Funny shadowing moments

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Getting asked by attendings what diagnosis should be given (they didn't know I was shadowing). I'd been there such a long time and did the same things as the residents, so they just assumed I knew what I was doing. 🙂
 
g3pro said:
Getting asked by attendings what diagnosis should be given (they didn't know I was shadowing). I'd been there such a long time and did the same things as the residents, so they just assumed I knew what I was doing. 🙂
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That is funny 👍
 
This was actually when I was doing IV-tech clinicals in the ER for my EMT-IV tech license, but funny anyway. We were required to wear white lab coats, so we blended in with the ER doctors a bit.

At one point I was to start an IV on an elderly lady with Alzheimers. When I walked in she asked the nurse, "Is this the doctor? He's a handsome young man." Later on the nurse was removing her foley catheter, and causing some pain doing it. She yelled out "Where's that handsome doctor!! I want him to do it?"

It's always the old ladies that think I'm handsome. That's happened at least one or two other times. "Well, I don't mind going to the hospital if this handsome boy is taking me." Why not the younger ladies?
 
The doctor I work with has only one bag where he puts all his important papers (without a filing system). He was filling out a recommendation form for me and went to grab the form and instead started filling out a "do not intubate/do not resuscitate" form. Luckily he realized it pretty quickly!
 
athena877 said:
The doctor I work with has only one bag where he puts all his important papers (without a filing system). He was filling out a recommendation form for me and went to grab the form and instead started filling out a "do not intubate/do not resuscitate" form. Luckily he realized it pretty quickly!
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:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
 
I was hanging out with a doctor watching all of his procedures one day. He was performing a vasectomy. The room was so quit and all of the sudden my stomach started to growl so loud. The Dr. laughed and said he needed to start playing music! I was so red!!!
 
I shadow an Internal Medicine physician every Friday. The first time I observed him examine a patient; he played a huge joke on me. The patient had a severe case of psoriasis and the doc told me that he had a minor case of leprosy that was somewhat contagious. The doctor said, “Go ahead and feel the texture of his skin”. I normally would have not have believed this. However, you are more likely to believe such a story when it comes out the mouth of a physician that has been in practice for over 30 years. He then let out a huge laugh and told me the truth. The patient was apparently in on it too!

Yours,
Caraway
 
^ That's awesome. Sounds like a cool guy to shadow.
 
Darth Asclepius said:
^ That's awesome. Sounds like a cool guy to shadow.
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If you’re replying to my posts:
It’s certainly never a dull moment.
 
man, shadowing was a blast...

the orthopedic surgeon i shadowed was great. one day in the OR, a patient was under general anesthetic and a nurse commented on how funny it would be if they could hear/remember the stupid conversations that transpire during a typical surgery. the surgeon then recalled a story from his resident days. he was finishing up some light arthroscopic work on a heavy-set woman who was AWAKE, when his attending suddenly barged in and yelled, "kevin, are you done scoping that fat pig's knee yet?!" awkward! :laugh:
 
another time, we were in the corridor about to enter an examining room in his office and he picked up a chart to a recurring elderly patient for whom he had a serious dislike. he said to me, "well, superdevil, we'll see if you still want to go into medicine after this." the patient was a total basketcase. she had complaints of everything from whiplash to tennis elbow (i'm not making this up) and nearly broke my hand holding it during a cortisone shot. when we were done, he sneered and said "did ya like that? huh? huh?!" we both laughed.

then there's always the locker-room humor of orthos in the surgeon lounge, where they basically all get together and bitch about how much money their wives spend and make fun of the sports teams of each others' alma maters.

those were the days...
 
superdevil said:
man, shadowing was a blast...

the orthopedic surgeon i shadowed was great. one day in the OR, a patient was under general anesthetic and a nurse commented on how funny it would be if they could hear/remember the stupid conversations that transpire during a typical surgery. the surgeon then recalled a story from his resident days. he was finishing up some light arthroscopic work on a heavy-set woman who was AWAKE, when his attending suddenly barged in and yelled, "kevin, are you done scoping that fat pig's knee yet?!" awkward! :laugh:
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:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: Funny story
 
The scrub nurse just bought a PSP and brought it into the OR. The other nurse preps the patient for general anesthetic while we tinker with the toy.

