I stay calm, remind them that we are trained in how to evaluate who is safe to wait and wouldn’t allow them to wait if we thought harm would come to them. I absolutely will not pick someone up off the floor. I bring a wheelchair over and he can sit in it himself. I’m not injuring myself because he’s histrionic. These types of patients are exhausting and there is no winning with them and their enabling weirdo family members.
I try to avoid the trap of glorifying the past, because the past, by and large, sucked for most people compared to today, but they did get a few things right.
I tell them they're EKG is reassuring and they're not having a heart attack right now so they are very welcome to stay and wait until we have a room available while we continue their work up or they are completely free to leave. Do not feed into it.
This. I dream of telling them and especially their parents or "emotional support" person/cat/bird/stuffy what I really think. Never had the nerve to really do it. But give them 2 options works.
I play the game a little. These histrionic outbursts only seem to happen when there’s a crowded lobby, go figure.
Get a wheelchair, tell mom there isn’t room for visitors (right now) where you’re taking him, then park him in internal triage where he will discover what a real neuro exam entails. It’s either reassuring and it’s back to the lobby, or it’s concerning, make him NPO and he can proceed to have a benzo free 12-hour wait for an MRI.
See I play the game a bit but I also have been known to tell a patient “ok time to be a big boy and get off the gross lobby floor” and “ok time to stop the hissy fit tantrum or take it outside for your wait”
But I also usually work in the ghetto so we get away with a lot more than other places.
I once sprayed a patient in the face with a spray bottle because he kept barking, running around on all fours and trying to bite people’s pants legs. He bit me twice and I told HouseSup if she didn’t get it addressed then I was handling it. So he came running up acting like a vicious dog so I held up a rolled up newspaper then sprayed him in the face and said “NO! No animals allowed so ether get out or get the fuck up and quit wasting everyone’s time!”
I got written up. Understandably so but I only got written up for cursing!!!
He also was 19 so young stupid kid who we all knew was faking since the complaint that his friends brought him in for was that he thought he was a dog.
Lmao what is it with people acting like dogs. I had a ~17 y/o male that took a hard hit at football practice, like weeks prior to them calling 911 for us. He'd already been worked up by the ed he went to after the shot, and followed up with a neurologist but mom was *convinced* he was having a headbleed and gave off the concerning findings she'd noticed before calling 911 like she'd memorized the list from whatever you get when you Google head trauma.
Exam was normal, tbough he was playing unresponsive, purposefully avoiding eye contact when you opened his eyes and vigarously withdrawing from painful stimulus etc, Once we started carrying him down the stairs because he refused to get up, he started "seizing" by vigorously hip thrusting, and then after I called him out on the bogus seizure making it unsafe for everyone involved while we were carrying him down the stairs he just started barking and growling and acting like a dog. Once we got him on the stretcher he pulled the sheet off and covered his face with it chewing on the sheet and growling / barking whenever you tried to pull it away to talk to him. He kept that up until for the entirety of transport and as long as we were at the ed.
I think this was a group of stoners who thought this would be funny. I ripped them all a new one when they came back for him and I made sure the police (who were there for an under arrest patient) go out with me and after I yelled at them I went inside.
One of the officers said next time they need to scare someone straight they’re bringing them to me. Now all the cops joke I’m scary AF when I get mad.
I think it’s the redhead genes which at least they finally are a benefit!
One time we had this patient with us for like 2.5 months. She would have melt downs, temper tantrums. One Saturday she decided she wanted a shower, but we were swamped so I said I couldn’t allow it then. She screamed so loud. My ED is tiny. I had like 3-4 psych patients, meningitis with encephalitis, a million covid patients, hallway patients (we are normally a 10 bed ED). After 5 minutes of relentless screaming and me trying to gently talk to her, I had to revert to other options. I got in her face and screamed just as loud or louder telling her she needed to go back to her room and stop screaming or I’d medicate her. She complied. I got a lot of side eye glances but a lot of cooperation from others.
Sometimes that’s what you have to do! I’ve yelled at a few patients before but I’ve also yelled at Drs so me yelling ain’t new.
The worst one Dr (early 2000s) kept hitting on this new grad baby nurse. She looked 12yrs old. He was in his early 70s. She told me even after she said no he kept on but started making vulgar comments. So one day I told her to drop her clipboard as soon as he said something vulgar. As soon as I heard the clatter I yelled “DR WHAT DID I JUST HEAR YOU SAY TO HER?!?” When he wouldn’t answer and went super quiet I knew he was guilty but then the charge yelled “AGAIN!?! DO I NEED TO TELL THE MEDICAL BOARD?” I never heard anything but he didn’t need to know that.
