I Can't Believe I Wrote That

If SDN had an award for "starts the best threads anywhere on the entire site," docB, you'd win in a landslide.

My PD put on a patient's chart, for whatever reason "hand job per day." We have copies on jpg. We don't know the context but its there.

And when I was a medical student, I described an abscess as very "pus-sy"

Q

QuinnNSU said:

My PD put on a patient's chart, for whatever reason "hand job per day." We have copies on jpg. We don't know the context but its there.

And when I was a medical student, I described an abscess as very "pus-sy"

Q

Click to expand...

For a sore throat on a particularly attractive female patient, a colleague of mine wrote the following at which point the pt and he, once he realized the gravitas of the instructions, turned bright red...

"Please gargle with a salty solution at least once per day. Be sure to spit and not swallow..."

bulgethetwine said:

For a sore throat on a particularly attractive female patient, a colleague of mine wrote the following at which point the pt and he, once he realized the gravitas of the instructions, turned bright red...

"Please gargle with a salty solution at least once per day. Be sure to spit and not swallow..."

Click to expand...

I really think this thread quickly earned "instant sticky" status...

In med school I spent some time on the GYN-Oncology service. On the discharge instructions for every female patient we always put: "Nothing per vagina for 2 weeks"

I always got a kick out of writing that.

Had a patient HCG + Vag bleeding, with NDIUP on ED US. Sent a quant and needed a 48 hour follow up. Patient could not read a clock or a watch and was iliterate. I along with the nurse asked the patient their dayly routine. The patient stated she watched "Jenny Jones" every day. I figured i could use this as her time trigger.

The chart documented that it was "discussed with the patient to return to the ER after watching Jenny Jones two times in a row this week starting tomorrow"! And she did!

Paul

When I did ob we wrote for EVERY patient... Nothing per Vagina for 6 weeks i.e. no tampons, no douching, no sex...

Wrote that about 7 times per day for 3 weeks..

EctopicFetus said:

When I did ob we wrote for EVERY patient... Nothing per Vagina for 6 weeks i.e. no tampons, no douching, no sex...

Wrote that about 7 times per day for 3 weeks..

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The best is when you have to explain it in Spanish.... nada para vagina... then you have to go on to explain why... (that was my first conversational spanish experience -- I definitely went on to learn more spanish after that!)

I recently saw an attending write on a man's chart "small penis."

(nicedream) said:

I recently saw an attending write on a man's chart "small penis."

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Hey don't share your visit to the ED with us!

docB said:

So I was discharging a patient with a threatened miscarriage today and I was trying to add a blurb to her instructions about pelvic rest. Always the well meaning doc I tried to put it in layman's terms. I wound up writing:

Don't put anything in your vagina until you go see Dr. Ob/Gyn.

I'm glad I realized what I'd done before I printed it out.

Anyone else accidentally (or on purpose) put crazy things in charts?

Click to expand...

Maybe we're more forward back east, but the Ob's here CLEARLY tell the patients nothing in the vagina, including toys or a penis, in those words. On occasion, I've done the same - but, to be fair, I usually say "No sex or objects into your vagina".

Apollyon said:

Maybe we're more forward back east, but the Ob's here CLEARLY tell the patients nothing in the vagina, including toys or a penis, in those words. On occasion, I've done the same - but, to be fair, I usually say "No sex or objects into your vagina".

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In the words of Eric Cartman's mom:

"Don't let anyone put their hoo hoo in your cha cha."

End of message.

We had a female med student who couldn't bring herself, for whatever reason, to say or write the word "enema". So the attending was reading over the chart and she had noted "Anally flushed with....."

docB said:

So I was discharging a patient with a threatened miscarriage today and I was trying to add a blurb to her instructions about pelvic rest. Always the well meaning doc I tried to put it in layman's terms. I wound up writing:

Don't put anything in your vagina until you go see Dr. Ob/Gyn.

I'm glad I realized what I'd done before I printed it out.

Anyone else accidentally (or on purpose) put crazy things in charts?

Click to expand...

I'm still puzzled as to what is wrong with this statement. It is how I would put it. You don't want her to put anything in her vagina. How else would you say it?

On a lady's d/c instructions that kept passing the clap between her and her boyfriend:

"Dysparunia (painful intercourse) is God's way of saying 'Stop doing that.'"

QuinnNSU said:

My PD put on a patient's chart, for whatever reason "hand job per day."

Click to expand...

Sounds like a dictation error. We have one on our board:

"Take one to two vaginas every 6 hours as needed".

First first thought was "why thank you, I believe I will". Apparently, the dictation people in India though there was some similarity between vicodin and vagina.

Take care,
Jeff

The exact reason you tell a patient not to have sex after a miscarriage occurred today: ectopic only 4 weeks out from her miscarriage.

She failed to heed the advice written on her discharge paperwork: "No sex or any objects in your vagina for 8 weeks." She became sexually active on week 1.

We had a re-admit on my Internal Medicine month and my fellow med student was looking at the first discharge summary (done by the Chief Resident). He read, "patient was instructed to take cocaine indefinitely," at this point the Resident started laughing like a crazy man. Definitely a good month.

My charting expertise recently prompted an email from the director of Quality Assurance and Improvement. In the UMaryland ED, psych patients are often assessed in a large room that is serendipitously labeled, "51." One of the nurses asked me to write an order assigning a medical patient to the psychiatric side of the ED. I promptly obliged before considering the ramifications of such a request. My order read:

"Please transport the patient to Area 51."

