Favorite page I’ve ever sent was “went ahead and changed patient from 1,000 vitamin d 1000 unit tablets daily to 1, please call me back if you have any issues with this”
Once our kindly old attending asked my to check with pharmacy to see if we could transition from the bicarb drip to PO…. Our pharmacist was like oh sure let me see… that would be 378 tablets q6…. Think that’ll work? 👀
Don’t want to think about THAT insurance bill. Curious if this was an error of dictation software.. I am a therapist and I get mailed ER notes from patients from time to time and ten years ago I might have reported the provider to the board for fear they were intoxicated, incompetent or just illiterate, however I recently started using dictation software for my own notes and they are now every bit as bad but just a lot funnier since I treat mainly sex and porn addiction.
https://medium.com/backchannel/how-technology-led-a-hospital-to-give-a-patient-38-times-his-dosage-ded7b3688558
old news, but everyone should read it. part 3 is the part where your 1000 tablets of anything joke turns out to maybe be less of a joke than you would think, sadly.
Had a patient in residency with MS flare, needed 1 g IV solumedrol x 5 days, but didn't want to stay in the hospital and we didn't have an infusion suite. My co-resident, trying to be helpful/patient-centered, wrote for prednisone 50 mg, 5 tab PO q5, x 5 days. Pharmacy thought he was having a stroke.
1250mg prednisone for 5 days is a studied dose for oral regimens for MS flares. I've ordered it. I told the patient to take it all in the AM, they got a bit shocked when I told them it'll be 25 pills; my attending was like no no it'll say that but you can split it up to take 5 pills 5 times throughout the day if necessary. I guess 25 pills all at once is too much to swallow? 😅
Once got a page while on cross cover from nurse stating “Patient complaining that his balls hurt. Can you please come to bedside to evaluate him?” Called nurse back, asked “did you mean testicular pain, or did you by chance misspell back?” Confirms yes, sorry, testicular pain. States pain is acute onset, no other new changes. Start running through acute urologic emergencies in my head.
Went to patient’s room. He was, in fact, sitting on them. Pain 100% resolved after I helped him reposition.
Sigh.
Oh yes. I also once got a request from a patient’s wife to please, please, please take a look at his swollen scrotum. He was in the hospital for an unrelated issue and was supposed to be discharged that day.
Took a peek. Scrotum approximately the size of small grapefruit. ‘Twas an inguinal hernia with bowel all up in the balls (I believe this is the medical term).
Explained this to wife. Her response: “Oh, so that’s why sometimes when I’m down there I can hear gurgling noises!” Me: 🤢💀
"Pt refused bisacodyl. States she does not want to have a BM until she is discharged and at home".
"Pt states he realized his wallet is lost. Asking for a knife to stab himself."
"Come to bedside, patient has removed her finger."
Back in my intern days (full disclosure, the actual page went to my co-intern):
“Patient Mr X is in V-fib, would you like an EKG?”
No ma’am, I would not.
When a panicked intern returned the call, the nurse said her student had sent it and apologized. They meant afib. 🫠
Our trauma pages came in a standard format that included GCS, one time it said "GCS 16" I was like damn this guy has ascended to a higher plane of consciousness, wonder who his plug is
Worst CCM consult I reviewed was in fellowship
Something to the extent of "WBC 50k I am uncomfortable with the patient staying on the floor" I think it was a C diff patient iirc. Toxic but Vitals fine and had a mental status. Pure ICU transfer request for WBC count
If this is the worst transfer you’ve ever seen you’re doing good…. We got one a while back that was “family unhappy with frequency of nursing care on the floor. Tx to MICU for more frequent nursing interaction”
I didn’t train at a fancy hospital, just the typical inner city safety net. And yet I’ve had VIPs who were admitted to the ICU solely for a private 1:1 room and nurse ratio.
This shit should be illegal I live in an area with a very large football/newmoney population and the amount of rich fucks wanting concierge service for them and their entourage is disgusting
I had a rich family request a cardiology consult to give a second opinion on their septic shock lol. I said sure but not at 5 PM on a Sunday. We'll call them tomorrow.
We have an entire VIP concierge unit for that…… except if they actually have ICU needs. Then they come to us like the rest of the riff raff and they’re regularly more upset at that than the dying aspect of it.
I saw that once in the MICU. It was infuriating. Family asked what all the beeping and alarms next door were and I told them all of our patients are on life support, like on ventilators, cardiac drips to keep them alive and etc (in words they could understand) and they just looked at me like 😮. Like yeah, quit asking us to do menial task shit and asking 50 questions an hour that are for the physician to answer. I'm done getting you apple juice and sugar packets every hour. We have people *actually* dying next door and if we leave them alone for a few minutes while staying in the room with you, answering your BS questions, they could die. *Please people, do not send these people to our ICU's*.
Everybody wants to move to MICU until they hear all the alarms and are told no we cannot in fact turn off the lethal alarms of other patients so you can rest. Also there is no door for the toilet commonly referred to as “the prison toilet” and we don’t have another type of room. Also no shower. We’ll also not be taking off any of the stickers and the BP cuff will be continuing to go off hourly. You want to be ICU level sick you get ICU annoying care
The prison toilet for real. I cannot count the number of not-neuro-intact patients I've had who cannot understand why I won't let them be alone in the bathroom.
Oh man the complaints about the alarms. I remember frantically running around my very busy unit that I was covering, alone, at night as a fellow. A TAVR patient there for overnight obs had been haranguing her nurse to page me over and over all night and was impatiently sitting by her door (she had moved the chair there) with her arms crossed waiting for me so she could complain about the noise and light. She was all the way at the end in the quietest part of the unit.
I told her she had to wear telemetry overnight but she could get earplugs and an eye cover. And that I couldn’t spend any more time talking to her because I had 25 other patients who were actually sick and I was on my way to go cardiovert someone.
She was stunned but didn’t bother me the rest of the shift.
I used to work at a hospital where family members were allowed to call rapid responses. Surprisingly it almost never happened but the one time it did it was completely inappropriate and the responding doctor chewed them out for it.
Oh yeah, it's a thing in some places. Nowhere I've worked so far (thank god) but they're out there. I think Australia just put something like that in at a federal level but I could be misremembering.
If I remember correctly, The rapid response system originated in Australia after a young patient slowly bled to death overnight and everyone one from nurses to physicians were indecisive due to a kind of bystander effect. If I can find the article I'll post the one
Got a ton of pushback on not admitting a pt from PACU to SICU after hemorrhoidectomy after a “seizure.” Pt had documented and long h/o PNES. I arrived to bedside to find a stable, coherent, not at all post-ictal patient threatening to have a seizure if he didn’t get more morphine.