So the attending, resident, and I are crowding around the scrub, checking out the PSP. Theres a balders gate type of game in the portable device and we take turns playing around with it. The attending fiddles with it and has no idea how to use the controls. Meanwhile he's getting killed over and over again in the game, clueless on how to play.

They finish the ectopic anesthesia in the back of the spine. The attending goes "well, that was fun, I had no idea what i was doing...ok, time to do a prostatectomy."

Inside I was thinking, boy, he can sure do a mean surgery, but can't do $hit for video game playing.
 
nicholonious said:
They finish the ectopic anesthesia in the back of the spine. The attending goes "well, that was fun, I had no idea what i was doing...ok, time to do a prostatectomy."
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That would scare the crap out of me if I was the patient.
 
I shadowed my former pediatrician for a couple of days over spring break. We came to this little boy who had come to receive some immunizations and his mother had actually told him he was going to be getting shots, so he started crying as soon as we walked in.
The doctor gave me an otoscope and a cap and told me to look in his ear. Well, I couldn't get the cap to lock on there, and she told me it should lock just by twisting it on, so I assumed it was locked. Well, while I was looking in his ear, the doctor was talking to his mother and when I went to pull the otoscope out, the cap was still in his ear, sticking out! I was glad nobody noticed except me and him, and so I just pulled it out (he was smiling at this point) and I said "Let's let this be our little secret!" I was pretty embarrassed.
 
If you’re replying to my posts:
It’s certainly never a dull moment.
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Yes, I was replying to your post.

When shadowing my surgeon, if a patient blatantly loves him (and many of them do- he's the best doctor I have ever met), sometimes I'll talk to them and ask them what they love so much about him, what makes him a good doctor. One day, I asked an old lady what it is he does that makes her think he's such a great doctor and she said, "Well, he's really nice to look at.... (long pause).... and he always listens and answers all of my questions. He's such a nice man" So, basically the old ladies come to him because they think he's hot.
 
I was shadowing a PM&R doc and there were four people in the exam room. The patient (wheelchair-bound, no control over bodily functions, looked like Ms. Shiavo), myself, the doctor, and a social worker in charge of the patient.

The doctor is examining the patient when all of a sudden the patient just starts tootin' away......and again......and again.......and again. I was sitting there just trying to be polite but that exam room didn't have any ventilation. We all had to sit in that dutch oven for over and hour and I had to leave immediately afterwards and shower at home.

He was LacI and someone gave him milk for breakfast 🙄
 
i was shadowing a surgeon one summer who was doing a lamenectomy. The doctor was super excited that i was going to witness this. He even had them put it on the camera/tv's in the operating room. Everything was fine for a little bit...i was watching the tv screen image go up and down and up and down...and listening to the sound of the chisel and drill....and all of a sudden i felt super hot and clammy. i had always been told that if you faint in the OR you should faint away from the patient. i started moving towards the door...the nurses were saying "are you fine"? i told em i just needed some fresh air...i stepped outside the OR relieved that i hadn't fainted......The next thing i remember is getting up off the hallway floor. Apparently i had fainted anyway. The worst part was that on my way down i hit my head on an empty gurney and ended up splitting my lip open. They said i was quite a sight there in the hallway...white as a ghost with blood running down my lip! Guess i'm not going to be an ortho surgeon!!! :laugh:
 
I shadow/volunteer with a plastic surgeon. She does micro surgery on hands, so there's only so many carpel tunnels and trigger fingers I can see before I get bored. So she takes me to see other surgeries in between hers.

