Number of patients I have see in the ED: Approx. 43,000.
Number I will see before retirement: 120,000
Amount of my soul I expect to have left after this: 14.8%
Percentage of real emergencies: 5-7%
Percentage of urgent patients: 20%
Time it takes reflected light to reach the Earth from the Moon: 1.3 seconds.
Percent of patients in ED at 3:00 am either drunk, bored, or stupid: 81%
Amount of time spent hearing about useless social history before my spine buckles and I become a complete circle: 2.6 minutes.
Copies of JFK's book Why England Slept purchased by his father Joseph to ensure it was a best-seller: 40,000
Time it takes me to realize the 18 year old female with headache, abdominal pain, skin pain, fatigue, and a myriad of other complaints just wants a pregnancy test and a work excuse: 0.24 seconds
Number of times the words separation, church, and state appear in the 1st amendment: 0
Value of the look on a drug seekers face when they realize the anaprox and skelaxin won't get them high: Priceless
Sunday, February 25, 2007
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great post doc!
ReplyDeleteDo you "educate" the 80% non-emergently/non-urgently ill patients as to appropriate use of emergency services?
ReplyDeletebest,
Flea
Educate? That assumes they a. want to learn and b. can read.
ReplyDeleteIf I was paid ten extra dollars per patient for all the "educating" I try to do in the ED I would be blogging on a site entitled "Island leisure and what to do in your spare time" instead of patching my soul back together every night.
ReplyDeleteWHAT-EVA! I DO WHAT I WANT! YOU DON'T KNOW ME!
ReplyDeletedoc, if we could just collect the money paid by these patients to have all their fingernails exquisitely done in three tone acrylic filligree with sparkles i think we could go to that island and sip mai-tais.
Like to know what ed your at, as the compassion seems to be over flowing, and If I did have an emergency, I like to have somebody who really cared
ReplyDeleteEVERY SINGLE EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT IN THE COUNTRY, PAL. MY JOB IS NOT TO BE COMPASSIONATE, THOUGH I OFTEN AM, IT IS TO DIAGNOSE AND TREAT ILLNESS WITHOUT MISSING ANYTHING. TRADE YA?
ReplyDeleteEducate? That would be stepping on the patients civil rights Flea. The exact same people that abuse the ER on a regular basis will not hesitate to make unending calls to administration complaining about how the ER doc mistreated them by not addressing whatever non-emergent piddly complaint that has brought them in for the 7th time this month. Administration will then beat the ER doc over the head because he is not providing good customer care. The customer is always right and the ER staff better give 'em what they want and try not to let it eat you up and burn you out.
ReplyDeleteGod bless you and keep you ERnursey.
ReplyDeleteCommpassion, eh. Well you can have that compassionate idiot hold your hand as you die, but as for me, I'll take the knowledgeable experienced ED doc when I am deathly ill who knew that he needed to get to me urgently and not spend any more time with some whiney 27 year old whose reflex sympathetic dystrophy "flare up"(10th this year) would let them sleep last night.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWhy do people always get so mad when we tell it like it is? Are we supposed to all be mother teresa and let people stomp all over us? We have sympathy where sympathy is appropriate. We tolerate the idiots in order to help those who really need help. So get over it!!!
ReplyDeleteBwaa haa haa! I love the "useless social history" spine collapse. I am a family doc, I love social history, right? Augh! I am feeling distinctly circular myself after stuff like:
ReplyDeleteMe: "Did you have a fever?"
Patient: "Well, I had to take care of the baby all this week, and then I dropped him off at my mother's house...."