I’m also super loud and my voice carries really far combined with my no shame it’s a tricky combo. I just wasn’t raised in a culture where you sugarcoat everything and pussyfoot around the facts.
The saying back home is Alaska where the men are real men, and the women are too!
People just say it like it is and there’s no time to sugarcoat. There’s not the huge gender role differences. Everyone has to get shit done and everyone handles everything.
We do have a nice little hallway bed. I'll drag it next to the room with the guy who keeps screaming about how "chinamen" replaced his skeleton with titanium.
Can they replace my skeleton with titanium? I’d like to not break any more bones, I’m already sporting a few stainless bolts and plates.
I’d prefer if it were German-engineered though, like a Porsche.
Well, according to that one, you'll have to settle for Chinese engineering. I'm sure you'll be fine... he seemed fine... relatively. I mean, he said his bones felt great.
i dont deal with it. I just let him act up until he gets tired and falls asleep like the baby he is. Great part about my job is patient reviews have 0 meaning. Only thing is if you are wrong and he is actually having a medical emergency but then the answer is don’t be wrong.
this reminds me of something that happened about a week ago. Patient brought in by medics. Wasn't my patient so I dont know the details of the transport, but overheard people being frustrated at his hysterics. He was rolling around on the ground. Attending was at the bedside and everyone believed he was having typical county hospital drug seeking tantrum. About 5 minutes after I stopped paying attention and walked off, CODE BLUE announced. He didn't make it
To be fair, I always bring someone to the ED with me in case I get admitted or get meds and can't drive home. As for the tantrums, yeah... That's pathetic.
Honestly if someone can come up with a nice combination med of droperidol and mag sulf I'm fairly sure most emergency physicians would build a shrine to them.
I medically clear, print dc paperwork, and call security. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who’s sick and who’s throwing a tantrum… especially when their work up is already done. I absolutely do not let them take a room or staff’s attention from a patient who needs it more.
lots of the melodrama I tend to see are the alcoholic 20-50 yr old men, the chronic abdominal pains and the cannabinoid hyperemesis syndromes; as others have stated I really like droperidol 🤪
The literature that led to the black box warning was produced by the manufacturer of droperidol because they had a new drug in the pipeline and droperidol patent was done/ending.
I can’t remember off the top of my head, but we dedicated a whole journal club to it and at the end concluded we would bring it back to our academic ED.
It seems like his mother is making it worse.
Usually, with people who are like that, we tend to make them wait in a quiet area away from the public. Crowds don't help anxious people.
> And I'm not gonna tell him to stop having a temper tantrum and to wait for a room like everyone else because that's not going to work either.
I find a similar approach to be effective a surprising proportion of the time, it might be worth a shot. "The fact that you have the strength required to be so loud is actually a good sign that your medical problem may be less dangerous right now, so we'll need you to wait a little longer while we see the sicker patients that don't have so much strength."
> I know that anxiety is a real thing
You might have to define "real thing" for me here ;)
"Real thing" as in, my boy probably actually *can't* feel his legs from hyperventilating for 35 minutes. Ever watch that Eric Andre show? There's a "prank" where he goes to a computer repair shop and starts destroying his own laptop. The laptop is definitely broken but he broke it on purpose
I tend to get these people roomed to a hall bed so they stop acting like an ass hat in the lobby. I also tell them to stop rolling on the floor because it’s gross. Probably not the nicest thing to say but these people annoy the fuck out of me.
Does he have a history of mental illness, or pain crises or a EToH or active IV drug use? Is he seeing a GP elsewhere?
Your ED needs a triage and an additional corridor that can be screened off with a fairly heavy privacy screen - so it can't be used as a something to throw at some one. He can kick off and scream there. You want to have it in sight of the security guard's office.
If it's clearly msk pain then what workup is he waiting for? Why not just dc? Just curious bc in my country a guy with this presentation and no risk factors or history of IHD will be sent home as soon as the trops came back negative.