So we walk into this OR room (patient's laying on the bed, all the OR people are getting ready to do what they do), and she asks what's going on today, and the doctor there was like "we're going to do a leg amputation on this lady" so my doctor's like "Oh! did you read that article in the New York Times the other day? Right on the front page they had this big picture and article about an Australian doctor who went to help out with the tsunami relief efforts, did an emergency leg amputation and the patient bleed to death." So she's going on about this, and one of the nurses came over to her and was like "The patient's still awake"

It was hilarious (of course i wasn't laughing.... out loud)

Same surgery, they had like 3 doctors performing it. Part way through, the most senior surgeon asks the others what they should do now. They they start debating it and arguing. I was standing there thinking "Wow, shouldn't these people already know what to do? the leg's half off!)
 
CaliforniaBound said:
i was shadowing a surgeon one summer who was doing a lamenectomy. The doctor was super excited that i was going to witness this. He even had them put it on the camera/tv's in the operating room. Everything was fine for a little bit...i was watching the tv screen image go up and down and up and down...and listening to the sound of the chisel and drill....and all of a sudden i felt super hot and clammy. i had always been told that if you faint in the OR you should faint away from the patient. i started moving towards the door...the nurses were saying "are you fine"? i told em i just needed some fresh air...i stepped outside the OR relieved that i hadn't fainted......The next thing i remember is getting up off the hallway floor. Apparently i had fainted anyway. The worst part was that on my way down i hit my head on an empty gurney and ended up splitting my lip open. They said i was quite a sight there in the hallway...white as a ghost with blood running down my lip! Guess i'm not going to be an ortho surgeon!!! :laugh:
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LOL! :laugh:
I've never heard a first hand story about fainting in the OR before. I always wondered what it'd feel like...
 
When taking a patient's history for the first time, the physician told me to write CC: (for cheif complaint). So I quickly wrote CC Colon.
 
antissa said:
LOL! :laugh:
I've never heard a first hand story about fainting in the OR before. I always wondered what it'd feel like...
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it's a great feeling...especially after the fact when they say "so what profession are you wanting to go into again?" Yup...that's me...the fainting doctor! :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
 
CaliforniaBound said:
it's a great feeling...especially after the fact when they say "so what profession are you wanting to go into again?" Yup...that's me...the fainting doctor! :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
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dude, be an anesthesiologist! you'll know exactly what to tell the patient what its like under general anesthesia (plus, less blood and guts in the mix.)
 
So, the nurses prepped up this one patient and I was oblivious to what that entailed, it was my first operation to shadow. I wasn't exactly paying attention either. So, as I watched the endoscopy start I thought to myself, "boy this guy's throat is really long." As the doctor pushed the camera further into the patient, I thought, "Man, this guy makes a lot of mucuous." Anyways, I took a step forward, squinted my eyes, and noticed it was actually a colonoscopy. Well, I thought it was funny. 😀
 
sweettpea23 said:
When taking a patient's history for the first time, the physician told me to write CC: (for cheif complaint). So I quickly wrote CC Colon.
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bowrofl.gif
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bowrofl.gif
 
So I don't know how many of you ever have seen the movie SOMEWHERE BACK IN TIME starring Christopher reeves.

But anyhow, the movie takes place at an old hotel in Michigan where there are still red brick roads and in the proximity of the hotel one still can only use bike or horseback riding to get around, but not cars.

So anyhow, I'm bringing this up because one day I was shadowing down in the neurology clinic where there was a patient that was a cook at this hotel. The next thing I know the Chief neurologist was in the room discussing how he used to be a cook in NYC and the things that go on behind the seens of a restaurant kitchen. Even the patient was surprised that the doctor knew about that stuff.
 
The resident I was shadowing said something sort of funny.

"Men don't care about cancer. They can't see it, touch it, or won't accept that it exists. So when I tell them I have to operate on them they don't want the surgery. If they can't pee or have sex... THEN they want it right away. That's the most important things, pee or have sex."
 
rugirlie said:
I don't really get the CC Colon... how is this funny?
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Hehe, it took me a second too. The symbol : is called a colon, which is also your large intestine.....get it? The doc said to write "CC:" not "CC colon." Never mind. 😛
 
TheProwler said:
Hehe, it took me a second too. The symbol : is called a colon, which is also your large intestine.....get it? The doc said to write "CC:" not "CC colon." Never mind. 😛
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Oh ok, that makes more sense. Thanks. :laugh:
 
i used to shadow an orthopedic surgeon. one day in clinic, he was giving a patient (an old man) a hyaluronic acid shot into the knee. he said to grab onto me "because he's a young strapping boy" if the patient felt too much pain, so i was standing there ready to feel the ultimate grip of pain.

when the doc stuck the needle in the old man's knee, he reached out, missed my open hand, and grabbed my side. well i'm ticklish there so i start cracking up and trying to wrench myself away. the patient laughed so hard, he forgot about the pain.
 
