doctors have read it what is the most stupid thing a patient has said trying to correct you I asked a patient complaining of dizziness if she had ever been diagnosed with vertigo the daughter chimed in and said no no she's a Libra I then laughed hysterically at her awesome joke she was dead serious patient comes in with abdominal pain I think it's my gallbladder they say looking over their chart I see their gallbladder was removed 20 years ago so that is impossible I mentioned this to which they reply yeah but it grew back yes I
know there are a number of other things it could have been a retained Stone crossed my mind but after 20 years I found this unlikely he she also had the scar to vouch for the surgery there was definitely a psychosocial element to the case I took care of a child that got chickenpox the mother was strongly anti-vaxx but was yelling at me how can modern medicine not have a treatment for Chickenpox she couldn't grasp the concept that we do she just refused it for her child sir I need to know why you stopped taking your
antiretrovirals for your HIV well I met this Witch online that wait did you say witch yeah she sent me a bunch of herbs every month to cure my HIV and they worked last time I checked I was cured where and what test did you do to know you were cured I made an online test that the witch told me to there were a lot of random questions but in the end said that I was free of HIV okay we will need to do a blood test to confirm that now can you tell me which herbs
you were consuming hmm I don't know the name but I have them right here he points at his backpack may I take a look sure I opened the bag and what I saw was nothing but grinded oregano with something that smelled like chlorine the patient sadly died from a severe sepsis a month later with the highly resistant microorganism just because a witch in a website told I'm taking his meds a mother brought her 14 year old daughter to the ER due to hypogastric pain and spotting we asked the daughter when was her last period She
said two months ago we asked her for her sexual history thinking this might be an ectopic pregnancy the mother kept butting in saying that she is still a virgin and she has no boyfriend we left it at that until her mother went out to go to the bathroom the patient admitted that she had sexual intercourse with a classmate of hers we requested for pregnancy test and HCG titers it really looks like ectopic pregnancy we advise the mother that her daughter needs immediate surgical intervention she refused to believe us saying that the lab results are unreliable
and untrue she keeps on saying that her daughter is a virgin she stormed out of the ER with her daughter that looks really in pain I had a patient once with family members who were some of the most frustrating people I've ever dealt with the patient was morbidly obese and had open sores and wounds in all her skin folds cleaning her when she was first admitted was like some sort of disgusting clown car we found a floral pillowcase shoved under one fold and what we think was a smashed bread crust and a Fold near her
groin anyway because of her weight she wasn't a candidate for surgery and therefore there was nothing our team could do for her I think about five or six different meetings were held with her family to discuss her prognosis her daughter told the attending physician he didn't know what he was talking about and that she had been this sick before and pulled through her pH was so low it just read as below 6.8 and her blood pressure was a solid 60 over 25 despite every vasopressor Under the Sun running at three times the max doses when
the charge nurse pointed out her blood pressure on the monitor the daughter said I've seen lower when she finally died her family was livid that we didn't save her we coded her for 20 minutes and they told us we should have continued for at least an hour I felt terrible that our last days were spending such torture all because her family was in such denial about her condition had a patient with atrial fibrillation that needed to be on anticoagulation I chose Pradaxa and the patient said no that one doesn't have any antidote in fact it's
the only new oral anticoagulant that has an approved reversal agent patient refused to believe me like I got some bonus for killing her or something one-year-old hospitalized with ingestion of unknown drug no immediate signs or symptoms mother says it's heroin from her brother's stash urine comes back positive for meth mom gets very angry and defensive and tells us it's just heroin and we should stop accusing her of having meth like lady why do you think letting your toddler try heroin is so much nobler another one I remember back from my GP days out in the
middle of nowhere lady comes in with itching of the scalp I look at her head and she has matted greasy extremely dirty hair that actually smelled I've seen a lot of dirty people but it was really something else she wanted medication I suggested she wash and comb her hair regularly for a few days and see if it would get better she said and what if I wash my hair and it doesn't get better well I'm sure you can accumulate the filth again in 10 years or something so it's not a permanent loss lady comes in
with shortness of breath we check her troponin levels they're elevated ma'am you're having a heart attack no I'm not uh yes you are no I'm not her PCP came into the ER and fired her as his patient she signed in against medical advice and left she died the next day of a freaking heart attack yeah I introduced myself to a patient as Doctor your anesthetist patients said that I could not be a doctor as anesthetists aren't doctors not long after another patient asked me if I had to go to you need to be an anesthetist