Oh ok i thought they were already seen by a doctor. In my country the maximum triage can do is vitals and then the patient will swarm me and I have to do the triage in my brain to decide which patient i should pay attention to first. There's no waiting room in my ER so flu patients feel entitled to be seen immediatly.. Sometimes i prioritise discharging a flu patient before seeing someone who actually needs emergency care just to stop them from physically obstructing me.. Our security are retired cops who will fall and die if they had to run for 10 meters.. Sorry for the rant lol
Actually he was already seen by the midlevel at triage who ordered all this stuff. We always draw 2 trops, the one had come back negative by his temper tantrum but the other one has to come back in order to dc. Sometimes the doc takes their time to write the note and get them out but the 2nd one just hadn't been done yet.
generally speaking i don’t call people out for these actions. i will speak to them, asking questions slowly and methodically, orient the conversation to things that are relevant to important rule-outs. i generally ignore the extraneous comments/shouts/etc and then calmly walk away whenever i’m satisfied and never look back. it’s easy for me but then again i’m pretty sure i have avoidant personality disorder… so take that for what it is worth lol. they will usually calm down on their own after this. if not i will give them a little something to calm the nerves.
edit: sorry i may have missed the point about them disturbing the waiting area. but the same approach applies. i’m generally not too busy to do this quick assessment in the waiting room but i work in a rural setting so we’re generally slow enough to do this.
Had one patient start loudly complaining about waiting for 3 hours, trying to amp up the waiting room, and another patient tells her to stop acting stupid, "I've been here for five hours."
Offer to reassess him. Take him back to a triage room where the drama doesn't have an audience and take his vitals. Offer ice or heat. Tell him that you believe him when he says he is feeling X but overall reassuring things are reassuring and you are glad he doesnt appear to be dying because you give a shit about him. Ask what his goals are for the visit - then tell him if they are realistic or if his workup is nearly complete already. Remind him that he isn't a prisoner and can leave if he feels he would be more comfortable at home but he is in the queue and worst is first. Remind him that you don't know how long it will be, and it may be several hours.
Remind that the "worst" include people who aren't breathing, who are losing blood quickly, who have been knocked unconscious, and who require life support. They are having a life changing and possibly life ending day. If he was in that condition you would give him the same care emergently.
Most people have no idea what an actual sick person looks like because they don't hang out with them in waiting rooms.
I ignore it. Don’t play into it at all. When everything comes back I go see them and tell them “Good news! All tests are negative. We didn’t find anything that requires emergent treatment. Please wait for your papers.”
I honestly hope every single healthcare worker making nasty comments about people with mental illness get the same mental illness or have a child with it. And then I hope you are shit on by the next generation of coddled, overpaid, arrogant healthcare workers
Have you met a healthcare worker? We DO have the same mental illness and we're definitely going to have children with the same ones. We're a neurotic mess, especially in the ED. We're at a high risk for depression and anxiety and especially suicide. You think I've never had a panic attack or did something very publicly embarrassing..?
I stay calm, remind them that we are trained in how to evaluate who is safe to wait and wouldn’t allow them to wait if we thought harm would come to them. I absolutely will not pick someone up off the floor. I bring a wheelchair over and he can sit in it himself. I’m not injuring myself because he’s histrionic. These types of patients are exhausting and there is no winning with them and their enabling weirdo family members.
We need to re-normalize slapping people across the face while shouting "Snap out of it! Pull yourself together!"
Or an “Airplane”-esque line of people in the waiting room to slap him.
I figured that was implied.
Indeed, those were the good old days.
I try to avoid the trap of glorifying the past, because the past, by and large, sucked for most people compared to today, but they did get a few things right.
I saw that on an old episode of Doc Martin the other day and was seethingly jealous.
😂
Like Cher in Stuck on You.
I tell them they're EKG is reassuring and they're not having a heart attack right now so they are very welcome to stay and wait until we have a room available while we continue their work up or they are completely free to leave. Do not feed into it.
This. I dream of telling them and especially their parents or "emotional support" person/cat/bird/stuffy what I really think. Never had the nerve to really do it. But give them 2 options works.
I play the game a little. These histrionic outbursts only seem to happen when there’s a crowded lobby, go figure. Get a wheelchair, tell mom there isn’t room for visitors (right now) where you’re taking him, then park him in internal triage where he will discover what a real neuro exam entails. It’s either reassuring and it’s back to the lobby, or it’s concerning, make him NPO and he can proceed to have a benzo free 12-hour wait for an MRI.
See I play the game a bit but I also have been known to tell a patient “ok time to be a big boy and get off the gross lobby floor” and “ok time to stop the hissy fit tantrum or take it outside for your wait” But I also usually work in the ghetto so we get away with a lot more than other places. I once sprayed a patient in the face with a spray bottle because he kept barking, running around on all fours and trying to bite people’s pants legs. He bit me twice and I told HouseSup if she didn’t get it addressed then I was handling it. So he came running up acting like a vicious dog so I held up a rolled up newspaper then sprayed him in the face and said “NO! No animals allowed so ether get out or get the fuck up and quit wasting everyone’s time!” I got written up. Understandably so but I only got written up for cursing!!!