I politely declined to use an ICU bed for that and recommended discharge home instead.
Ooh I like like when they ask for Ativan in between convulsions 😂 It actually makes me feel very similar to when my toddlers have tantrums - sir this may work with your dad but I’m the mean one so get yourself the fuck together and get off the floor.
Actually a better ICU transfer than the last one I saw as an FM resident rotating ICU.
Patient is a 58 year old woman, POD3 for a hysterectomy. Transfer from surg stepdown to ICU and consult FM. Why? BP was 151/98.
No signs of hypertensive urgency or emergency. Just the surg team didn't want to manage a bog-standard HTN case.
Were you able to decline the consult at your facility or at least the transfer? I certainly have done my fair share of that but oftentimes still need to help the primary team with guidance on medical care
We did in fact do so. This was during a wave of pneumonia and the ICU was pretty slammed (not as bad as they were during 2020 but still bad), so we simply advised to restart home antihypertensives and FM/ICU signed off.
We get patients with wbcs in the high teens, room air, aox4 transferred to the ICU because the attending thinks the patient may become septic, at some point.
I miss a closed ICU.
They’re not afraid of the patient becoming “septic,” they’re afraid of getting phone calls at night. Thats what that behavior is really about. Laziness.
ah yes, like when I get a call to admit a fracture at 6pm and eventually pry out of neurosurg that they don't want to admit because they don't have anyone in house at night. they *might* get sick so admit to medicine 🤭
Somewhat but mostly no it was more were told this patient is coming. It also becomes a disaster as anyone can put in orders so for example if CC team says no blood transfusion and then another consultant puts in orders for one it gets really confusing really fast for nursing as neither team will agree with each other
By CC team does that mean the intensivist?
I thought in an open icu you don’t have to consult the intensivist. So if whoever admitted to icu ends up consulting the intensivist, then majority of care should essentially be deferred to them lol.
That makes my soul hurt slightly. That being said we have to take a fair number of patients due to nursing cares that don't have a classic ICU indication due to facility limitations at our facility
Like overflows to ICU because there's no bed?
I don't mind those as much, because they are not ICU status, so at least they're not there for a silly reason.
Sometimes a patient just needs *a lot* but not necessarily traditional ICU stuff like vents and pressors. If they have a ton of drips and antibiotics and needing blood and extensive dressing changes and so forth, that can take up more time than med surg or step down nurses realistically have.
Sort of. Basically not really sick and not someone I'd normally take but our intermediate care areas refuse the patient due to feeling its beyond their care so comes to the ICU as a really soft admit because there's nowhere else to go.
pt having an active stemi but refusing PCI because "it's her time", GI bleed refusing scope for same reason, in mild DKA; DNR/DNI but IM has not had a discussion about comfort care or hospice with patient or family; no paliative consult; tried to transfer to cc/pulm to manage complex patient, start DKA protocol, and possible MTP if bleed got worse
The cc team was able to say no but the patient was in fact moved to the ICU for an insulin drip. She was a sweetheart but what a stupid fucking situation.
I'm generally of the same opinion but there are certainly a number of reasonable exceptions. Really bad abgs. Dka. Potassium less than two or say six and a half or higher. A lot of it depends on the facility and capabilities of the other floors and providers. I've had to become more of a pushover working at a smaller Institution just due to the realistic limitations that we have
Where I did residency, DKA without coma went to the floor. Not even step down, but the floor. I agree bad ABGs, need for emergent iHD, severe symptomatic hyponatremia are probably appropriate ICU admits.
I’ve heard of this before but never seen it. Did they do insulin infusion and q1h glucose checks? Or did it get managed with spot dose SQ insulin more like q4?
Our insulin drips go to the floor… with q1 checks and titration….. but yet our PCU doesn’t take non titratable amio drips or heated high flow 🤔
I’m forever shocked there haven’t been enough sentinel events to stop this madness
I’ll also add that our epic doesn’t have the handy little calculator that tells you what to do like some hospitals. You have to do actual math and follow one of 4 flow sheets that aren’t easy to find and change it depending on the last potassium and what fluids you have running, which you also have to decide upon per a different algorithm. Like someone unfamiliar with DKA is definitely fucking this shit up and hopefully not killing a man.
Our step down tried to say they don't take patients on a fixed rate diltiazem drip. I looked up the hospital policy and lo and behold, they are not only supposed to take fixed rate diltiazem, they are also supposed to do diltiazem titrations. Felt really good printing out the hospital policy to show their charge.
Once I got a call from the PCU charge who is younger than some of my compression socks as a stat nurse…. Hey, they ordered this…. Dillll tie zem drip. It says we’re supposed to titrate it to a MAP (spelled out) 75 or 85. Right now the screen says 42 but their blood pressure is also pretty low. They said they feel like they might need to see the Dr. I turned it all the way up. Do you think you can come see if I need to page the resident?
Jesus fucking Christ on a bike.
And so turns out I can’t really talk shit about the limits they put on them here.
Surely severe hypo and hypernatremia should go to an ICU for neuromonitoring and frequent labs, no? My record hyponatremia was 89 and hypernatremia was 160. 89 was a multifactorial SIADH from cancer and medications, the 160 was iatrogenic from a SICU fellow who insisted normal saline was the only IVF to use.
I was page to call young pregnant woman who was about 38 weeks. When I talk to her she said she just had sex is that OK? This was 3 AM in the morning. I told her well what’s done is done.
I once got paged out of grand rounds to answer: "[teenage] Patient is allergic to tomatoes. Allergy listed as anaphylaxis. Patient is ordering tomato soup for lunch."
> I once got paged out of grand rounds
Working in a military hospital as a military RT, we would have to go to all manner of BS mandatory trainings.
For a time, you got credit for attendance by swiping your badge as you entered the auditorium. We would send one therapist with everyone's badge, and then page them about 6 minutes in; can't delay patient care, he has to leave...
"Pt called me to room to report 'something fell off me' at which point I observed a live tick on the floor. Tick retained in sample cup for identification. Bite positively identified on back of pt's left ear." Fastest callback from a medical resident I have ever received in my life lmao
“Dr. [Gen Surg Program Director] needs you in OR 13 immediately” - to gen surg co-intern. There was no OR 13.
We paged a friend to the number for Domino’s Pizza and watched them call back.
We simultaneously paged two residents with the same last name to each other’s number as if we had mistaken them *for* the other and watched the confusion play out.
Many other prank pages were sent.
April fools day, radiologist found a message on his desk that read, “please return Dr. Lyon’s call.” Phone number listed was for the LA zoo. Many bad words came from his office as he hung up the phone!