and still another asked me if I had to know as much as a pharmacist the number of patients I've seen who are acutely unwell because they stop their medication does my head in almost always the reason they stop the medication is because the condition they were taking it for went away as a result of the medication shaking my head totally irrelevant but I kind of think anesthetics are rad the only time anyone has been able to hit one of my veins first time with no waggling around in my arm was when I had to be
knocked out everyone else struggles to get my veins even when I'm hydrated fasting for surgery and no liquids still got a first shot I was impressed also I have pet rats and anesthesia is risky AF for them and not only is my rat vet's Head Nurse small animal anesthetist rat as heck but every time my rats have had surgery they've gone well and recovered from the anesthesia well and I guess I just appreciate that no anesthetics have done me any wrong oh my gosh y'all don't get enough credit ophthalmologist here told patient he needed reading
glasses which he didn't believe I explained that everyone develops presbyopia eventually come on George Clooney doesn't wear reading glasses a yes he does and B not sure why you're comparing yourself with him this one's so petty but kind of funny had a female patient her mom asked me to adjust her scrotum try not to burst out laughing I said your daughters scrotum she acted like I was stupid and pointed to the back of her neck I knew she wouldn't listen as she was so convinced till I stopped arguing with her and I also wanted her
to go around saying it to other people med student but a patient was telling me about how a doctor suggested she may have shingles of the eye trying to get me to laugh at the other doctor because apparently shingles of the eye is a ridiculous concept you can totally get shingles in your eye though the time I was telling the family that the patient is going to die and her lab results pH 6.6 lactic acid 25 are not compatible with life and they said that they were pretty sure she would wake up if it put
ice in her Underpants well yeah we are not going to do that she died and they still didn't believe me she was dead they kept trying to wake her up I didn't have a heart attack I had a myocardial infarction that's what a heart attack is Chief 20 year old girl and her fiance find out that she's pregnant me part way through taking her history do you smoke cigarettes yeah about a pack a day you should definitely stop that well my sister told me that if I stopped smoking the baby would go into withdrawal and
die what PSA don't smoke if you're pregnant or planning on becoming pregnant it's never too late to quit had a patient come into the Ed for what was essentially a cold kept requesting antibiotics kept explaining that they wouldn't help her viral symptoms but I did then sit down and give her a basic tutorial on the differences between bacteria and viruses and antibiotics and antivirals hopefully it was enough to help her in medical school finals the next week the worst part is I can't tell if this post is joking or not I'm a doctor but this
was my nana not a patient she was drinking 11 cups of coffee a day which is too much we held an intervention while visiting for dinner and when we told her she was addicted she responded no no the coffee is good for me it helps me with my shaking she cut down once we explained to her what drug withdrawal was 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 annoying as heck 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 incredibly sick had 10 to 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 in a nursing home or something but they enjoy coming in and trying to run the show some highlights from said 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 is a
neon Pro propanol it's negligent to not have him on Pro propanol she meant propofol think Michael Jackson but he was on ketamine and verse said because those worked like a charm for him and propofol was having some unwarranted effects on him earlier the dressings are dirty you need to change them immediately okay go away right now one it takes at least an hour or so to change a full body dressing while they're on the rotating bed and the patient was so sick that if we rotated him face down to face up to get the dressings
on his front the fluid shifting in his lungs would have likely 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 geez she was annoying when I was a medical student this middle-aged male patient from a rural area got it in his head that I knew absolutely nothing and he was doing me a service teaching and talking to me he was in colorectal clinic for something unrelated and started telling me about the gland on the back of his neck that
would drain every so often when he saw that I was unfamiliar with this particular gland he gave me this knowing look laughed and started instructing me the dumb little medical student about this gland apparently everybody has this gland for the immune system but that his would drain when he was stressed no sir I was being polite but you have a nasty abscess on the back of your neck I was hoping that the patient would try to explain this medical Wonder to my attending when he came in but alas he didn't med student here but I've
had two winners when discussing a pre-cancerous skin in lesion on a patient they opted to use their laser Ray instead of classic treatment it was a cancer laser rate that was bought online it also apparently had frequencies for arthritis they insisted that the vibratory frequency can be tuned to destroy cancer cells just like a trained singer may be able to use her voice to break a crystal glass the patient did not believe that cancer cells and regular cells would have the same frequency another patient insisted that his cancer had been properly treated at home with
