Essential Article for all ER docs

[deleted65604]

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This article gave me a chuckle.

 

[GeneralVeers]

This article gave me a chuckle.

Those poor pioneers. How did they get so far West without rapid IV push Dilaudid? Makes me glad we live in the modern era.....

 

[Stitch]

That's brilliant. I especially love the ending.

 

[jbar]

In those days (in real life) couldn't you just buy straight up opium from the store? Funny article but it's not like they weren't using narcotics/whisky etc

 

[nd92]

Laudanum (10 mg morphine/ml) was listed as an essential supply for travelers on the Oregon Trail.

 

[deleted77919]

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[nd92]

I don't believe you. I never saw it offered for sale. Perhaps with some of that my oxen would have survived the crossing better. Or at least Mary would have suffered less . . .

You are too early. I believe they added it by the 5th edition.

 

[deleted65604]

OK, we'll make it more accurate..."They shouted for joy when the government built quickie-narc marts every 10 miles along the trail to re-stock their diminishing drug wagon supply."

I had 3 different patients who slipped on ice and fell last night. 2 of them hit their arms and neither had even a bruise or abrasion to show for the event. Both were cradling their arms, rocking back and forth in bed in an effort to show me that their pain was 10/10. One had a bruise on her butt. She had been to the ER 20 times in the past 2 years with 10 negative x-rays studies, and MRI's of her back and neck which showed minor DJD. OK, I played the game and wasted tax-payers money for x-rays I knew would be negative and gave them vicodin. For a bruise.

I would bet you the pioneers didn't bust out their opium stores for minor bumps and bruises. They had things to worry about like wagons running over them, oxen goring their child, diptheria, etc.

http://www.pbem-portal.com/other/jtf/JI_Dangers.html

Pioneers had to make decisions, like, either I get up and walk on my broken foot or sit here and die. The result is a west full of industrious people that literally made the deserts blossom like roses. On the Oregon Trail, there were no work notes, no hotels, no laundromats, and often, not clean water.

Can you even imagine going a week without showering and not having toilet-paper to clean your butt? I mean, even corn cobs aren't all that soft on an anus ravaged by diarrhea. Have you ever tried to wipe your butt with cotton-wood leaves?

 

[Jeff698]

I've always wondered how well our typical Axis II patients would do back then.

Take care,
Jeff

BTW, if you like that article, take a look at his other ones. He writes a monthly column in one of the throw aways. Great stuff.

 

[GeneralVeers]

I've always wondered how well our typical Axis II patients would do back then.

Take care,
Jeff

BTW, if you like that article, take a look at his other ones. He writes a monthly column in one of the throw aways. Great stuff.

They wouldn't live. Unless they had wealthy relatives who would support and look after them, most people with significant mental illness and/or soul-sucking behavior would die in the streets, starve to death, or be murdered by fed-up townspeople.

Look up "trepanning" to see how ancient cultures dealt with the mentally ill.

 

[Apollyon]

BTW, if you like that article, take a look at his other ones. He writes a monthly column in one of the throw aways. Great stuff.

In my last group, a guy there left to go work at Oconee, where Ed Leap works. He's just as good in person.