An unimaginable example of why General Practitioners should NOT attemp to handle emergencies.

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musicalmedic81

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I just have to share what happened on our last call yesterday before shift change.

We were dispatched to a seizure call at a local family practice. Upon arrival we found a 40ish male lying supine on the floor in one of the exam rooms. He was awake but very post ictal and disoriented. Two MDs from the practice were in the room with him. One of them, a very established and respected PCP in the area began telling us what happened. He was walking back to the exam room when he suddenly went into a seizure. The Dr caught him and eased him down to the floor then had someone call 911. Great job! If only he had stopped there.

So he checks the guys sugar, no problem, perfectly rational thing to do. Sugar was 108. Well that's normal right? so what does this Doctor of allopathic medicine do next?

He tells us in his European accent "I give him shot of sugar."

My partner and I, both 12+ year medics looked at each other.

"You gave him a shot of sugar....you mean glucagon?" My partner asked

"No no not glucagon, I give him shot of sugar..in his arm"

Another puzzled look from us.

"D-50?" My partner asked growing more concerned by the second.

"No no sugar just uh you know sugar, gave him shot in right deltoid."

I begin talking to the patient while my partner pulls a nurse aside and asks what exactly the Dr gave him. She says hang on I'll show you.

She comes back with something in her hand and says with raised eyebrows "he gave him....this" and I swear to you God as my witness she was holding a friggin tube of Oral Glucose.

That's right, this Dr panicked and gave 2 ml of IM oral glucose to a guy who's BGL was 108 to start with.

This is by far and wide the stupidest thing I have ever seen or heard of. The ER docs thought we were making it up. So on top of having a seizure, poor guy now has a wicked Charlie horse in his right shoulder that probably caused some tissue necrosis.

And the sad thing is nothing will happen to that Dr even though we both reported it. I guarantee you if we had done something that stupid we'd have had our patches torn off our shoulders.

Just wanted to share that amazing story.

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I have to admit, opening this thread I thought I would comment on how to take it easy on the FM guys since their training does not focus on a lot of emergent conditions etc. This however has no excuse. This is blatant malpractice no matter what your specialty. The most basic understanding of physiology should prevent someone from injecting oral glucose IM. I hope this did get reported. Although you are right that many times physicians are not punished for mistakes, I have a feeling the state medical board would question the ability of this doc to make rational decisions in the future.
 
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OK, my worst similar story as a medic circa 1992.
pt goes to pcp's office for yearly physicial , found to have few unifocal pvc's/min on ekg without sx.
doc starts IV and pushed 1000 mg of lidocaine rapid IV push. pt seizes and dies.
 
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Hahaha, that's crazy! Medics at the service I volunteer at go at it with the EM docs sometimes.
 
There are good and bad physicians in every specialty. It's best not to malign an entire specialty based on the actions of one practitioner. Given that emergency medicine specialists are not available in every part of the country, many emergency departments are actually staffed by family practitioners.
 
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I guess I'm still stuck at how the hell he managed to get that thick crap drawn up into a syringe/pushed back out into muscle...D50 is bad enough through a 22ga IV cath, but I can't even imagine how he got oral glucose pushed...was he standing on the plunger?!
 
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