feeling about it - thank goodness they did.
She was already so frail - it was like a nightmare. The whole OR was pretty much in tears working on her.
Depression
My friend is an EMT. He had a call one day about a man who needed transport. They show up to find a 500lb+ man who had not moved for months. His neighbors had been bring him food and he had been sitting in his own excrement. The smell was of death and rotting, to the point his partner had to leave and vomit. They called an additional team to assist with transport. He was complaining about some pain on his butt/legs.
When my friend and his partner moved him to check a horde of maggots emerged from his butt and legs. His tissue was necrotizing. They somehow moved this man to hospital with an extra team. He died of blood clotting a few days later.
Probably the worse case of depression my friend has ever seen.
Oh the Humanity
EMT here. I've seen a lot of messed up stuff, but this one was messed up ethically, not just gross. I got to the scene of a hit a run. Already that is messed up. Then we find out that the first people to get to the scene robbed the patient as he was lying on the ground. So this guy, almost dead, now has no shoes or wallet or anything. I was so disgusted by this. Not the patient himself, I've seen worse injuries and he survived, but by the way the people treated the situation. Very messed up.
Wrap it Up
Greys Anatomy Reaction GIFGiphyObviously not a surgeon but the guy going in after me had crushed his hand in a hydraulic press.
He'd wrapped what was left up in a bandage and driven to hospital. Apparently the first nurse to see him in A&E did not appreciate the severity of the injury and had to go for a lie down when they took the bandage off.
I don't have the words. Are there words? I mean how can any of those situations end in survivals. That poor old woman and that eye thing? I can't...
Leftovers...
GiphyMy exes father was a surgeon. Worst he found was old surgical equipment. Inside a previously operated patient.
Hanging Legs
Was a workplace injury that I saw where a 19 year old kid ran over to help the boss because he drove over some 2 7/8 tubing we had on location (service rigs). The truck front tires were spinning on it because the tubing kept rolling with the tires In reverse kind of like a those log rider commercials from years back.
Anyways the kid ran over and put his foot on the tubing and the boss floored it in reverse. The kid was knocked over and the tubing rolled up the backside of his leg so his shin bones snapped in half. He made zero sounds until the tubing was lifted off his leg and the pressure was released. He was carried to the truck and taken to hospital.
To make matters worse the DR in the hospital set his leg before they saw the bones were shattered in multiple places so it had to be unset and then taken to another hospital to be surgically repaired. The worst part was his leg was hanging there like a wet sock.
Guys, booze and fireworks don't mix...
EMT. We had to pick up a guy from our main hospital, a level four trauma center, because said hospital wasn't equipped to handle the patient. We were all a little baffled, cuz, like... level four trauma center; they ought to be able to handle damn near anything. The hospital wanted us to take him to another hospital two hours away.
Patient got loaded up, and we found out why. While drunk off his butt on St. Paddy's, he thought Roman candles would be a great idea. He lit one about a foot from his face. As it turned out, the hospital we were transporting him to specialized in eye trauma,
Weirdest thing about this guy who had nearly blown half his face off was that, despite being on a LOT of heavy duty pain killers, he was completely with it and talkative. I rode in the back with him and speculated on theoretical physics for two hours.
Guys, booze and fireworks don't mix.
Roommate Tales
I had a doctor as my roommate for a year and there are two particular cases he told me about and even showed me pictures as proof.
- A guy came in as if nothing's wrong, not even panicked or a single care in the world. When the roommate asked what's wrong then he just pulled out his bloody severed finger from his picket and handed it to him. Just casually like it's everyday stuff.
2. One other guy was brought in and said the last thing he remembered was going into the woods with some pot. When he was brought in, his genitals were just gone. It just looked like he's a Ken doll down there. It was pretty much flat there and from the picture it looked like if you were to use a claw to rip at the skin and just rip off the skin, leaving everything else there. The wound itself didn't seem to go deep at all.
Apart from these he did tell me about gypsy people coming in claiming they fell on something when they were obviously stabbed and such. But those two above kinda stuck in my mind as they were accompanied with photos.
Can't Say
head feels GIFGiphyThe most screwed up things are tough to mention here because, while lots of bad things happen to people, some of the more truly awful stuff might be able to be identifiable.
I will say that in my career I have seen far too many intentional injuries to children that fill me with such anger that years later they still bother me.
Source: Trauma Surgeon.
I'm so glad I didn't follow my original childhood dream. Those are definitely situations I would not be helpful in. I'd be fainting, crying and swallowing tons of meds to get through a day. Bless you medical people... bless you.
Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
I can't tell you how many times I've sat back and chose not to speak up when medical professionals just started rambling. How dare I speak up. What do I know? I flunked chemistry and got through Geometry with a "D". But a few times there were issues left not discussed and there were problems. Just listen up to some alarming experiences.
Grandma Wins
Old Lady Wine GIF by MattielGiphyNot a doctor, but my grandmother saved my father's eyesight because she didn't listen to their doctor.
As a child, my father had really large eyes, too large. My grandmother was concerned, but the doctor kept brushing it off as normal. That anxiety-ridden woman got her herself and my infant father on a train to SF to get to an eye specialist, against all others advice. My dad was diagnosed with primary congenital* glaucoma and his eyesight was saved. Go grandma!
The Mummy Appendage
When I was a resident, an 80yo female was admitted from the nursing home for confusion. Workup showed some mild UTI and we were giving her antibiotics. The nurse mentioned that her toe looked dark and asked me to look at it. The toe wasn't just dark, it was mummified. It looked like dry beef jerky. I touched it and pieces flaked off. So the patient from a nursing home, had a mummified toe, probably for months, that no one knew about.
