Red medicine...

Nurse:  "The patient in 443 is screaming.  He won't go to sleep without his 'red medicine'."

Me:  "What's his 'red medicine'?"

Nurse:  "We have no idea."

Me:  "Call his wife, see if she knows."

Nurse:  "It's midnight."

Me:  "You have a better idea?"

*20 minutes later*

Nurse:  "Ok, I talked to the wife."

Me:  "And?"

Nurse:  "His 'red medicine' is a shot of red Kool-Aid she gives him to take his meds with."

Me:  "You're joking."

Nurse:  "Nope."

Me:  "Ok, well see if we can find a shot of Kool-Aid somewhere."

The patient fell asleep in five minutes once we gave it to him.

#shotofthehardstuff

Handouts...

Text messages from my case manager, yesterday, 3:15:

CM:  "So the CHFer who smokes two packs per day, drinks daily, and smokes weed needs help paying for his meds.  I need to know what meds he is being dc'd on so I can pay for them so he doesn't have to."

Me:  "Lol, look at the list on the orders."

CM:  "We can't pay for all of those, I need the absolute minimum.  I'm thinking of taking a second job to help him out."

Me:  "Come to the fifth floor.  Quick!  Like a bunny!"

CM:  "Hop hop."

I think the worst part of humanity is over-represented in the hospital.

#helpabrotherout

Fun with patient lists...

On one week out of our seven-week rotation, I am responsible for making up the patient lists.  Before I came along, they were boring pieces of paper that hung lifelessly from the walls.  What fun is that?

Usually I stick to the Male/Female labeling...

Sometimes, it's more ambiguous...

This one I waited around to see reactions on, which resulted in my lesbian partner chasing me around the CCU.

Why I hate holidays in the hospital...

Minor rant here.  Sick people don't take days off.  We all know this, yet the support staff and techs in our hospital seem to view this differently.  Often, they have some of the MDs protecting their reluctance to coming in on days like today, something I don't rightly understand.  What the rational people in our field understand is that on-call does not equal off work.  Some people, however, fail to grasp this.

Nurse:  "Radiology was wondering if the ultrasound could wait until tomorrow?"

Me:  "No."

Nurse:  "Well, the tech they have to call in is out on the lake."

Me:  "Are they out of gas?"

Nurse:  "I doubt it."

Me:  "Well then, tell him to pull the skier to shore and get to work."

In short, I have no tolerance for this.  If you're on call, you're not on the lake.  If you want weekends and holidays off, go work for the government.

#gettowork

Soul Eater Sunday...

This is a song from an anime series I'm watching on Netflix.  Thought I'd change it up a bit.

Welcome to Sunday...

Trolling...

More trolling our group's text message thread:

I'm off to a bonsai workshop.  Have a good weekend, all!

There's a joke in there somewhere...

As I've mentioned before, my mouth has a mind of its own.

Patient:  "I hurt my knees at my bachelorette party and they've been aching ever since."

Me:  "Did you hurt them while the male stripper was there?"

Patient:  "What?"

Me:  "Nothing."

#mymouthrunsawayagain

Define "cleaner"...

Me: "Nice dreadlocks."

 Dreadlock patient: "Thanks, man. You know, people think dreads are dirty, but really they're cleaner than regular hair."

 Me: "Are those dead leaves in your hair?" 

Dreadlock patient: *pulling one out* "Oh, um...yeah."

 #weretheyalivewhentheygotinthere?

On the other side...

Me:  "What happened to the guy in 438?"

Hospice nurse:  "He's moved on."

Me:  "To a different room?"

Hospice nurse:  "He slipped away last night."

Me:  "Are you trying to tell me he died?"

Hospice nurse:  "Some would call it that, yes."

#somemeanseveryoneelse

Tramp Stamp'd...

We see a lot of tattoos in a lot of very unusual places in medicine.  One of the best that I can recall was on a very shapely woman of about 23-24 who came in complaining of low back pain.  She said (direct quote here): "I think I hit the floor too hard sliding down the pole."  The tattoo on her lower back said, "Place Money Here."

#mightaswellbeabullseye

Not giving up on Sunday...

If for some reason the embed doesn't work, try this link.

Welcome to Sunday...

Interrogation room...

The hallway to our CCU has undergone a recent remodeling.  One of the renovations they made was to cut off the entrance to the bathroom from the CCU side, to reduce traffic from non-staff.  However, it leaves this room looking very strange.

What we have is a completely isolated, tiny tiled hallway, equipped with chair, fluorescent light and a small sprinkler head.  My idea was to waterproof seal the door, place someone inside and turn on the fire sprinkler.  Then we could ask them whatever we wanted while the room filled up.

Cherry flavor...

This is the second time I've posted about semen this month, so be warned...

Patient:  "Hey, Doc.  I have a question about something that happened last night."

Me:  "OK."

Patient:  "Well, I've been taking this cough syrup lately and it's cherry-flavored.  Well, last night my girlfriend was giving me a blowjob and she said it tasted cherry-flavored afterwards.  Did the cough syrup do that?"

Me:  "Uhh....hey, you see Dr. Urology down the street, right?"

Patient:  "Yeah, I have an appointment with him next week."

Me:  "That is an excellent question for you to ask him.  I lack the expertise to answer that properly, but he might be willing to help you."

Patient:  "Thanks!"

#howmanylickstogettothecenter?

Text messaging...

Most of my group have iPhones and we continually text throughout the day on various things, gripes mainly.  Whereas most of us are content to use the text thread we have that includes all of us for medical stuff, I think it serves a higher function as a platform by which I can make fun of the head of our group.