I have been shadowing my FP doctor for a few days and this happened the other day:

*Patient and doctor are having a conversation. The exam is already pretty much over and they are pretty much just finishing up discussing what they were talking about.*
Patient then says: "Are you Dr. ****?"
Dr. **** replies in a slightly puzzled tone: "....yeah...."
Patient: Oh, I guess you look different then when I saw you a couple of weeks ago.
Dr. ****: Well, I got a haircut...Maybe thats it...
Patient: "Maybe, I just remember you differently I guess."
*Patient leaves*
Dr. **** turns to me with the still puzzled look: "Am I Dr. ****?"
*Now that the patient is gone we can laugh.*
 
I am sure this happens a lot, but it was priceless. This guy comes into the ER with his wife complaining of intense pain with urination. Diagnosis: STD. Judging by the look on the wife's face when they recieved the news, they both were aware that he didn't get that STD from her.... very, very, awkward. Must have been from a toilet seat honey. I wish I could've heard the discussion they were having as they waited to be discharged.
 
This didn't happen to me, but it happened to one of my friends while shadowing. This woman came into the doctor complaining of a vaginal discharge. The doctor asked her what the discharge looked like and she said it was milky white in color. The doctor then proceeded to ask her how often this occurs, and she said that it always happened after she had sex with her husband!!! I'm not ****ting you, this actually happened. When it comes to people like this I believe in eugenics.
 
We took this old semi-demented lady to the bathroom so she could give a urine sample. The cup was sitting on the counter, and behind it on the wall was a sign in a protective plastic slip that said "Place Sample Here [with an arrow pointing down to the spot on the counter where the patient should leave the cup]". Well...I guess she took that a bit too literally, cause when she opened back up the door, she was standing there holding the sign. It took me a second to realize that she had actually taken down the sign, held open the plastic protective sleeve, and pissed inside the damn thing. To top it off, the piss was all leaking out through the 3-hole punches in the sleeve. She had no clue.
 
Couple of weeks ago I shadowed a pathologist performing an autopsy. Well, this cadavour had a "huge" carcioma on his penis. When I say huge I mean all the way from pubic area to urethra. An interesting fact is that , he did not go to see his family physicial for this, and his wife did not give us this information either. So, the autopsy went quite well, I was super exited for the oportunity, and all of a sudden Pathologists says to this guy that was with us "Henry , you might want to look away for this." She pickes up this huge knife( the kind that they use to slice organs , once they are out of the body , on an inch long pieces), and in one swift motion , cuts off the cadavour's penis 😀 . Looks at it . Says" wow , this is the biggest carcioma that I've ever seen on a penis, why the heck didn't he go to see a doctor for this?" , and puts it in a jar.Now, I am not a man , but even I felt the pain.
 
The funniest thing I've seen is when I was shadowing a general surgeon, and we were just doing a standard hernia repair. So we walk in the patient is mid-70's and he only wants local so he is still sort of with it. The nurse is starting to shave him and I look down and literally she can't even get her hand all the way around his flacid penis, and it is about half the size of her forearm, and like the size of my wrist. I smiled and she smirked at me, but we didn't say anything because the patient was sort of awake. The surgery goes great, and then we the surgeon and I walk out he says 'I'm going to have a hard time talking to the wife knowing what she been through, and I wouldn't be surprised to see stretch marks around her mouth' I laughed so hard. So then he's real professional and the wife is a super nice lady, and we go back to the OR for the next case and we walk in. All the nurses are laughing their heads off, and I say 'the giant penis?' and they say of course. It was a great moment, made for a great story for the next few days too.
 