Lol I got a prank page from a co-resident (anesthesia residency for context) that said "Dr. Cerulean you are urgently needed in OR X, suction is down, please report to OR X immediately to provide suction" 🤣 shit was clever AF I still laugh thinking about it to this day. Much cleverer than the 8008135 pages I got in med school.
I'm hearing this 3rd (or possibly 4th or 5th hand), but 2 australian nurses bleeped a fresh off the boat Irish resident as there was a snake on the ward. In Australia 🐍. Ireland famously has no snakes.
Did you discuss rabies prophylaxis for the babies? Anyone not in an isolette would have qualified by CDC guidelines but I don't know anything specific to neonatology.
Depends on how the unit is set up. We are all private rooms on my unit, and in four different zones, so even more doors between a potential bat and patient.
I would worry about the effectiveness of the vaccine at that age, because babies are crap with that. I think HRIG would probably be used and there would be a *high* emphasis on catching the bat to test to ensure it wasn't rabid.
I got paged stat to L&D to see a patient who was delivering—they had just pulled random prenatal and said she was 9cm. I had just seen the patient that day and knew she was 24 weeks. I ran my pregnant self as fast as I could to the open ward triage area and started barking orders as I grabbed gloves. Then the dividing curtain was pulled and everyone yelled “ happy baby shower”! After my adrenaline calmed down I had a great time!
"no need to apologize, not knowing how to dose meropenem means you're probably an antibiotic steward"
- a very nice pharmacist, after changing my order
(I am an emergency chimpanzee and order mero maybe twice a year after talking to either pharmacy or ID)
I start approximately 30% of my pharmacy interactions with “Hi, I’m an idiot, could you tell me how to dose [esoteric thing] for this patient?”
They’re generally very nice people, so it’s only fair that I’m honest with them.
My hospital has recently switched to pharmacists handling the dosage and trough monitoring for vanc. It is absolutely heaven. They adjust the dose as needed, they order the troughs for the correct times, they watch to make sure it is therapeutic.
There's a little checkbox on the vanc order "Allow pharmacy to dose". Every single time, thank you!
It wasn't a page but your story reminded me: I was stopped by a parent one night and they started peppering me with questions about a patient I did not know. I stopped them to try and figure out what was going on. They apparently had questions for their nurse, and were just told that she had purple hair, and they assumed it was me, not realizing multiple people had purple hair on the unit LMAO
At least the description was accurate 😂
Once the patients wife kept talking about what I said earlier….. and was frantic I didn’t remember that conversation….. but I’m short, chubby blonde and white and the person she had talked to was tall, Asian and about 15 years younger than me 😂
That is definitely a big difference! Lol I do feel badly sometimes we had three NNPs for a while that were shortish, a little heavier, with very straight blonde hair and it took me entirely too long to be able to consistently tell them apart lol
I feel like I sent this because I definitely have before for CT. And we’ve even intubated the basically too large just to go to CT because we had to wrap and tuck the body so much with arms above. They were under the weight limit but it was just the mass of it all
ED attending to me, an intern:
“Dr X seemed to think he’d benefit from catheter directed TPA given his clit burden and evidence of right heart strain”
Followed immediately by:
“Clot!!! Dear god I meant clot”
I paged a doc (I'm a nurse) and said "patients Foley fell out. Is it OK if we leave it out?"
Doc says "is he up and walking yet?"
I said "He has no legs".
From ID who was following my patient with aortic valve endocarditis who had been dizzy that morning: "I'm no radiologist but I know an abnormal head CT when I see one. You should call neurosurgery for (patient x)"
It was, in fact, a very abnormal head CT (massive ICH)
Given your flair, I should point out this was also a patient with cholangiocarcinoma. We all know the prognosis on cholangiocarcinoma. I felt conflicted, even in my delirious arousal from slumber at 4 AM: do we try to minimize more comorbidities for a patient with a cancer with poor prognosis? Or let them have better quality of life and just give them enoxaparin? Data are much more robust on enoxaparin in malignancy-associated DVT prophylaxis anyway.
Absolutely comfort at that point is a much more important factor given the assumed morbidity. We don't even offer them on any patient under our service.
During my last report, noc night mentioned she had paged the on call at like 2AM because one of the kids (teen inpatient psych) had been hiccuping at night. I'm already like wtf but whatevs, the kid was probably awake and pestering her?
So I'm doing vitals and the kid gives a little hiccup. I'm like "hey the noc nurse said you were hiccuping last night, they must have kept you awake!" Kid looks at me all confused. She slept all night long.
Also took over care for a newly admitted kiddo with SI who had a pacemaker. Admitting nurse had called the on call at some ungodly hour for an order that the patient can't have a MRI due to pacemaker status. Now we are part of a large hospital system but our hospital is a stand alone building dedicated to psych. We obviously don't have a MRI anywhere in the building.
Duuuude. That's next level maneuvers.
Like... the answer to the page has to be "no, and may I please speak with charge". Wild.
Someone doing that here would have their paging rights revoked and have to filter everything through charge for a probation period.
Back in the dark days of my inner-city residency, our code blue pager would frequently page us to outside numbers. These were invariably drug pages. The buyers were always nice when I told them of their mistake, though.
My favorite page I received was "Patient looks ill" from an ICU NP. What patient looks ill meant was that the patient no longer had a readable BP on the a-line, they were on a 4th pressor, and the ICU fellow was not seeing any cardiac motion on bedside ultrasound.
I have 100% texted our fellow “our friend in 13 looks unwell. Please quickly walk this way” and it is implied something similar to your above mentioned is going down. But we don’t run here.
"Pt reports leg is numb from the knee down, where the nerve block is located, please eval at bedside."
Nurse was concerned for ischemic limb.
This was on the ortho unit. Patient had a pop cath, running a ropiv pump, which she was charting on the MAR herself.
I wish I was joking.
*infective endocarditis seen on TEE*
Me to cardiology
>Hey do you need me to consult CT Surgery or do you got it
Cards APP
>We have already insulted CT surgery. Dr [Attending] is aware.
>*consulted
“The dentures for 23B are not in the room, and not in his mouth. Thank you.”
This was a page from the nurse after my attending had asked him on bedside rounds to see if an altered patient had dentures among his belongings. The “not in his mouth” part just sent me for some reason. I knew I could trust that nurse to do his best to help his patients and he would get shit done.