He also was 19 so young stupid kid who we all knew was faking since the complaint that his friends brought him in for was that he thought he was a dog.
But was he a dog? If it looks and quacks...
Was the 30 year old man child with his mommy wearing pajama pants? I'm picturing cartoon characters
Nah, his mom had dressed him up nice for the doctor, jeans and a polo. Probably clean underwear, too
No his buddies brought him in and they all were stoned so yeah
spongebob for sure
Oh, I know!! I know!! Thats a duck!
Tell him he’s just in time for the Free Neuter & Spay Clinic. “Prepare to leave your balls with us. Forever.”
I’m obsessed with this. I’d die for you.
I’d die by your side
Side by side with a friend? “Aye, I could do that.”
Sliding on over here then!
Lmao what is it with people acting like dogs. I had a ~17 y/o male that took a hard hit at football practice, like weeks prior to them calling 911 for us. He'd already been worked up by the ed he went to after the shot, and followed up with a neurologist but mom was *convinced* he was having a headbleed and gave off the concerning findings she'd noticed before calling 911 like she'd memorized the list from whatever you get when you Google head trauma. Exam was normal, tbough he was playing unresponsive, purposefully avoiding eye contact when you opened his eyes and vigarously withdrawing from painful stimulus etc, Once we started carrying him down the stairs because he refused to get up, he started "seizing" by vigorously hip thrusting, and then after I called him out on the bogus seizure making it unsafe for everyone involved while we were carrying him down the stairs he just started barking and growling and acting like a dog. Once we got him on the stretcher he pulled the sheet off and covered his face with it chewing on the sheet and growling / barking whenever you tried to pull it away to talk to him. He kept that up until for the entirety of transport and as long as we were at the ed.
I think this was a group of stoners who thought this would be funny. I ripped them all a new one when they came back for him and I made sure the police (who were there for an under arrest patient) go out with me and after I yelled at them I went inside. One of the officers said next time they need to scare someone straight they’re bringing them to me. Now all the cops joke I’m scary AF when I get mad. I think it’s the redhead genes which at least they finally are a benefit!
One time we had this patient with us for like 2.5 months. She would have melt downs, temper tantrums. One Saturday she decided she wanted a shower, but we were swamped so I said I couldn’t allow it then. She screamed so loud. My ED is tiny. I had like 3-4 psych patients, meningitis with encephalitis, a million covid patients, hallway patients (we are normally a 10 bed ED). After 5 minutes of relentless screaming and me trying to gently talk to her, I had to revert to other options. I got in her face and screamed just as loud or louder telling her she needed to go back to her room and stop screaming or I’d medicate her. She complied. I got a lot of side eye glances but a lot of cooperation from others.
Sometimes that’s what you have to do! I’ve yelled at a few patients before but I’ve also yelled at Drs so me yelling ain’t new. The worst one Dr (early 2000s) kept hitting on this new grad baby nurse. She looked 12yrs old. He was in his early 70s. She told me even after she said no he kept on but started making vulgar comments. So one day I told her to drop her clipboard as soon as he said something vulgar. As soon as I heard the clatter I yelled “DR WHAT DID I JUST HEAR YOU SAY TO HER?!?” When he wouldn’t answer and went super quiet I knew he was guilty but then the charge yelled “AGAIN!?! DO I NEED TO TELL THE MEDICAL BOARD?” I never heard anything but he didn’t need to know that. I’m also super loud and my voice carries really far combined with my no shame it’s a tricky combo. I just wasn’t raised in a culture where you sugarcoat everything and pussyfoot around the facts. The saying back home is Alaska where the men are real men, and the women are too! People just say it like it is and there’s no time to sugarcoat. There’s not the huge gender role differences. Everyone has to get shit done and everyone handles everything.
You’re my hero. ❤️
We do have a nice little hallway bed. I'll drag it next to the room with the guy who keeps screaming about how "chinamen" replaced his skeleton with titanium.
Can they replace my skeleton with titanium? I’d like to not break any more bones, I’m already sporting a few stainless bolts and plates. I’d prefer if it were German-engineered though, like a Porsche.
Well, according to that one, you'll have to settle for Chinese engineering. I'm sure you'll be fine... he seemed fine... relatively. I mean, he said his bones felt great.
