Kooks

At work this week, I took care of a middle-aged man who, as he left his house to go to […]

We used to put drunks in the little anteroom at the ambulance entrance. I lovingly called it “The Solarium.” The

Never Too Young To Start Our 11-year-old patient left home with his 13-year-old cousin to go visit friends. When the

Designated Passenger I had two patients from a single car crash. He was the driver and she was the front

My wife, Shari, forwarded me a link to a segment on NPR about Gambler’s Fallacy. In short, Gambler’s Fallacy refers

I have been thinking tonight, for some reason, about vomit. Not just vomit but also vomiting. I think I will

A forty-year-old man was sleeping on the living room couch. Around 3:00 in the morning, his family tried to wake

Low back pain is very common. It is the most common medical reason for people in America to miss work.

While we traveled around, getting my medical training, we lived in the south for several years. Being born and raised

About three in the morning, two patients came in complaining of headaches. They were placed in different rooms. Their situations

About six o’clock in the morning, we got a call from an ambulance that they were bringing in a pediatric

Norm was a “regular” in our emergency department for many years. He was recently found down on the sidewalk in

The other night, the paramedics brought in a patient that was nervous and paranoid. He was a schizophrenic and admitted

We don’t have a social worker available to us on the night shift. When we have a patient who is

A middle-aged woman was discharged from the hospital after a three-day stay for treatment of injuries suffered in a car

A 67-year-old man was brought in by ambulance after being found unconscious with empty alcohol and pill bottles nearby. A

Pediatric Pancreatitis The pancreas is an organ that lies across the upper abdomen. It has two functions. First, it is

Quincy is an outdated name for a peritonsillar abscess.* This is an infection with a pocket of pus in the

At 6:45 am, just when things should be tied together for the end of my shift, medics brought in a

The medics brought in a twenty-three-year-old woman unconscious with an overdose. They reported she had texted family members telling them

A helicopter ambulance service called saying they were bringing in an eighteen-year-old man who had been stabbed in the chest.

Some time ago, I posted a story called Dancing with the Stars. http://badtadmd.com/dancing-with-the-stars/ In that story, a young man hung

A young man was seen at another hospital in our fair city for a nasty jaw fracture. His jaw was

Emergency departments often attract people who have nowhere else to go. If you think about it, homeless people retain a

I Needed to Eat A thirty-year-old man came into our emergency department saying he had been treated for a broken

I recently came across a letter I wrote to my parents at the start of my first clinical rotation in

Last week, I told you a story about an intern draining pus.  ( http://badtadmd.com/grand-geyser/ ) It makes sense to follow that with another

Doctors often place catheters in patients who have problems emptying their bladders. The catheters are frequently placed directly through the

I recently posted blogs about the “Chief Complaint,” which is the patient’s most important symptom. Another type of complaint is

Where Did that Tampon Go? A 34-year-old lady came in after attending her hypnosis session earlier in the day. She