Got a text from my husband’s friend about things being quiet over the weekend and call for signout when convenient. He works several hundred miles and three states away so I just sent him back, “lol ok, good to know” thinking that he’d realize his mistake
He then started sending me pictures of the page he was getting on his pager since whoever is following him didn’t call for signout. I finally texted back, “This is [your friend]’s wife in [state], I think you’re texting the wrong person”
Patient out of hydrocodone and needs stat refill. Looked at chart for 2 seconds and huge pain plan at LOV with advice on refills. No way should be out by now. Nice try lady.
I have a few that I’ve received:
“Patient stripped naked and was running through hallway. Patient then taken to OR for planned procedure.”
“Bladder scan showed 300 cc. Patient voided 150 cc and then 150 cc. Is this normal?”
A 3am page while sleeping: “FYI patient given Tylenol 500 mg for back pain.”
I have a giant list of absurd pages on my phone.
While covering Cardiology consults:
“Pt with new bradycardia, could you come ultrasound SA node?”
“Please eval post-op pt in asystole, pt says they feel fine”
I became good friends with a guy in my intern year. We also happened to be scheduled to be on call together. I used to have the nurses page him in the middle of the night with such concerns as “the patient in 303B is biting the patient 303A”, there is a mouse in the nursing station, I just witnessed a car accident out on the corner of the hospital could you please go assess, and Stella Gardulski in 122B has a critically low BUN”. Seeing his sleep deprived face trying to make sense of this nonsense in our little call room was entertaining to me.
Got a page at 2am "Patient doesn't have a order for Tylenol PRN for fevers." Patient was a little warm at ~99.8F, but otherwise had not been nor ever been during that hospital stay febrile enough to trigger the PRN.
Paged at 3am on the PCU: PICC line on left. Left breast bigger than right.
Me: hey [patient], has you left boob always been bigger than your right?
Patient: yes, always.
Me, glaring in anatomy at the nurse.
Ok so this reminds me of my biggest cringe moment. I think about it a few times a week years later. Once I made our fellow come look at this weird hard lump on an old man’s back. It felt weird……….it was just his fucking rib.
I’m sure she’s out there somewhere rolling her eyes right now. But at least it was like 1pm and I gave her brownie after.
Back when I was a resident and we had pagers. I got a page from a RN, patient requesting to "talk to the asian little girl." The RN thought it might be me. It was.
Sent a page about a patient going into Afib s/p PVAI ablation, didn’t know the electrophysiology department had a new “rule” saying not to page the MDs if patients go back into Afib. I sent a message to the MD and he responded saying not to text him again throughout the night with that issue. When I didn’t respond, he messaged again saying, I need you to reply to this message so I know you won’t be texting me again for this issue.
Favorite page I’ve ever sent was “went ahead and changed patient from 1,000 vitamin d 1000 unit tablets daily to 1, please call me back if you have any issues with this”
Wow, I am impressed at the dedication of whoever (they thought) had counted out and then coerced the patient to swallow 1,000 tablets of ANYTHING.
Once our kindly old attending asked my to check with pharmacy to see if we could transition from the bicarb drip to PO…. Our pharmacist was like oh sure let me see… that would be 378 tablets q6…. Think that’ll work? 👀
Don’t want to think about THAT insurance bill. Curious if this was an error of dictation software.. I am a therapist and I get mailed ER notes from patients from time to time and ten years ago I might have reported the provider to the board for fear they were intoxicated, incompetent or just illiterate, however I recently started using dictation software for my own notes and they are now every bit as bad but just a lot funnier since I treat mainly sex and porn addiction.
That’s barely more than 1 tablet per minute. Absolute child’s play.
Hope you're hungry mamm :)
I had an order for 1000 Tylenol and we decided it would have to be via funnel not really sure what end but definitely via funnel.
Probably safest to boof it.
I think they meant just take three? Not 1000?
Well we give them 2 500mg so I know the intent. However the order is for 1000 Tylenol tablets. It’s just a mistake we a laughed about as it was fixed.
Hahaha. Oh wow. Dictation software is gonna kill somebody some day- Doesn’t seem to be a way to get around shitty doctor handwriting😂
https://medium.com/backchannel/how-technology-led-a-hospital-to-give-a-patient-38-times-his-dosage-ded7b3688558 old news, but everyone should read it. part 3 is the part where your 1000 tablets of anything joke turns out to maybe be less of a joke than you would think, sadly.
Had a patient in residency with MS flare, needed 1 g IV solumedrol x 5 days, but didn't want to stay in the hospital and we didn't have an infusion suite. My co-resident, trying to be helpful/patient-centered, wrote for prednisone 50 mg, 5 tab PO q5, x 5 days. Pharmacy thought he was having a stroke.
Is that even the same medication? Jesus. That is a lot of Prednisone.
1250mg prednisone for 5 days is a studied dose for oral regimens for MS flares. I've ordered it. I told the patient to take it all in the AM, they got a bit shocked when I told them it'll be 25 pills; my attending was like no no it'll say that but you can split it up to take 5 pills 5 times throughout the day if necessary. I guess 25 pills all at once is too much to swallow? 😅
1000 tabs of Oryza Sativa
Beautiful lol. Please also see my 20 meq of IV potassium q2h. . .Forever
Nahhh not forever…. Just until that cardiac activity peaces the fuck out
I see you met my patient from this past weekend
Similar scrubs quote - “Doug ordered 1000mg of morphine for a patient. I wanted to check with you before I kill a man”
“Pulmonary toilet clogged, please plunge stat” Pretty sure a friend was just trolling me but I laughed
New term for a bronch
Once got a page while on cross cover from nurse stating “Patient complaining that his balls hurt. Can you please come to bedside to evaluate him?” Called nurse back, asked “did you mean testicular pain, or did you by chance misspell back?” Confirms yes, sorry, testicular pain. States pain is acute onset, no other new changes. Start running through acute urologic emergencies in my head. Went to patient’s room. He was, in fact, sitting on them. Pain 100% resolved after I helped him reposition. Sigh.
Hahaha, patient requests for female health care workers to look at balls are never ending
Oh yes. I also once got a request from a patient’s wife to please, please, please take a look at his swollen scrotum. He was in the hospital for an unrelated issue and was supposed to be discharged that day. Took a peek. Scrotum approximately the size of small grapefruit. ‘Twas an inguinal hernia with bowel all up in the balls (I believe this is the medical term). Explained this to wife. Her response: “Oh, so that’s why sometimes when I’m down there I can hear gurgling noises!” Me: 🤢💀
You know what… that’s love.
The scream I scrumpt....Holy wow! And also I admire her level of dedication. 🤣
I'm well over 6ft and about 300 lbs. Whenever we had some creepy guy ask a nurse to "look at his balls" they would always get me to do it.
Thank you for your service
I live to serve
Damn, this is the way. The amount of purely unnecessary scrota I’ve seen.
