Why don't more people go into EM? Why is EM not more competitive?

[mehc012]

---

Members do not see this ad.

The vast majority of patients do not come into the hospital via the ED. I'll just say this bluntly, you don't know anything about this topic. Forming strong opinions when in positions like this are recipe for problems down the road.

Whoa there, the post you quoted was me throwing up my hands at a frustrating discussion and being incredibly sarcastic. That may be me being rude, but it's more "me frustratedly satirizing the other guy's arguments" rather than anything remotely resembling an accurate reflection of what I think.

 

[Jabbed]

Whoa there, the post you quoted was me throwing up my hands at a frustrating discussion and being incredibly sarcastic. That may be me being rude, but it's more "me frustratedly satirizing the other guy's arguments" rather than anything remotely resembling an accurate reflection of what I think.

Hahah you're just getting dumped on regardless of what you say.

 

[mehc012]

Hahah you're just getting dumped on regardless of what you say.

Yeah, no kidding. I guess I'll stick to wholly unobjectionable things instead, like being a strong, vocal proponent of the many benefits of continuing to breathe or something.

 

[LaceyMD]

I just find it funny having to wait 4 hours for snotty noses...I mean damn. Go to Mcdonalds and flip some burgers, get that Medicaid, and see some pcps

At least in my area, most of the people waiting 3-4+ hours with minor complaints do have Medicaid. The problem is they get assigned to a clinic based on where they live, so if they want to see their PCP, they have to get an appointment at that clinic, and most of the time, those appointments are booked out 2-3 months or more. I can't count the number of patient encounters I've been in just over the last few weeks that started with "I know you've got sicker people, and I'm sorry to be wasting your time, but I called XYZ Clinic and the earliest appointment I could get was in April". The system, at least in my area, was simply not prepared for the huge influx of new Medicaid patients last year, and it resulted in the highest patient numbers in our ER's history.

(And yes, I know patients apologizing like that is rare in the ER. My ER is basically Mayberry.)

 

[jl lin]

At the risk of going down the non-PC road, if you're a person who has no insurance, no job, and survives only on benefits of various types, what's the cost to you for spending 4+ hours sitting in the ED? None.

This is very true. For me though, even if that were the case, it would be knowing I am potentially exposing myself to other illnesses, such as viruses. For them, maybe it's a warm place to sit, a TV, and a cup of coffee. God I hate sitting in the ED. I have even had mixed feelings about working down there too. In the ICUs, we keep things tightly controlled, in general. A lot tougher to do in the ED many times.

Yep, getting people in on a timely basis--seen this in CM with peds cases, even. And usually someone will make a space for some of them, if there issues are serious enough. But it has become a problem.

ED gets dumped on a lot, and I don't see that changing any time soon. It's fun, and I usually like the personalities down there--picky about the important stuff, but not necessarily hypercritical about the less important stuff--like in ICUs.
I mean you have to be a bit anal to work well in the ICUs, but some people are just absurd. For me, this is usually a nurse that is overly zealous about some relatively trivial thing in light of the dominating issues of concern.
ED usually doesn't have time to sweat the small stuff. I think I'm more balanced in terms of the extreme, so I fall in-between the ED vs ICU personality. You need to laugh, and in the ED, in order to survive, they know how to do that, in general. It can be a drag working with hypercritical people that don't know how to laugh.