Work excuses...

From my days working in urgent care clinics:

Patient:  "Can I get an excuse to go back on the 9th?"

Me: "Sir, that's two weeks from now and all I did was remove a splinter from your thumb."

Patient:  "The 2nd, then?"

#sigh

Tastes like...

Me:  "How's that oral contrast taste?"

Patient:  "Like a mixture between horse semen and donkey dick."

Me:  "I'm going to take your word on that."

#howdoesheknowthatexactly?

Exercise it...

Seen in orders:  "Physical therapy consult to increase genital range of motion."

#PTFlufferstotheset

Mother's Day Bonus Video...

Happy Mother's Day!

Sun and Moon Sunday...

Welcome to Sunday...

West side....

One of the surgeons in our hospital has a phonetically similar name to a famous rapper.  For obvious reasons, I won't give you his exact name, but the effect should be the same.

Patient:  "Well, Busta was in here earlier and he said the problem wasn't surgical."

Me:  "Who?"

Patient:  "Busta Rhymes, the surgeon."

Me:  "Oh, you mean Dr. Rimes."

Patient:  "Yeah, that's what I said."

#Dan-ja!

Disgust factor goes to 11...

If you haven't seen "This is Spinal Tap," the reference above is to warn you about the following post.  Alternately, I suppose I could have used "DANGER! DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!"

Physical therapy does a lot of wound care as part of their training here.  In our hospital, they often cover for our wound care nurse on the weekends when she is unavailable.  The post below is by one of our physical therapists, who sent this to me.

When I was in my last year of physical therapy school, I received an order to do a pulse lavage and silvadene on a wound.  The male patient I was to see had a diagnosis of rectal cancer secondary to HPV (same virus that causes most cases of cervical cancer), which meant that I spent a large amount of time with my hands in his backside.  I saw him for about three days while on rotation, since he was face-down while I did my job, conversation was limited.  On the final day I saw him, I was applying the silvadene to his rectum when he suddenly pulled his head up slightly and said, "You know, you can tickle that a little bit...if you want."

I quickly finished up applying the silvadene and left the room, leaving him with his bare ass up.  I told the nurse to finish the rest.

#mybabyfitsmelikeafleshtuxedo

Rural health care problems...

Rural health care often gives us the best stories...

Reason for admission:  Pain secondary to right chest wall hematoma.

Reason for injury:  "A horse bit me on the nipple."

#foreplay

Submitted by Melissa.

Pulled over...

Last Thursday, 5:30 a.m.:

Officer:  "Where are you headed in such a hurry?" (I was pulled over for speeding).

Me:  "I was headed to the CCU at the hospital.  I have an unstable patient there I was trying to get to."

Officer:  "We get the doctor excuse all the time."

Me:  *holds up stethoscope*

Officer:  "Where's your white coat?"

Me:  "I don't wear one, they carry germs from room-to-room."

Officer:  "You can't be a doctor without a white coat, that would be like...."

Me:  "A policeman without a badge?"

Officer:  "Exactly."

Me:  "Officer, are you aware you're not wearing a badge?"

Officer:  *glancing down*  "Yes, I am.....Oh." *looks up at me* "Well, doctor, I think I'm keeping you from the hospital.  You have a good morning."  *gets in patrol car, drives off*

#owned

Comments...

Just thought I'd mention something, Blogger has recently updated their interface and one of the side-effects is that, when I go in to allow comments to be published, they are often deleted by the system.  So, if you post a comment and it never shows up, I most likely did not delete  it, the system ate it.  Just a heads-up because it's done that to about 7-8 comments this week.

Druggie by proxy...

My wife works at a pain management clinic.  She often tells me stories about the excuses people come up with for why their drug tests were positive for illicit substances.  This is one of my favorites...

Doctor:  "Can you tell me why you're positive for methamphetamine?"

Patient:  "Well, my husband does meth and I was giving him a blowjob.  I must have gotten it in my system when I swallowed."

#inventive

Changed Sunday...

Welcome to Sunday...

Saturday cartoon...

Original attribution here.

Color blind...

Seen in dictation:

"Patient is an elderly, disabled, black gentleman well-known to our service. *skip down a paragraph* On exam, patient is a well-developed Caucasian male in his 30's."

#fountainofyouthhasbleachadded

Temper tantrum...

We often get people who threaten suicide when we do something they don't like.  I've mentioned it before on here, for certain.  It's a response I've never entirely understood, an adult temper tantrum of the worst sort.  Awhile back, I had a patient who was angry for some reason or another who threatened to kill herself.  Upon being moved to a locked unit until I could have a suicide screener see her, faced with a possible inpatient psych stay, she became repentant of her threat, naturally.

Patient:  "Can I please go home?  I didn't really mean it when I said I was going to kill myself."

Me:  "Not until the screener sees you tomorrow."

Patient:  "Well, fine!  If you won't let me go, maybe I'll just kill myself!  *few seconds go by*  Oh, wait.  I didn't mean that one, either."

Me:  "That's a healthy response."

#Waaaa!

Tender Soul...

Patient:  "I'm going to kill that m*****f***er in the E.R."

Me:  "Who?"

Patient:  "That doctor in the E.R.  Stupid sonofabitch, I'm going to cut his balls off."

Me:  "What did he do?"

Patient:  "He hurt my feelings."

#precious

Just four...

Nurse:  "I don't think the guy tried to kill himself, he only took four..."

Me:  "Bottles, he took four bottles of pain pills."

Nurse:  "Ooohh."

#onlyfourthough