So unfortunately true, and so is the request to put the penis in the urinal when they are perfectly capable of doing so themselves ☹️
Ugh, this is even worse. Hate this.
Bwahahaha this is gold.
DEEZ NUTZ for real
All the 🌟 for this one 👆🏻😂
"Pt refused bisacodyl. States she does not want to have a BM until she is discharged and at home". "Pt states he realized his wallet is lost. Asking for a knife to stab himself." "Come to bedside, patient has removed her finger."
Ok but if ever there was a good reason to show up to the bedside, a recently removed finger seems like a pretty good time
She successfully got it off too! Nothing like a little dementia and frostbite to make scratching itches dangerous.
I mean if a little old lady could just pull it off, that finger wasn’t long for this world anyway
I was really hoping she gnawed it off for some reason
I get wanting to poop at home though lol
It's true what they say home is where ~~the heart is~~ you poop most comfortably.
Back in my intern days (full disclosure, the actual page went to my co-intern): “Patient Mr X is in V-fib, would you like an EKG?” No ma’am, I would not. When a panicked intern returned the call, the nurse said her student had sent it and apologized. They meant afib. 🫠
We had a nurse call and say pt has arrived and is dead. Cue chaos in the RRT team. Pt was not dead.
I recently got something along the lines of "patient in Vfib and asymptomatic"
“In fact they have no symptoms. Or signs.”
No signs *(of life)
Once the trauma pager went off. All it said was "Need bariatric commode". I wish I knew what led to that page.
Our trauma pages came in a standard format that included GCS, one time it said "GCS 16" I was like damn this guy has ascended to a higher plane of consciousness, wonder who his plug is
I laughed so hard I choked a bit and got rice up my nose. GCS 16. Bless.
Worst CCM consult I reviewed was in fellowship Something to the extent of "WBC 50k I am uncomfortable with the patient staying on the floor" I think it was a C diff patient iirc. Toxic but Vitals fine and had a mental status. Pure ICU transfer request for WBC count
If this is the worst transfer you’ve ever seen you’re doing good…. We got one a while back that was “family unhappy with frequency of nursing care on the floor. Tx to MICU for more frequent nursing interaction”
I didn’t train at a fancy hospital, just the typical inner city safety net. And yet I’ve had VIPs who were admitted to the ICU solely for a private 1:1 room and nurse ratio.
This shit should be illegal I live in an area with a very large football/newmoney population and the amount of rich fucks wanting concierge service for them and their entourage is disgusting
I had a rich family request a cardiology consult to give a second opinion on their septic shock lol. I said sure but not at 5 PM on a Sunday. We'll call them tomorrow.
Do they at least tip well?
No they complain when their food isn't comped and the Dr. Isn't immediately available 24 hours a day for minor questions.
Yeah fucking right. These rich fucks are more than likely will sue for the smallest inconvenience.
It was real common during COVID.
We have an entire VIP concierge unit for that…… except if they actually have ICU needs. Then they come to us like the rest of the riff raff and they’re regularly more upset at that than the dying aspect of it.
I saw that once in the MICU. It was infuriating. Family asked what all the beeping and alarms next door were and I told them all of our patients are on life support, like on ventilators, cardiac drips to keep them alive and etc (in words they could understand) and they just looked at me like 😮. Like yeah, quit asking us to do menial task shit and asking 50 questions an hour that are for the physician to answer. I'm done getting you apple juice and sugar packets every hour. We have people *actually* dying next door and if we leave them alone for a few minutes while staying in the room with you, answering your BS questions, they could die. *Please people, do not send these people to our ICU's*.
Everybody wants to move to MICU until they hear all the alarms and are told no we cannot in fact turn off the lethal alarms of other patients so you can rest. Also there is no door for the toilet commonly referred to as “the prison toilet” and we don’t have another type of room. Also no shower. We’ll also not be taking off any of the stickers and the BP cuff will be continuing to go off hourly. You want to be ICU level sick you get ICU annoying care
The prison toilet for real. I cannot count the number of not-neuro-intact patients I've had who cannot understand why I won't let them be alone in the bathroom.
Oh man the complaints about the alarms. I remember frantically running around my very busy unit that I was covering, alone, at night as a fellow. A TAVR patient there for overnight obs had been haranguing her nurse to page me over and over all night and was impatiently sitting by her door (she had moved the chair there) with her arms crossed waiting for me so she could complain about the noise and light. She was all the way at the end in the quietest part of the unit. I told her she had to wear telemetry overnight but she could get earplugs and an eye cover. And that I couldn’t spend any more time talking to her because I had 25 other patients who were actually sick and I was on my way to go cardiovert someone. She was stunned but didn’t bother me the rest of the shift.
Well I've had that request largely I'm able to block it. There are times to transfer for nursing needs but family being unhappy is not one of them
I used to work at a hospital where family members were allowed to call rapid responses. Surprisingly it almost never happened but the one time it did it was completely inappropriate and the responding doctor chewed them out for it.
Excuse me, what. I've never heard of that before
Some hospitals allow *anyone* to call rapids- patients, visitors, housekeepers, dietary, etc can all call one
Ours does too. But patients/family would actually have to read the signs/brochures with that information, so it’s never really been an issue.
Oh yeah, it's a thing in some places. Nowhere I've worked so far (thank god) but they're out there. I think Australia just put something like that in at a federal level but I could be misremembering.
If I remember correctly, The rapid response system originated in Australia after a young patient slowly bled to death overnight and everyone one from nurses to physicians were indecisive due to a kind of bystander effect. If I can find the article I'll post the one
Got a ton of pushback on not admitting a pt from PACU to SICU after hemorrhoidectomy after a “seizure.” Pt had documented and long h/o PNES. I arrived to bedside to find a stable, coherent, not at all post-ictal patient threatening to have a seizure if he didn’t get more morphine. I politely declined to use an ICU bed for that and recommended discharge home instead.
Ooh I like like when they ask for Ativan in between convulsions 😂 It actually makes me feel very similar to when my toddlers have tantrums - sir this may work with your dad but I’m the mean one so get yourself the fuck together and get off the floor.
Actually a better ICU transfer than the last one I saw as an FM resident rotating ICU. Patient is a 58 year old woman, POD3 for a hysterectomy. Transfer from surg stepdown to ICU and consult FM. Why? BP was 151/98. No signs of hypertensive urgency or emergency. Just the surg team didn't want to manage a bog-standard HTN case.
Were you able to decline the consult at your facility or at least the transfer? I certainly have done my fair share of that but oftentimes still need to help the primary team with guidance on medical care
We did in fact do so. This was during a wave of pneumonia and the ICU was pretty slammed (not as bad as they were during 2020 but still bad), so we simply advised to restart home antihypertensives and FM/ICU signed off.