baking soda he gave me a website like pH kills cancer or something the patient also had with them a surgery report in which it appears their baking soda consumption resulted in buildup of abnormal calcium in the wall of the stomach which had to be removed veterinarian here the anti-vaxx movement has been slowly seeping into my profession for years but in my area it's gotten much worse recently almost every day now I have a client informing on how toxic vaccines are and that I should talk to their dog's breeder because he or she is very informed
most of the time I'm able to convince him that this is incorrect however some are still quite resistant vaccinating for rabies is not just a suggestion it is the law and my clinic has a policy that we don't let any of our healthy animals be vaccine free I've had a few clients walk out over this policy I feel bad for their animals these are the same kinds of clients that won't use flea and tick prevention on their obviously flea infested dog but will use lemongrass and peppermint instead spoiler it doesn't work mama baby I don't
vaccinate it's against my religion oh really just out of curiosity what religion is that I'm Catholic not really a correction per se but it made me laugh a lot I've had a few patients Express dissatisfaction that their Botox only lasted three months and they suspected that I was diluting the botox both statements are absolutely true and consistent why are you looking at my hip I said the pain was in my knee the hip bones connected to the leg bone the leg bones connected to the foot bone woman with this weird abdominal cramping twitching presentation I
won't say stupid because she probably had some kind of undiagnosed dementia but definitely the most bizarre ask her what she's feeling why she's twitching her abdomen it's like it's trying to get out like what's trying to get out ma'am my my my sperm um ma'am you don't have sperm oh for those of you curious by the time I saw her last official diagnosis was pseudoseizures she had a tendency to start twitching parts of her body whenever we would start asking whether she had twitching in those areas is ma'am have you had any twitching in your
legs she looks a leg leg starts twitching yeah I have woman with breast cancer she was in the medical field too so I'm unsure why she said the things she did perhaps she was still in denial I don't know anyhow so I was the intern when she came in for a chest tube insertion to drain her pleural effusion it was obviously suspected to be malignant after the procedure I went home and the resident on call had to deal with multiple calls from the distraught staff and award for reasons I shall explain below the next morning
I was told by said Resident supporting a Hagrid appearance and bloodshot eyes from a busy shift that she was my problem now with that the poor man left her home I go in to see her and first get accosted by Ward staff who tell me she legit refused all pain meds right after procedure which entailed a tube scratching against her parietal pleura ow so I go in and I'm told by this woman who let me remind you was employed in the health care sector that the tube had been pushed in far too much and is
stabbing her and that I need to undo the Stitch and pull it out a few centimeters um no lady I'm not authorized to do that the X-ray was fine no intervention was necessary I tell her she needs to take her meds if she wants the pain to get better and she says no joke that pain meds will further spread the cancer and that I should know that being a student of medicine and she further said look no need to tell anybody you're a doctor use your own judgment and pull the tube out oh she was
adamant my professor was going to be late that day and I obviously wasn't going to do anything without his permission I documented her refusal and went on my way she left by the afternoon against medical advice I feel bad for her but she wasn't letting me help so yeah doctor here one we commonly get 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're talking about probably the legions of women that seemingly don't know how long it can take for an IUD to work and want it taken out because it didn't instantly stop their periods within a month also the women that came
in with chlamydia but deny having had intimacy like come on I'm not your boyfriend you don't need to lie to me implying that she would if you were her boyfriend I feel like that's something that would need to be talked about woman had a bad yeast infection besides that smell I also smelled feces I asked if she wiped back to front she said yeah but that's not why I have this it's from drinking pop despite my assurances that it was not from drinking pop she wouldn't believe me I said okay you must be right I'm
just a doctor and prescribed her the same thing I would have if she was an intelligent person gynecologist here imagine a revved up version of that dreadlocked beanie wearing woman meme uh it's not vagina anymore it's pronounced vagina now oh yes your vagina is looking very lovely today your blood pressure is very very high you need to take the blood pressure medications I prescribed you I don't need no pills doc all I need is Jesus well you're about to be seeing Jesus very soon if you don't take your medication radiographer here and the Ed doctor