The CT Save
Here's my story:
A guy came in to our ICU and was very septic but still talking. He had visited his primary care MD with complaints of a sore throat for a couple of days. Dismissed without any intervention since he didn't appear to have strep throat or the flu. At this point he was having pretty severe abdominal discomfort, so we sent him for a CT scan. As the scan was finishing, he coded and had to be intubated, multi-organ failure, etc.
The CT scan was horrible - he had all kinds of stuff all over his peritoneal cavity.
His wife told us that he had choked on an ice cube the day before he saw his primary care MD. Evidently he swallowed a whole double half-moon shaped ice cube that perforated his esophagus with a HUGE linear 4.25 inch tear, allowing a significant portion of his swallowed food and drinks to get in to his peritoneal cavity instead of his stomach.
To make things worse, he had some reflux that allowed stomach acid to get in there as well (likely while he was sleeping).
Once we realized what was going on, he went for extensive washout and exploratory surgeries to repair the damage to his esophagus and other organs. Thankfully, he made a full recovery, but he was very close to not making it.
Patches
When I was an ER nurse we got an elderly lady in for altered mental status from a nursing home, when we undressed her to put her in a gown and hook her up to the monitor, I noticed no less than 5 fentanyl patches on her, guess I discovered the cause of the AMS.
Use your Words
Communication GIF by memecandyGiphyNeurologist sent patient to our ED without informing her that imaging showed a glioblastoma assuring her impending death. He didn't overlook the disease, he overlooked the communication.
Lord healthcare is a minefield. If you want to keep living, survival requires communication, and if you can't do it... get an advocate. Clearly I'm not the only one going through this miasma. Wait until to hear the rest...
Mad Cow Realty
During my residency we had this lady in her 60s who was getting progressively more forgetful, just overall declining and getting less and less able to take care of herself. She had been seeing her pcp who diagnosed her with dementia. And she saw a neurologist who agreed. She was not really able to provide an accurate history.
After talking to her family and friends it became apparent that her symptoms were progressing unusually quickly. I remember seeing the point where her new hair growth met her bright red dye and also her grown out nails with hot pink polish thinking, wow, it really wasn't too long ago that she was not only taking care of herself but like, going to get her hair and nails done. The lady in front of me was so far from that.
The neurologist I was training with recognized this, had her admitted and did every test including lumbar puncture. Workup eventually showed Creutzfeld Jakob disease ("mad cow") which there is unfortunately no treatment for. She died a few months later but at least we were able to prepare her family that she would only continue to decline so they could make arrangements. Really sad situation.
After Birth...
I used to work in maternal-fetal medicine, and every single week, we would have women referred to us "because the doctor couldn't see something clearly with the baby and wanted to double check." Nope, they just didn't want to have to be the ones to tell you that your baby had a complex cardiac defect or multiple anomalies indicative of a genetic syndrome or any other of a large number of horrible things that can happen during fetal development. Still pisses me off when I think about how many women waited weeks for more information because their doctors were cowards who couldn't tell them, "There's something seriously wrong here."
"I can't see it quite clearly," didn't sound serious, so the appointment wasn't made with any urgency, and now you're 24 weeks pregnant with a fetus that will not survive infancy, and have no options but to carry to term and hope for a quick and painless death shortly after birth.
bad doctors
I'm not a doctor, but a RN. This happened to me, but isn't nearly as bad as most of the stories on here.
When I was in college, I got to where I couldn't swallow. It started with difficulty swallowing, progressed to me having to swallow bites of food multiple times/regurgitating it, and then got to where all I could swallow was broths and mashed potatoes with no chunks. I went to the doctor multiple times, and was told every time it was acid reflux and part of my anxiety disorder.
I lost 30 pounds (was only 120 when this started) and was just generally miserable.
Finally my grandma was tired of watching me be sick all the time, so she called the GI doctor herself. They said we needed a referral, but she explained the situation and they got me in the next day. Did an endoscopy and my esophagus was 95% occluded at the gastroesophageal sphincter.
For some reason, some of my primary doctors notes ended up in my discharge paperwork (I guess they had to contact her to get my information) and she had told them it was acid reflux and basically I was being over dramatic. She stated she did not recommend them to do the procedure.
Needless to say, I switched doctors. Awful. Was not a fun year.
The Valve...
He put the pacemaker lead in the subclavian artery (and across the aortic valve into the left ventricle). The proper approach is: subclavian vein to right ventricle). And then he didn't notice it for over a year. I saw the patient (a 25 yo woman who didn't need the pacemaker in the first place) when she was in congestive heart failure.
The pacemaker lead had destroyed the valve! A surgeon and I had to do surgery to remove the pacemaker and lead. Then replace the aortic valve! Totally inexcusable. Well, 50% of doctors are below average, but everybody thinks theirs is in the top 10%.
Bitten
Rattlesnake bite. On a 2 year old. Patient and dad out in the fields near a small town that is several hours away from the nearest big city, where I work.
Dad takes the child to the ER in the small town with an obvious snake bite, doctor there says "eh it's ok she probably didn't get envenomated." Doesn't give the patient antivenin, which they had at that hospital, and instead of electing to send the child to us by helicopter, he sent her by ambulance. Several hours later patient shows up to our hospital coding, and ended up dying.
Probably didn't get envenomated?!? What the hell kind of stupid fool idea is that. If a tiny child gets bitten by a rattlesnake, you assume they've been envenomated and you treat them as though that had been. That means antivenin, physiological support, etc. completely absurd.
So what have we learned? Medicine is a collaborative effort. We don't have to know everything, but we have to be vocal. More than one opinion = saving lives. More often than not... YOURS!
Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