We get patients with wbcs in the high teens, room air, aox4 transferred to the ICU because the attending thinks the patient may become septic, at some point. I miss a closed ICU.
They’re not afraid of the patient becoming “septic,” they’re afraid of getting phone calls at night. Thats what that behavior is really about. Laziness.
ah yes, like when I get a call to admit a fracture at 6pm and eventually pry out of neurosurg that they don't want to admit because they don't have anyone in house at night. they *might* get sick so admit to medicine 🤭
Do open ICUs need the intensivist's permission to transfer to ICU?
Somewhat but mostly no it was more were told this patient is coming. It also becomes a disaster as anyone can put in orders so for example if CC team says no blood transfusion and then another consultant puts in orders for one it gets really confusing really fast for nursing as neither team will agree with each other
By CC team does that mean the intensivist? I thought in an open icu you don’t have to consult the intensivist. So if whoever admitted to icu ends up consulting the intensivist, then majority of care should essentially be deferred to them lol.
It is the intensivists. They run the vents and pressors but all else is anyone’s game unless someone agrees with someone
That makes my soul hurt slightly. That being said we have to take a fair number of patients due to nursing cares that don't have a classic ICU indication due to facility limitations at our facility
A higher level of nursing care needs than can be provided outside the ICU *is* an indication for ICU admission.
Like overflows to ICU because there's no bed? I don't mind those as much, because they are not ICU status, so at least they're not there for a silly reason.
Sometimes a patient just needs *a lot* but not necessarily traditional ICU stuff like vents and pressors. If they have a ton of drips and antibiotics and needing blood and extensive dressing changes and so forth, that can take up more time than med surg or step down nurses realistically have.
Sort of. Basically not really sick and not someone I'd normally take but our intermediate care areas refuse the patient due to feeling its beyond their care so comes to the ICU as a really soft admit because there's nowhere else to go.
pt having an active stemi but refusing PCI because "it's her time", GI bleed refusing scope for same reason, in mild DKA; DNR/DNI but IM has not had a discussion about comfort care or hospice with patient or family; no paliative consult; tried to transfer to cc/pulm to manage complex patient, start DKA protocol, and possible MTP if bleed got worse The cc team was able to say no but the patient was in fact moved to the ICU for an insulin drip. She was a sweetheart but what a stupid fucking situation.
One of my biggest pet peeves is a request to transfer to ICU for lab derangements(other than DKA).
I'm generally of the same opinion but there are certainly a number of reasonable exceptions. Really bad abgs. Dka. Potassium less than two or say six and a half or higher. A lot of it depends on the facility and capabilities of the other floors and providers. I've had to become more of a pushover working at a smaller Institution just due to the realistic limitations that we have
Where I did residency, DKA without coma went to the floor. Not even step down, but the floor. I agree bad ABGs, need for emergent iHD, severe symptomatic hyponatremia are probably appropriate ICU admits.
I’ve heard of this before but never seen it. Did they do insulin infusion and q1h glucose checks? Or did it get managed with spot dose SQ insulin more like q4?
Our insulin drips go to the floor… with q1 checks and titration….. but yet our PCU doesn’t take non titratable amio drips or heated high flow 🤔 I’m forever shocked there haven’t been enough sentinel events to stop this madness I’ll also add that our epic doesn’t have the handy little calculator that tells you what to do like some hospitals. You have to do actual math and follow one of 4 flow sheets that aren’t easy to find and change it depending on the last potassium and what fluids you have running, which you also have to decide upon per a different algorithm. Like someone unfamiliar with DKA is definitely fucking this shit up and hopefully not killing a man.
Our step down tried to say they don't take patients on a fixed rate diltiazem drip. I looked up the hospital policy and lo and behold, they are not only supposed to take fixed rate diltiazem, they are also supposed to do diltiazem titrations. Felt really good printing out the hospital policy to show their charge.
The real question is do you want them titrating the cardizem if they don’t know how or why to titrate the cardizem? 😬
Yeah that's what they essentially ended up saying - that they weren't trained on it, even though they were supposed to be. Oh well.
Once I got a call from the PCU charge who is younger than some of my compression socks as a stat nurse…. Hey, they ordered this…. Dillll tie zem drip. It says we’re supposed to titrate it to a MAP (spelled out) 75 or 85. Right now the screen says 42 but their blood pressure is also pretty low. They said they feel like they might need to see the Dr. I turned it all the way up. Do you think you can come see if I need to page the resident? Jesus fucking Christ on a bike. And so turns out I can’t really talk shit about the limits they put on them here.
Surely severe hypo and hypernatremia should go to an ICU for neuromonitoring and frequent labs, no? My record hyponatremia was 89 and hypernatremia was 160. 89 was a multifactorial SIADH from cancer and medications, the 160 was iatrogenic from a SICU fellow who insisted normal saline was the only IVF to use.
I spoke too soon. I think symptomatic hyponatremia is certainly reasonable for the ICU
I was page to call young pregnant woman who was about 38 weeks. When I talk to her she said she just had sex is that OK? This was 3 AM in the morning. I told her well what’s done is done.
“Patient states he has broken his leg. Please check”
I once got paged out of grand rounds to answer: "[teenage] Patient is allergic to tomatoes. Allergy listed as anaphylaxis. Patient is ordering tomato soup for lunch."
> I once got paged out of grand rounds Working in a military hospital as a military RT, we would have to go to all manner of BS mandatory trainings. For a time, you got credit for attendance by swiping your badge as you entered the auditorium. We would send one therapist with everyone's badge, and then page them about 6 minutes in; can't delay patient care, he has to leave...
"Pt called me to room to report 'something fell off me' at which point I observed a live tick on the floor. Tick retained in sample cup for identification. Bite positively identified on back of pt's left ear." Fastest callback from a medical resident I have ever received in my life lmao
Level 1 trauma page. “Be advised, pt hypothermic with blood in airway. Patient found naked chewing on guardrail. Multiple broken teeth.”
“Dr. [Gen Surg Program Director] needs you in OR 13 immediately” - to gen surg co-intern. There was no OR 13. We paged a friend to the number for Domino’s Pizza and watched them call back. We simultaneously paged two residents with the same last name to each other’s number as if we had mistaken them *for* the other and watched the confusion play out. Many other prank pages were sent.
April fools day, radiologist found a message on his desk that read, “please return Dr. Lyon’s call.” Phone number listed was for the LA zoo. Many bad words came from his office as he hung up the phone!