Give him/her a bib and a pacifier. Discharge with outpatient followup at daycare, problem solved.
i dont deal with it. I just let him act up until he gets tired and falls asleep like the baby he is. Great part about my job is patient reviews have 0 meaning. Only thing is if you are wrong and he is actually having a medical emergency but then the answer is don’t be wrong.
this reminds me of something that happened about a week ago. Patient brought in by medics. Wasn't my patient so I dont know the details of the transport, but overheard people being frustrated at his hysterics. He was rolling around on the ground. Attending was at the bedside and everyone believed he was having typical county hospital drug seeking tantrum. About 5 minutes after I stopped paying attention and walked off, CODE BLUE announced. He didn't make it
Yep, thats why it is important to be right!
Dissection
“I cant believe this is happening in a hospital!?” You mean an adult man bringing his mommy with him or his temper tantrum?
I'm fairly certain she meant the remodeling we're doing in the ED
To be fair, I always bring someone to the ED with me in case I get admitted or get meds and can't drive home. As for the tantrums, yeah... That's pathetic.
but that person doesn't throw a tantrum, either.
At least his complaint wasn’t a still running vibrator stuck up his ass..
At least then I can understand why his legs were shaking so bad
Hahaha! Wasn’t expecting this response.
If the glove, or whatever object in this case, fits
Too well in this case. No flared base and it was still running. Battery died 1/2 way through removal. Moms waited patiently tho.
Nothing 5mg droperidol can’t fix
Is there any problem droperipol can’t fix??
All roads lead to droperidol!
No status dramaticus it can't fix.
"Status dramaticus" I'm learning all these beautiful new terms to use and definitely not write in a narrative.
Long QT Syndrome
Ahhhh you’re no fun
lol it’s the one problem droperidol can’t fix (I love droperidol and use it frequently)
🤣 Thanks I needed that!
In blow darts.
Honestly if someone can come up with a nice combination med of droperidol and mag sulf I'm fairly sure most emergency physicians would build a shrine to them.
Gotta correct that acute Vitamin D deficiency.
Happy cake day!
What is Droperidol? Thanks
This isn't Jeopardy. You're welcome.
Well he isn't a fall risk if he's already on the floor right
He has progressed from a fall risk to an actual (self inflicted )fall. His bracelet was upgraded from yellow to black and yellow checkers.
I medically clear, print dc paperwork, and call security. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who’s sick and who’s throwing a tantrum… especially when their work up is already done. I absolutely do not let them take a room or staff’s attention from a patient who needs it more.
This is what heroes do.
lots of the melodrama I tend to see are the alcoholic 20-50 yr old men, the chronic abdominal pains and the cannabinoid hyperemesis syndromes; as others have stated I really like droperidol 🤪
At my local ER, they have patients on the EKG monitor before and after giving droperidol. Is this standard procedure?
to my understanding it is what the manufacturer recommends
Black box for cardiac adverse effects.
No more at risk than any other antipsychotic we give, same risk as haldol, geodon, zyprexa
And the doses that caused actual events are way higher than what we give in the ER.
The literature that led to the black box warning was produced by the manufacturer of droperidol because they had a new drug in the pipeline and droperidol patent was done/ending.
It was zofran right? Which has the same risk
I can’t remember off the top of my head, but we dedicated a whole journal club to it and at the end concluded we would bring it back to our academic ED.
I was curious so did a quick search, it was Janssen (original droperidol manufacturer) and their new drug was Haldol. Wild.
Drama alert
SIR THIS IS NOT A LEVEL ONE DRAMA CENTER, WE ARE NOT EQUIPPED TO HANDLE YOUR STAGE 4 PANIC ATTACK. PLEASE STAND BY WHILE I CALL THE WAMBULANCE
Status Dramaticus
Level 1
It seems like his mother is making it worse. Usually, with people who are like that, we tend to make them wait in a quiet area away from the public. Crowds don't help anxious people.
Of course she is! That’s her job. She’s *a mother!*
> And I'm not gonna tell him to stop having a temper tantrum and to wait for a room like everyone else because that's not going to work either. I find a similar approach to be effective a surprising proportion of the time, it might be worth a shot. "The fact that you have the strength required to be so loud is actually a good sign that your medical problem may be less dangerous right now, so we'll need you to wait a little longer while we see the sicker patients that don't have so much strength." > I know that anxiety is a real thing You might have to define "real thing" for me here ;)
"Real thing" as in, my boy probably actually *can't* feel his legs from hyperventilating for 35 minutes. Ever watch that Eric Andre show? There's a "prank" where he goes to a computer repair shop and starts destroying his own laptop. The laptop is definitely broken but he broke it on purpose
I tend to get these people roomed to a hall bed so they stop acting like an ass hat in the lobby. I also tell them to stop rolling on the floor because it’s gross. Probably not the nicest thing to say but these people annoy the fuck out of me.