This isn't a funny shadowing moment, but a funny moment in the emergency department where I work as a tech:

Nurse: I'm going to put in another line, sir, so let's put the head of your bed down a little.
Medical Resident: Yeah... (reaches back to release the back of the bed)
Nurse: (Grabs handle, squeezes, and has a puzzled look.)
Medical Resident: Bad idea, bad idea!!!!
Nurse: Why won't this stupid thing go!? (leans back to use her weight to pull harder)
Medical Resident: Fingers...Fingers...YOU HAVE MY DAMN FINGERS!!
Nurse: Oh, I'm sorry sweety.
Patient: And I have to be stuck by this woman!
 
I was shadowing today and we had a lady that said that she thinks she blood drawn for a PSA test. And the doctor was like, "Uhh, are you sure its a PSA you need???" And the patient went on to say that her friend said that she should have a blood test to check for something. She said "it was PSA, or something that was 3 letters." And the doctor said, "Well, I don't think PSA would have anything to do with it..." and he started listing off some other stuff that it might be.
 
antissa said:
LOL! :laugh:
I've never heard a first hand story about fainting in the OR before. I always wondered what it'd feel like...
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I was told passing out was "normal" and i was never told to faint away from the patient. 😳 i was shadowing a cardiac surgeon and was witnessing a heart transplant. i was ok at first but the more i watched the more i started feeling lightheaded. but I convinced myself not to think about feeling dizzy and i'd be fine. The next thing i know i was being lifted off the OR floor by the nurses. Later they told me next time to avoid their sterile cart when i passed out. Boy was I embarrassed.
 
We had a guy come into the ER with a "broken" penis (yes, you read that right.) So, the ER doc that I shadow decided to play a joke on me. He told me to go out and tell the nurses that they needed to get a splint ready for room #(whatever.) An EXTRA SMALL splint. Everyone had a good laugh (at my expense, of course.) As a guy, the whole broken penis thing still freaks me out.
 
When a patient offered me sex, I kid you not. Or when a patient hits on me. I never know if I should say thanks or be offended. So I just giggle or smile.
Another time, a patient attacked me. I was escorting him to psych and once he saw the unit he started flipping out. Next thing you know these big male CNA's came running dow the hall and tackled him.
 
I was watching a hemroid surgery...yeah, I know. And the surgeon kept trying to spook me saying, "This is an ass surgery. You're sure you want to see an ass surgery?"

Anyway, we're all standing around this poor guy's butt, discussing politics and things when his butt began puckering. It'd pucker, then release, then pucker, then release. The surgeon looked towards the anesthesiologist and asked, "Dr. --, is he alright?"
"Yeah," the anesthesiologist replied.
"You're sure? Because he seems a little distressed. I can see him trying to breathe through his ass."
 
These stories are all fabulous. I'll add my own (which was of course at my expense):

When I was 16 yrs old (I'm about to turn 22 now) volunteering in a hospital, I got to observe surgery for the first time. I'd never been in there, didn't know what to expect, but was incredibly excited. We get up to the ward, change into scrubs, get our masks/headcovers/etc, and walk into the OR where they have the lights off and are in the middle of a laproscopic gall bladder removal. We are escorted in and introduced to the surgeon (there are two of us), and he says "Oh hi, I'm Dr. *****, it's very nice to meet you" and sticks out his sterile, gloved (and covered in blood/goo) hand as if offering it for a handshake. Of course, I fall for it (being nervous and not really knowing any better) and stick out my hand to shake his back. He pulls his hand away of course, I realize what has just happened, and all the people in the OR proceed to have a good laugh at my expense! It's very funny looking back, and (somewhat) ironically I want to be a surgeon myself one day...i still question whether I will do that to somebody else 🙂
 
Go to chartfarts.com. Its a website made by a doctor I shadowed at a hospital I used to work at. He's hilarious and the site made me laugh so much I had peepee giggles.
 