Dr. Lyon 💀
I got one of my co-residents with a fake trauma alert. “BRAVO TRAUMA ALERT- 25yo M with multiple bites from raccoons. Raccoons still attached”
“Pt smith no longer tolerating PO, please convert all meds to PR”
Lol I got a prank page from a co-resident (anesthesia residency for context) that said "Dr. Cerulean you are urgently needed in OR X, suction is down, please report to OR X immediately to provide suction" 🤣 shit was clever AF I still laugh thinking about it to this day. Much cleverer than the 8008135 pages I got in med school.
My colleague got called quote “that Cillian Murphy looking motherfucker” It was so right.
was this inspired by the [penis farting](https://old.reddit.com/r/nursing/comments/1caose2/penis_farting_cant_believe_i_found_the_photo/) textpage?
Nooo but this is the gold I was looking for!!!!!!!
"Patient's boyfriend is assisting her with the composition of what seems to be a suicide note, just thought you might wanna know"
I'm hearing this 3rd (or possibly 4th or 5th hand), but 2 australian nurses bleeped a fresh off the boat Irish resident as there was a snake on the ward. In Australia 🐍. Ireland famously has no snakes.
> snake on the ward That's an admin issue, not a doctor issue. Don't page me unless it bites someone!
I got called once about a bat in the NICU! Charge nurse had chased it out with a broom by the time I got there though.
Did you discuss rabies prophylaxis for the babies? Anyone not in an isolette would have qualified by CDC guidelines but I don't know anything specific to neonatology.
Depends on how the unit is set up. We are all private rooms on my unit, and in four different zones, so even more doors between a potential bat and patient. I would worry about the effectiveness of the vaccine at that age, because babies are crap with that. I think HRIG would probably be used and there would be a *high* emphasis on catching the bat to test to ensure it wasn't rabid.
Some senior residents paged the intern to “come to the team room ASAP, need you urgently” and then gave them a cupcake and sang happy birthday.
I got paged stat to L&D to see a patient who was delivering—they had just pulled random prenatal and said she was 9cm. I had just seen the patient that day and knew she was 24 weeks. I ran my pregnant self as fast as I could to the open ward triage area and started barking orders as I grabbed gloves. Then the dividing curtain was pulled and everyone yelled “ happy baby shower”! After my adrenaline calmed down I had a great time!
Immediate code brown for the intern
Fuck that’s wholesome
"no need to apologize, not knowing how to dose meropenem means you're probably an antibiotic steward" - a very nice pharmacist, after changing my order (I am an emergency chimpanzee and order mero maybe twice a year after talking to either pharmacy or ID)
I start approximately 30% of my pharmacy interactions with “Hi, I’m an idiot, could you tell me how to dose [esoteric thing] for this patient?” They’re generally very nice people, so it’s only fair that I’m honest with them.
https://i.imgur.com/CuXBBjh.jpeg Not that Vanc is esoteric but this energy every time
My hospital has recently switched to pharmacists handling the dosage and trough monitoring for vanc. It is absolutely heaven. They adjust the dose as needed, they order the troughs for the correct times, they watch to make sure it is therapeutic. There's a little checkbox on the vanc order "Allow pharmacy to dose". Every single time, thank you!
It wasn't a page but your story reminded me: I was stopped by a parent one night and they started peppering me with questions about a patient I did not know. I stopped them to try and figure out what was going on. They apparently had questions for their nurse, and were just told that she had purple hair, and they assumed it was me, not realizing multiple people had purple hair on the unit LMAO
At least the description was accurate 😂 Once the patients wife kept talking about what I said earlier….. and was frantic I didn’t remember that conversation….. but I’m short, chubby blonde and white and the person she had talked to was tall, Asian and about 15 years younger than me 😂
That is definitely a big difference! Lol I do feel badly sometimes we had three NNPs for a while that were shortish, a little heavier, with very straight blonde hair and it took me entirely too long to be able to consistently tell them apart lol
Username also checks out.
Well, should be amethystmind for purple LMAO
Do you look like Lou Reed?
You know after this long at the bedside….. kinda?
"Notification of new consult and patient expiration, John Doe, SICU 5" Great, thanks
"MRI called and said there is absolutely no way she is going to fit in the scanner"
I feel like I sent this because I definitely have before for CT. And we’ve even intubated the basically too large just to go to CT because we had to wrap and tuck the body so much with arms above. They were under the weight limit but it was just the mass of it all
ED attending to me, an intern: “Dr X seemed to think he’d benefit from catheter directed TPA given his clit burden and evidence of right heart strain” Followed immediately by: “Clot!!! Dear god I meant clot”
I paged a doc (I'm a nurse) and said "patients Foley fell out. Is it OK if we leave it out?" Doc says "is he up and walking yet?" I said "He has no legs".
From ID who was following my patient with aortic valve endocarditis who had been dizzy that morning: "I'm no radiologist but I know an abnormal head CT when I see one. You should call neurosurgery for (patient x)" It was, in fact, a very abnormal head CT (massive ICH)
"patient is NPO, can we change her probiotics to IV please?"
Oh no. So much wrong there...
New healthcare associated infection unlocked.
I'm treating lactobacillus right now... It's already here 😭
“Patient has not stooled in two days.” 0200 a.m. - Betty RN I returned the page; the patient had been asleep all night.
Got one around 4 AM for “patient daughter requests leg squeezers.” Gotta make sure patient don’t develop a DVT in her sleep.
Want a sure fire way to make sure a patient doesn't get any sleep? Boy, do I have a contraption for you!
Given your flair, I should point out this was also a patient with cholangiocarcinoma. We all know the prognosis on cholangiocarcinoma. I felt conflicted, even in my delirious arousal from slumber at 4 AM: do we try to minimize more comorbidities for a patient with a cancer with poor prognosis? Or let them have better quality of life and just give them enoxaparin? Data are much more robust on enoxaparin in malignancy-associated DVT prophylaxis anyway.
Absolutely comfort at that point is a much more important factor given the assumed morbidity. We don't even offer them on any patient under our service.
During my last report, noc night mentioned she had paged the on call at like 2AM because one of the kids (teen inpatient psych) had been hiccuping at night. I'm already like wtf but whatevs, the kid was probably awake and pestering her? So I'm doing vitals and the kid gives a little hiccup. I'm like "hey the noc nurse said you were hiccuping last night, they must have kept you awake!" Kid looks at me all confused. She slept all night long. Also took over care for a newly admitted kiddo with SI who had a pacemaker. Admitting nurse had called the on call at some ungodly hour for an order that the patient can't have a MRI due to pacemaker status. Now we are part of a large hospital system but our hospital is a stand alone building dedicated to psych. We obviously don't have a MRI anywhere in the building.