The QA audit politely replied:

"Residents should refrain from telling nurses to send patients to, 'area 51.' This communication implies a negative connotation. Instead, please ask for patients to be transported to the PSYCHIATRIC HOLDING AREA."

Not quite as funny as some, but best dictation I've seen in a while was by my Medicine resident last fall, on a pt's d/c summary:

"The patient was admitted to the renal service for treatment of her asthma."

She was, too.

So last night I was reading one of my dictations. What I said in the HPI of a patient with an STD was, "3 weeks ago patient had unprotected sex" What they transcribed was, "3 weeks ago patient had UNPREDICTED sex" At first I just shrugged and thought, "clueless transciptionist" Then I realized maybe the transcriptionist had it more right than I did.

I got a kick out of an FMG medicine resident writing "F/U CK in AM" as part of his admission H&P plan for one of my patients.

when i was on trauma we admitted a guy with polysystem trauma. ortho's dictated H&P went something like this: "the patient was transferred from OSH after being struck by a car at highway speeds while he was on the road trying to catch a racoon. although he had no identification, he was immediately identified by the staff at the OSH since he frequents their ED in his role as the town drunk." then, since the guy was tubed and all hx came from the chart, at least two other consultants used that in their notes as well.

docB said:

Anyone else accidentally (or on purpose) put crazy things in charts?

Click to expand...

"Continue use of illegal drugs"

discharge summary which was transcribed as Primary Care Physician pneumonia

While doing an elective rotation in neurotrauma, I charted on a patient that I had seen for the past few days and there was no change. I write my note and move on and after awhile my attending comes in.

I'm on the other side by now and he is looking over my notes. From across the room (not during visiting hours) he yells, "Hey numbnuts the patient is stable. You charted that he is doing well and he is in a freakin' coma." I just wanted to crawl away as the nurses and techs just smiled at the ******* student.

Good times.

-Mike

We recently started using electronic prescriptions. Our system allows us to enter and save frequently used prescriptions. I had one for albuterol I'd written (and presumably had filled) many times before someone actually read it and asked me how I'd go about actually giving the drug as written.

Albuterol MDI + Spacer
2 puffs Q 4 hours PR

Apparently that one little letter has some significance.

Take care,
Jeff

Jeff698 said:

We recently started using electronic prescriptions. Our system allows us to enter and save frequently used prescriptions. I had one for albuterol I'd written (and presumably had filled) many times before someone actually read it and asked me how I'd go about actually giving the drug as written.

Albuterol MDI + Spacer
2 puffs Q 4 hours PR

Apparently that one little letter has some significance.

Take care,
Jeff

Click to expand...

Well let's see:
1.connect inhaler to spacer
2.put spacer in . . .oh never mind

There was once a pharmacy student that I was trying to pick up on.

I gave her a prescription for her labeled, "Lovin', sig: bid prn"

I then told her that I thought about adding "po" but decided against it.

She then countered that at least I didn't put "pr".



The sad part is, this story is true.

I love this thread. I'm wiping tears off my eyes... or maybe I'm sleep deprived...

docB said:

It is a subtle double entdre. I didn't want to include names but the OB/Gyn I was referring her to is male. It came out sounding like "Don't put anything in there now. Save yourself until you see your doc for HOT TIMES!!!" I changed it to "Don't put anything in your vagina until you have followed up with your obstetrician."

Click to expand...

When you first posted this I also thought: well, that 's not that bad -
but now I see

"Please transport the patient to Area 51."

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Well, that was just too tempting. Who would put a "51" on their Psych ED door? QI must be sending out 3 letters/wk on this...

Someone also once transcribed my dictation of a PCP Pneumonia as a Primary Care Physician Pneumonia - seems to be a systems error ...

Can't think of any others at the moment...

It seems like cocaine and alcohol are in the water in Detroit. So at least twice a shift I end up writing, "stop doing cocaine, it will kill you and is bad for you. Stop drinking alcohol and riding your bicycle, call a cab or walk." So much head trauma for drunks biking here. Better than driving, but damn...seen some real doozies from biking.

Even better, I can't believe I SAID that.

Last week one of our not-so-sick tele patients frequently wandered off the floor. Before returning to his room, he would stop by the tele room to have his tele pack turned on. This weekend I was the person he notified. My was response was "Sure, I'll turn you on."

During a slow shift one day, I decided to do a breast ultrasound. (Hey it was slow, I had never done one before, and she was there for trauma to the breast[volleyball]).

So, I told her, "I am going to put this wand on your breast, with some lubricant, and move it around a little bit..." (If you don't get it right away, think dirty for a few minutes--it may come to you).

She and I both turned beet red at that point, but she shockingly let me peform the exam. And, no, I have not yet been sued for harassment or assault...

Good thing I wasn't around or talking to patients, but still funny. I said "I don't like being serviced" then about 2 seconds later realized what I had said...

And I was talking about going to gas stations which have full service.

During my Sub-I in medicine last month, I had a difficult patient who was always getting agitated when his GF visited him. I almost wrote D/C girlfriend on his discharge orders.

Has anyone ever tripped/fell off chair in pt's room?

EM2BE said:

Has anyone ever tripped/fell off chair in pt's room?

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Yup.

Worse yet, we had those transformer pelvic beds that you had to use brute force with to make it turn back into the regular bed.

Picture this...

I'm trying to help out my nurse by getting the bed (with the patient still on it) out of pelvic mode. Pt's legs still in stirrups, I push the bed back. It hangs, my feet slip and, well, I'll leave the rest to your imagination. It's likely to be much worse that what really happened.

Take care,
Jeff