Ok, so this one might pale in comparison to some others on this thread, but here goes:

I shadowed my dad in his ER, but he only introduced me (to pts) as a student. We were on our way to see a pt, and this lady maybe in her 70's who my dad had treated a couple of times before stopped him to say hello.

Lady: And who's this young lady with you?
Dad: This is em1, she's a pre-medical student observing us today.
Lady: Dr. Xxx, if I didn't know any better, I'd say she was your daughter!
 
This was more embarrasing than funny-well kind of embarrasing to me, funny to others.

Today I was shadowing a FP and we had a proceedure. It was a basic cyst or lipoma removal. Not a really big deal. I have seen a few of them and knew how they went. This time though, halfway through, I start feeling hot. I try to ignore it and keep observing. But over the next minute or two it gets worse. I start feeling sweaty and unbearably hot and its like my head is buzzing. I stand there for a second and then say "Uh, I'm sorry, I need to be excused. I'm starting to feel kind of woozy." I manage to get out of the room, and not faint, while one of the dr's staff looks at me like "what are you doing?" So I had to explain that I felt like I was going to faint. I sat for a minute and cooled off, then went back in and watched the wound be sutered.

It was really weird. I havent ever felt faint at blood or surgery before. I don't know if it was because I really was hot or something. Or the doctor I was shadowing said it just happens sometimes, there will be a one time thing where people will feel faint or woozy even though they have seen it before. He was really cool about it though. Still kind of embarassing though!
 
As for funny things I've seen....the best had to be the lieutenant colonel with a pager (military issued mind you) up his ass. He was dumb enough to give me the number (I told him I needed it "for the report") and needless to say, between myself, the nurses, and the ED physician on duty, he got paged about 8-10 times before the surgeons got down there to see him. It was funny to see him jump..... :laugh:

Getting asked by attendings what diagnosis should be given (they didn't know I was shadowing). I'd been there such a long time and did the same things as the residents, so they just assumed I knew what I was doing.
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Just about the same thing happens to me when I'm around the ED.....one of the attendings will go "What is it?" and the resident will start to answer and the attending will interrupt and say "Not you....him!" *points at me* All the docs know I'm a premed, they all know I know my crap when it comes to work and they basically treat me like I'm a resident. I get pimped all the damn time (it gets annoying as hell because there is still a lot of **** I don't know....working on that), but at the same time it's cool because I'll get pulled in on really bizarre or confusing cases- particularly if it involves the cardiac and/or pulmonary systems since there are my areas of expertise. Hopefully it will pay off when I do my ward rotations.....
 
FutureDrCynthia said:
This was more embarrasing than funny-well kind of embarrasing to me, funny to others.

Today I was shadowing a FP and we had a proceedure. It was a basic cyst or lipoma removal. Not a really big deal. I have seen a few of them and knew how they went. This time though, halfway through, I start feeling hot. I try to ignore it and keep observing. But over the next minute or two it gets worse. I start feeling sweaty and unbearably hot and its like my head is buzzing. I stand there for a second and then say "Uh, I'm sorry, I need to be excused. I'm starting to feel kind of woozy." I manage to get out of the room, and not faint, while one of the dr's staff looks at me like "what are you doing?" So I had to explain that I felt like I was going to faint. I sat for a minute and cooled off, then went back in and watched the wound be sutered.

It was really weird. I havent ever felt faint at blood or surgery before. I don't know if it was because I really was hot or something. Or the doctor I was shadowing said it just happens sometimes, there will be a one time thing where people will feel faint or woozy even though they have seen it before. He was really cool about it though. Still kind of embarassing though!
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Don't feel bad.....I'd been an EMT and RT for years when I took a part time job at a funeral home helping pick up bodies from the morgue and from houses. First embalming I witnessed...the blood started to flow from the body, and I got lightheaded, dizzy, nauseous.....thought went through my head "I know where this is going"

I told Kevin (the funeral director/embalmer) "Be right back".....I walked outside, threw up and passed out. It happens to the best of us, and that's the only time it happened to me....I think it was just the idea of seeing a person (albeit a dead one) BLEEDING out and standing there and not doing anything (which went against EVERYTHING I had been taught up to that point in time).
 
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