An ER doc's rant

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S6MD said:
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/sfo/301345524.html
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RYoq0.gif
 
This is brilliant....with the crap they complain of it's either ACS protocols or stroke protocols.

An hell yes as nurses, we are underpaid😛
 
"sitting there playing tetris on your cell phone is not 10/10 pain"

Definitely understand how that would annoy him. Nobody likes to be taken for a fool.

I don't understand why people go to the ER to get hydrocodone, though. $500 ER visit for a few pills? Really?
 
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CaptainSSO said:
"sitting there playing tetris on your cell phone is not 10/10 pain"

Definitely understand how that would annoy him. Nobody likes to be taken for a fool.

I don't understand why people go to the ER to get hydrocodone, though. $500 ER visit for a few pills? Really?
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You actually think these folks pay for the ER visit?

:laugh:
 
CaptainSSO said:
"sitting there playing tetris on your cell phone is not 10/10 pain"

Definitely understand how that would annoy him. Nobody likes to be taken for a fool.

I don't understand why people go to the ER to get hydrocodone, though. $500 ER visit for a few pills? Really?
Click to expand...

I hope you're not serious.

Epic article though.
 
hahahhahahha yes- it's always a horrible migraine and they are always sitting up looking completely relaxed/complaining that they've been waiting 30 minutes.
 
I don't have any witty gifs like Slowpoke, but as someone who works in the ER, this is word-for-word-freaking-perfect.
 
exi said:
Hmm, not sure if he's back on SDN -- last I knew, he had his username changed to digits and left a couple years back.
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oh, that's what I thought you meant. I'll check out the new blog entries.
 
Definitely understand how that would annoy him. Nobody likes to be taken for a fool.
g.php
 
I could not stop laughing. Although I am not a doctor (yet!) I've worked in an ER for a few years now and this pretty much describes my nights.
 
Substance dependence is a terrible MEDICAL CONDITION that kills way too many people in this country. The problem is that we don't have enough resources to adequately treat these patients, like access to affordable inpatient treatment centers or addiction specialists. The cost of dealing with addicts in the ED and trying to "get rid of them" can be added to the billions of dollars addiction costs us every year.

What are we going to do about this?
 
I have had many migraines in my life, including very bad ones that would last for 3 to 4 days. I would slur my word, feel really dizzy and nauseated and, sometimes, even throw up. Light, noise, smells, everything was unbearable. I saw my doc, then a neuro, had a CT scan to rule out anything else, but never asked for or was prescribed narcotics. Once knowing I had migraines, the best thing to do when I got one was to stay at home in a dark quiet room and take aspirines, tylenol, caffeine and, if needed, Gravol. Did not want to get on the codeine train and -tryptans had too many side effects. Who the hell goes to the ED when they have a history of migraines and know they have just a migraine? If anything, the fluorescent lights, crying children and screeching tweakers will just make it worse.
You know it's not about the migraine.
 
Maybe because they are actually in pain? What a novel thought. Think about how much street junk you could get for $500, that would get you a lot higher than Hydrocodone.
 
Doctor4Life1769 said:
You actually think these folks pay for the ER visit?

:laugh:
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And uh, yeah, they do pay for them. I went to the ER during a period when she had no insurance and racked up so many medical bills she had to refinance her house to pay them.
 
vwgirl said:
And uh, yeah, they do pay for them. I went to the ER during a period when she had no insurance and racked up so many medical bills she had to refinance her house to pay them.
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god, I don't want to be in the country you're in.
 
vwgirl said:
And uh, yeah, they do pay for them. I went to the ER during a period when she had no insurance and racked up so many medical bills she had to refinance her house to pay them.
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Drug seekers don't pay their bill. Some of them have insurance though. Unfortunately, it's a chilly day in hell when an insurance company reimburses an ED for a dental pain visit.
 
vwgirl said:
Maybe because they are actually in pain? What a novel thought. Think about how much street junk you could get for $500, that would get you a lot higher than Hydrocodone.
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lemme guess, mkIV or newer?

people were mauled by sabertoothed tigers for hundreds of thousands of years and either they died or they survived and enhanced the modern evolutionary human form. they had no pain meds. pain is there for a reason.

i've broken my arm/hand 3x and have never taken an opioid analgesic.

the current narcotic addiction in the us is the result of an overzealous psychiatrist in the 90s who ran around stating that "no one should ever have pain", sold a million books, and as a result today every 15 seconds someone dies from Rx overdose. people die. we created a nation of opioid zombies who walk around, arms outstretched, literally doing anything to get that sweet opioid euphoria. Those opioid receptors were given to us by evolution through millions of our ancestors being put through legitimate pain (ie, you fell chasing a woolly mammoth giving yourself a bimal but you still have to walk on it to live/eat so you power through your unstable ankle joint for the rest of your life with the help of mu/kappa receptors, etc). it's all bull****, we are collectively making the gene pool dumber by putting up with this ****.

have personally seen a surgery resident friend work q3h call with a kidney stone NOT taking narcotics because he couldn't work while taking them, have worked a shift with an RN in the ED while she had perforated appendicitis.. again, no pain meds.

saw a mom come in a while back who had an appt w/ her pain md that day so she took the rest of her xanax and perc 10s that morning cause she knew she would get a refill soon and piled her 7 kids into the minivan after which while on the way to her pain appt she was so ****ed up that she plowed head on into a parked car sending all 8 of them to the ED. this is a particularly bad example but we see **** like this every day. every day.

opioid zombies walking around out there i tell ya..
 
vwgirl said:
Maybe because they are actually in pain? What a novel thought. Think about how much street junk you could get for $500, that would get you a lot higher than Hydrocodone.
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You know what's cheaper than 500? 0. That's how much these guys generally pay for their ER visits.

EMTALA and all that BS.
 
e30ftw said:
lemme guess, mkIV or newer?

people were mauled by sabertoothed tigers for hundreds of thousands of years and either they died or they survived and enhanced the modern evolutionary human form. they had no pain meds. pain is there for a reason.

..
Click to expand...

Opium has been in use for a long time, but you may be right regarding our earliest ancestors.

From Wikipedia:

Cultivation of opium poppies for food, anaesthesia, and ritual purposes dates back to at least the Neolithic Age (new stone age). The Sumerian, Assyrian, Egyptian, Indian, Minoan, Greek, Roman, Persian and Arab Empires all made widespread use of opium, which was the most potent form of pain relief then available, allowing ancient surgeons to perform prolonged surgical procedures. Opium is mentioned in the most important medical texts of the ancient world, including the Ebers Papyrus and the writings of Dioscorides, Galen, and Avicenna. Widespread medical use of unprocessed opium continued through the American Civil War before giving way to morphine and its successors, which could be injected at a precisely controlled dosage.
 
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