Category: Kooks

If medics call our hospital and report they are bringing someone who may need immediate attention, a Medical Alert is called. This gets everyone’s attention and allows the full capacity of the department to be available for whatever the patient needs. On Thursday night, a Medical Alert was called for Room 1A. As they came…

The mother of one of my patients told me an interesting story this week. She brought her thirteen-month-old daughter in because of fever and respiratory distress. The reason the mother was so worried was that about three weeks earlier, her daughter came into the emergency department very ill with an acute respiratory illness. After being…

Sometimes, the people accompanying patients to the emergency department are more interesting than the patients. In this case, the patient was a middle-aged, mentally handicapped man who was brought in by his “friend” for a refill on his blood pressure meds. He was pretty much clueless and it was clear that her life was wrapped…

Patients or their family members frequently come in with notes to help detail and clarify what has been going on medically with the patient. Here is one that came in this week: Over the last 7 years: 50 Dots in vision Freezing my eyes making them Feel paralyzed Migraine Headache Pain Scale 10-0, 10 Bloody…

The police approached a middle-aged man for being intoxicated in public. His lack of cooperation resulted in a scuffle during which he suffered a cut on the bridge of his nose. After being handcuffed, the police noted he was too drunk to walk so, rather than take him to jail, they called an ambulance and…

The paramedics brought in a twenty-two-year-old man who was found hanging by his ankle under a freeway overpass. The story he told me was so bizarre, amazing, funny and sad that it ranks near the top of all the stories I have come across in the emergency department. He told me he wanted to “dance,”…

Free Ultrasound A lady in her twenties came in with a gallbladder attack. I treated her pain and ran some blood tests to make sure she didn’t need to be admitted to the hospital. I then told her she needed to get the report of her gallbladder ultrasound, which had been done at another hospital.…

A thirty-one-year-old woman came in by ambulance after attempting to kill herself. She was five months pregnant with her 17th pregnancy. She said she had given birth to 2 children, had 3 abortions and 11 miscarriages. She was very depressed from the recent death of her boyfriend, who was the father of her unborn baby.…

A 40-year-old Cambodian woman came in by ambulance complaining of whole body stiffness and inability to speak or move her neck. This was her third visit to our emergency department in a week. Her first visit came after she was involved in a minor motor vehicle crash. She was rear ended, resulting in minor damage…

An 84-year-old man came in with a nosebleed. He was upset and said to the nurse, “I’m bleeding to death! Get a doctor in here to give me a shot of coagulant!” A 42-year-old woman came in with her jaw jerking from side to side. She said this had never happened to her before and…