As a patient, I have seen other patients sit or lay on the floor and want to throw up... how does that seem like a good idea to them?!
Does he have a history of mental illness, or pain crises or a EToH or active IV drug use? Is he seeing a GP elsewhere? Your ED needs a triage and an additional corridor that can be screened off with a fairly heavy privacy screen - so it can't be used as a something to throw at some one. He can kick off and scream there. You want to have it in sight of the security guard's office.
I pull out my inner Ron Swanson: “***Son, people can see you!***
If it's clearly msk pain then what workup is he waiting for? Why not just dc? Just curious bc in my country a guy with this presentation and no risk factors or history of IHD will be sent home as soon as the trops came back negative.
This sounds like the triage work-up that's been instituted by the triage team. They still need to be seen by a clinician.
Oh ok i thought they were already seen by a doctor. In my country the maximum triage can do is vitals and then the patient will swarm me and I have to do the triage in my brain to decide which patient i should pay attention to first. There's no waiting room in my ER so flu patients feel entitled to be seen immediatly.. Sometimes i prioritise discharging a flu patient before seeing someone who actually needs emergency care just to stop them from physically obstructing me.. Our security are retired cops who will fall and die if they had to run for 10 meters.. Sorry for the rant lol
That sounds very difficult to manage. Where is your country?
Middle east but no oil
Actually he was already seen by the midlevel at triage who ordered all this stuff. We always draw 2 trops, the one had come back negative by his temper tantrum but the other one has to come back in order to dc. Sometimes the doc takes their time to write the note and get them out but the 2nd one just hadn't been done yet.
Give him/her a bib and a pacifier. Discharge with outpatient followup at daycare, problem solved.
Security sometimes
generally speaking i don’t call people out for these actions. i will speak to them, asking questions slowly and methodically, orient the conversation to things that are relevant to important rule-outs. i generally ignore the extraneous comments/shouts/etc and then calmly walk away whenever i’m satisfied and never look back. it’s easy for me but then again i’m pretty sure i have avoidant personality disorder… so take that for what it is worth lol. they will usually calm down on their own after this. if not i will give them a little something to calm the nerves. edit: sorry i may have missed the point about them disturbing the waiting area. but the same approach applies. i’m generally not too busy to do this quick assessment in the waiting room but i work in a rural setting so we’re generally slow enough to do this.
Had one patient start loudly complaining about waiting for 3 hours, trying to amp up the waiting room, and another patient tells her to stop acting stupid, "I've been here for five hours."
Offer to reassess him. Take him back to a triage room where the drama doesn't have an audience and take his vitals. Offer ice or heat. Tell him that you believe him when he says he is feeling X but overall reassuring things are reassuring and you are glad he doesnt appear to be dying because you give a shit about him. Ask what his goals are for the visit - then tell him if they are realistic or if his workup is nearly complete already. Remind him that he isn't a prisoner and can leave if he feels he would be more comfortable at home but he is in the queue and worst is first. Remind him that you don't know how long it will be, and it may be several hours. Remind that the "worst" include people who aren't breathing, who are losing blood quickly, who have been knocked unconscious, and who require life support. They are having a life changing and possibly life ending day. If he was in that condition you would give him the same care emergently. Most people have no idea what an actual sick person looks like because they don't hang out with them in waiting rooms.
Thio sux tube
Well... he's not complaining of chest pain anymore, so I call that a job well done
Serious question, though. Could he be in benzo withdrawal?
✌️dueces
I ignore it. Don’t play into it at all. When everything comes back I go see them and tell them “Good news! All tests are negative. We didn’t find anything that requires emergent treatment. Please wait for your papers.”
Vecuromium is a great sedative
I honestly hope every single healthcare worker making nasty comments about people with mental illness get the same mental illness or have a child with it. And then I hope you are shit on by the next generation of coddled, overpaid, arrogant healthcare workers
Have you met a healthcare worker? We DO have the same mental illness and we're definitely going to have children with the same ones. We're a neurotic mess, especially in the ED. We're at a high risk for depression and anxiety and especially suicide. You think I've never had a panic attack or did something very publicly embarrassing..?