gave me a request for soft tissue neck X-rays and the doctor was pretty much like don't question it just do it anyway after that patient had left the Ed doctor came in and told me that the gentleman presented the Ed at 3am because he had hot milk three days ago and his tongue has been hurting ever since the patiently basically burnt his tongue but was insisting on an X-ray to ensure nothing is wrong paramedic student here not the most stupid thing I've encountered but the most common stupid thing do you have any pain anywhere else
nah all good then what do you take this specific medication for oh that's for my back pain or any past medical history nah ever been to hospital nah have you had a heart attack before yeah how do you know has a massive personal medication bag with cardiac meds while I am a doctor this happened to my wife also a doctor female patient came in complaining of infertility said she and her partner have been trying to conceive for like five years and had tried everything at one point she let the pronoun slip she and I and
my wife said wait let's back up a minute turns out the woman had been in a hetero relationship for a few years and never got pregnant despite using no protection she then entered a same-sex relationship and again never got pregnant even though she really wanted to Leading her to believe she was infertile when my wife tried to explain that conception requires sperm sourced from a male as well as an egg the patient was incredulous and exclaimed that she didn't need a man in my life and she didn't feel like being judged perhaps needless to say
the patient was lost to follow up when I was about 16 I went to the hospital with sharp pain in the lower right hand side of my abdomen it seemed pretty serious so both of my my parents were with me which was unusual because they're divorced a doctor looked at my symptoms and said it looked like appendicitis I groaned I don't have an appendix it was taken out my parents said yes you do when I was six I had surgery to correct testicular torsion I kept both my testicles my parents politely told people I had
my appendix taken out to explain why I was in the hospital I accepted this as the actual reason for my surgery so years later when I learned the location of the appendix I assumed they did some kind of laparoscopic surgery through my scrotum to explain the scar there I was very surprised to learn I do in fact have an appendix the pain turned out to be from a sharp piece of chicken bone all the ones I can remember follow the same theme patient misunderstands the difference between correlation and causality the most striking example was a
young man who was dying of AIDS doc I was never sick a day in my life until y'all started giving me all these meds well sir while you still had a functional immune system you didn't need these meds HIV is a treatable illness these days if you actually take the drugs if you believe the drugs are the problem and not the virus well you can still die from very quickly variations on that theme are very common unfortunately I'm a family practitioner and I had a family not want to vaccinate their newborn because they heard that
vaccines were derived from monkeys brains and they didn't want their child to develop monkey-like characteristics all I can think about is what kind of TV show would George in the jungle be like if that were the plot I'm a registered dietitian nutritionist I was counseling a patient who was morbidly obese diabetic and had severe peripheral neuropathy he was also a chiropractor who had a hard-on for homeopathic remedies I couldn't get out a full sentence without this guy trying to tell me that a delusion of whatever the heck would do the exact same thing finally I
just said look doctor you need to cut the sugar and eat something in the vegetable family with every meal you can drink whatever potions you want on top of that but 30 years of drinking your distilled water has landed you here in my office with a broken pancreas and no feeling in your feet so let's give this a serious try unless you want to take a chance with your flower remedies when the heart attack or stroke hits since a few people have asked he got highly offended and filed a complaint with our VP of patient
relations I was ordered to do some bull crap sensitivity training where I was told that I should have listened to his opinion on care and validated him as being heard I was also told by at least three non-clinicians that since he was a chiropractor I should have given more weight to his opinion since he was a licensed health care provider I finished the training and promptly began looking for a new job I can think of two cases one of all his family members instead of the patient I had a patient who had a simple L4
S1 Fusion did great post-operative lovely when home and hippie daughter introduced some allegedly probiotic therapy to speed healing which actually introduced bacteria into the surgical site three weeks later we took him to the or emergently to remove the hardware and he spent six weeks in the hospital thanks to the massive staph infection introduced by a hippie the other was a naturopath slash Witch Doctor brought into our Ed initially unresponsive but regained Consciousness he had a ruptured MCA aneurysm he insisted we try some alternative bull crap to shrink the size of the bleed and heal it
naturally before we would try the or his nature a path friend came in to do something while we took another patient to the or went to convey the seriousness of the situation and he went unresponsive again about two minutes after I left his Ed room to which we invoked an em caveat and took him to the or for definitive repair and clipping he's now the nature of path who saved five lives thanks to organ donation