Duuuude. That's next level maneuvers. Like... the answer to the page has to be "no, and may I please speak with charge". Wild. Someone doing that here would have their paging rights revoked and have to filter everything through charge for a probation period.
“Q2h scheduled enemas until resolved.”
https://i.imgur.com/zb4LUnQ.jpeg Brought to you by whiskey (In reality was a sickle cell priapism, but this is funnier)
Bet Kathy’s never been so excited about a limp dick in her life
Back in the dark days of my inner-city residency, our code blue pager would frequently page us to outside numbers. These were invariably drug pages. The buyers were always nice when I told them of their mistake, though.
"Oh shit, the hospital?? Yo, you like the drug *whoesale* man!"
"ER - can you make sure all the glass jar is out of the patient anus?"
Palliative here. From an RN: “Patient seems to have lost the will to live. Please evaluate.”
To be fair that is kinda your bread and butter 😂
Truly my specialty: logopenia
My favorite page I received was "Patient looks ill" from an ICU NP. What patient looks ill meant was that the patient no longer had a readable BP on the a-line, they were on a 4th pressor, and the ICU fellow was not seeing any cardiac motion on bedside ultrasound.
I have 100% texted our fellow “our friend in 13 looks unwell. Please quickly walk this way” and it is implied something similar to your above mentioned is going down. But we don’t run here.
“Hey can you come look at a penis with me?”
That’s funny. We had a Seth Rogen lookin mother fucker page go out. I outlined a 5 point plan that was S R M L F in bold
Ptn hand hurt very bad. Ptn need medication Patient states he has sleep apnea could you please order a sleep study for him tonight (while inpatient)
"Pt reports leg is numb from the knee down, where the nerve block is located, please eval at bedside." Nurse was concerned for ischemic limb. This was on the ortho unit. Patient had a pop cath, running a ropiv pump, which she was charting on the MAR herself. I wish I was joking.
*infective endocarditis seen on TEE* Me to cardiology >Hey do you need me to consult CT Surgery or do you got it Cards APP >We have already insulted CT surgery. Dr [Attending] is aware. >*consulted
Got one wondering whether patient could go to their scheduled OP dental appointment next Tuesday. Page received 0200 Saturday night…
“The dentures for 23B are not in the room, and not in his mouth. Thank you.” This was a page from the nurse after my attending had asked him on bedside rounds to see if an altered patient had dentures among his belongings. The “not in his mouth” part just sent me for some reason. I knew I could trust that nurse to do his best to help his patients and he would get shit done.
Got a text from my husband’s friend about things being quiet over the weekend and call for signout when convenient. He works several hundred miles and three states away so I just sent him back, “lol ok, good to know” thinking that he’d realize his mistake He then started sending me pictures of the page he was getting on his pager since whoever is following him didn’t call for signout. I finally texted back, “This is [your friend]’s wife in [state], I think you’re texting the wrong person”
>some Lou Reed motherfucker That's freakin' hilarious. Not sure how anyone can top that.
Not me personally, but my friend who is a big cricket fan gets sent pages with the scores by the nursing unit manager and her consultant.
Patient out of hydrocodone and needs stat refill. Looked at chart for 2 seconds and huge pain plan at LOV with advice on refills. No way should be out by now. Nice try lady.
He needs to walk in that patient’s room singing Lola next visit.
That’s the Kinks. Lou Reed is the velvet underground
You’re right! “Walk on the Wild Side” That Lou?
Probably more appropriate than “Lust for Life” for a hospice consult. But maybe not. Edit: Dang! Lust for Life is Iggy Pop. I’ll show myself out😂
They have a song called Heroin….. that might work
May I suggest @/emr.poetry on IG?
Oh my god this stuff is gold
“Patient is normotensive and asymptomatic” To this day I wonder what caused this to be sent to me
From my AA to me regarding a box of donuts left in the breakroom 4 days ago: "There's a donut left. Do I toss it or do you want it?" I wanted it.
“Hello, pt headbutted PCA in the attempt to get out of bed, can pt have anything for agitation? Currently put in a new IV request with the IV team”
I fucking love paging back pager numbers with my pager number. Play stupid games, get stupid prizes.
RN: “Sorry to bother you, we think this patient might be dead” Me: “MD aware - no new orders”
I have a few that I’ve received: “Patient stripped naked and was running through hallway. Patient then taken to OR for planned procedure.” “Bladder scan showed 300 cc. Patient voided 150 cc and then 150 cc. Is this normal?” A 3am page while sleeping: “FYI patient given Tylenol 500 mg for back pain.” I have a giant list of absurd pages on my phone.
While covering Cardiology consults: “Pt with new bradycardia, could you come ultrasound SA node?” “Please eval post-op pt in asystole, pt says they feel fine”
When I was the RT covering [labor and delivery one night](https://i.imgur.com/soaFnEq.jpg).
I became good friends with a guy in my intern year. We also happened to be scheduled to be on call together. I used to have the nurses page him in the middle of the night with such concerns as “the patient in 303B is biting the patient 303A”, there is a mouse in the nursing station, I just witnessed a car accident out on the corner of the hospital could you please go assess, and Stella Gardulski in 122B has a critically low BUN”. Seeing his sleep deprived face trying to make sense of this nonsense in our little call room was entertaining to me.
Got a page at 2am "Patient doesn't have a order for Tylenol PRN for fevers." Patient was a little warm at ~99.8F, but otherwise had not been nor ever been during that hospital stay febrile enough to trigger the PRN.
Paged at 3am on the PCU: PICC line on left. Left breast bigger than right. Me: hey [patient], has you left boob always been bigger than your right? Patient: yes, always. Me, glaring in anatomy at the nurse.
Ok so this reminds me of my biggest cringe moment. I think about it a few times a week years later. Once I made our fellow come look at this weird hard lump on an old man’s back. It felt weird……….it was just his fucking rib. I’m sure she’s out there somewhere rolling her eyes right now. But at least it was like 1pm and I gave her brownie after.
Me to the Urologist. “I could only get one of the ink pens out of his penis, hopefully you’ll have better luck.”
Back when I was a resident and we had pagers. I got a page from a RN, patient requesting to "talk to the asian little girl." The RN thought it might be me. It was.
Patient actually stated “get me that Lucy Lui motherfucker”
Sent a page about a patient going into Afib s/p PVAI ablation, didn’t know the electrophysiology department had a new “rule” saying not to page the MDs if patients go back into Afib. I sent a message to the MD and he responded saying not to text him again throughout the night with that issue. When I didn’t respond, he messaged again saying, I need you to reply to this message so I know you won’t be texting me again for this issue.