fact
The term ‘patient 0’ is based on a misunderstanding. An early HIV patients was named ‘patient O’, standing for ‘patient OUT of California’. People misinterpreted this letter as the numeral 0, leading to its wide usage today.
The post The term ‘patient 0’ is based… appeared first on Crazy Facts.
*The following article contains discussion of suicide/self-harm.
Those who seek professional counseling are there because they want to improve their mental health and need guidance.
However, getting some patients to open up on their first meeting seems to be a challenge because they are struggling with their self-imposed shame.
“Therapists, what is something people are afraid to tell you because they think it’s weird, but that you’ve actually heard a lot of times before?”
Redditors who are in the field provided their insights.
“Intrusive thoughts. Nearly everyone has thoughts about pushing the old lady onto the subway train, swerving into opposing traffic, or stabbing their loved one in the stomach while cooking dinner with them.”
“Some folks, however, take these thoughts very serious that believe that they might act them out. It’s called thought-action-fusion. Most of us are able to brush them off, though.” – vedderer
“Unwanted intrusive thoughts are normal and do not mean you are a bad person (yes, even intrusions of sexual/religious/moral themes).”
“By definition, these are thoughts that are unwanted bc they go against your own values and highlight what you don’t want to do (eg, a religious person having unwanted blasphemous images pop into their mind, or a new parent having unwanted sexual thoughts about their new baby).”
“However normal these thoughts are (over 90% of the population), the moral nature of these thoughts mean that often people experience a lot of shame and take many years before they first tell someone about them.”
“Edit. Because this is getting more visibility that I realised : The occurrence of these thoughts/images/urges are normal.”
“The best way to ‘manage’ them is to accept that they are a normal (albeit unpleasant) brain process, and a sign of the opposite of who you are and are therefore v.v.unlikely to ever do.”
“Let the thought run its course in the background while you bring your attention back to (insert something you can see/feel/hear/taste/touch). I usually say something like ‘ok mind!”
“Thanks for that mind! I’m going to get back to washing the dishes and the sound/sensation of the water while you ponder all the nasties.”
“Carry on!’ I literally say it to myself with a slightly amused tone bc I am always genuinely amused at all the wild stuff my brain can produce!!” – cbearg
“The amount of people I see who feel like they should be grieving a ‘certain way’ and are afraid that they ‘must not have loved someone,’ or, ‘must not have cared.’ People grieve in all sorts of ways. The ‘5 stages of grief’ are bullsh*t.”
“I was consulting with another clinician who was seeing a couple whose daughter had died. The wife was convinced that the husband must not have cared about her because he ‘wasn’t grieving out loud’.”
“In reality, while she had been going to support groups and outwardly expressing, he had been continuing to work in a garden that him and his daughter had kept when she was alive, using that time to process and grieve as he did.”
“Both were perfectly fine ways of grieving, however it is expected that ones grief is more than the other. They both ended up working it out however, he driving her and others to their weekly support group, her attempting to work in the garden with him on the condition that they didn’t talk. Really sweet.”
“To that same extent, the amount of people who are unaware of their own emotions and emotional process is astounding. So many people feel only ‘angry’ or ‘happy’ and worry something must be wrong with them otherwise.”
“Normalizing feeling the whole gamut is just as important. Recognizing what we’re feeling as well as what it feels like in our body when we’re feeling is incredibly helpful for understanding how we process and feel.”
“As a whole, how we treat emotions as a society is kinda f’ked. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.” – sredac
“I’d say a common one is believing that there’s something innately, irreparably wrong with them that makes them unable to ever truly ‘fit in’. For a lot of people it’s such a deeply ingrained belief that it can be extremely painful to acknowledge or express, regardless of the level of personal success in their lives.” – GuidedBySteven
“Two topics come up with regularity: when someone discloses to me that they were sexually abused as a kid, and/or when some is experiencing suicidal ideation. Both are something I hear from clients every single day, and so I don’t find it weird at all.”
“But, when I have someone in front of me who’s talking about it for the first time, I know it’s important to validate the fact that even though I might be talking about this for like the fifth time that day, they have never talked about this EVER, and are in need of gentle care to feel safe.” – HighKeyHotMess
“That they do not know what they enjoy doing. Often they have people in they’re life, including therapists, say ‘try to do something fun today’ or ask ‘what do you like to do when you have free time?’”
“Many people I work with do not know what those are. Once I explain that I dislike these statements /questions because they assume people should know the answer, and that many people don’t, I can watch as they relax, take a deep breath, and say something to the effect of ‘oh my, that’s so good to hear. I have no idea what I like to do. That’s part of the problem’.”
“More often than not they feel like they should know and that everyone else their age has it figured out. They are embarrassed to say that they don’t know when in fact not knowing is very common. I couldn’t even try to count how many clients I’ve had this conversation with.” – ljrand
“A common one in the time I was a therapist was simply ‘I don’t know.’”
“You’d be surprised how reluctant people are to admit that they don’t know why they’re feeling how they are. But that’s exactly why you’re (or were, I’m not a therapist any more) sat there with me; so we can figure out why together.”
“It always put me in mind of a line from America by Simon and Garfunkel:”
“Kathy, ‘I’m lost’ I said, though I knew she was sleeping. ‘I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why’.” – kutuup1989
“Psychologist here. Basically, anything having to do with sex. There’s so much shame. Sexual abuse. Sexual fantasies and fetishes. Erectile dysfunction. Infidelity. Becoming sexually assertive.”
“I’ve been told that I have a good ‘psychologist’s face.’ I try not to have a strong reaction to normalize the discussion. With adolescents, they are extremely anxious to tell me if they’ve relapsed or aren’t doing well.”
“They cut one night or they were suicidal. They’re having a lot of negative self-talk or panic attacks.”
“They’ll come in, pretending everything is okay. It’s usually in the last 10-15 minutes that they’ll say something. They’ll reveal that they worried they’d let me down.”
“That I’d be disappointed in them. It usually turns into a discussion about policing other people’s feelings and tolerating emotions.”
“I explain that I care about their well-being and it’s my job to monitor my emotions and reactions, not their role.” – MyDogCanSploot
The takeaway from this thread is that psychologists and other therapists have heard it all and they are there to help patients, not judge them.
While it’s easy to say patients should shed their guilt when opening up about their issues, they should be proud for taking that first step by showing up.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
Something funny that I’ve always wondered… who’s the doctor for my doctor? Does that doctor have a doctor? And what about THAT doctor?
Wouldn’t there be an imbalance of some kind eventually? Does every doctor have a doctor in some never-ending loop? This has to be one of life’s greatest mysteries, right?
Here’s another question: What do doctors talk about when they go for their own medical checkups and yearly physical exams? Do they correct each other? Argue over results?
Oh, to be a fly on the wall…
As humorous as this is, remember: Doctors are people, too! They have to go to the doctor just like the rest of us (even if they refuse to answer my question about this seemingly never-ending loop of doctors).
But there might, in fact, be an answer!
Doctors were candid about their own experiences at the well, doctor after Redditor Still-Tangerine2782 asked the online community:
“Doctors of Reddit, what’s it like when you go in for a doctor’s appointment?”
“Do you and your doctor discuss what’s wrong with you like it’s a group project? Do you not go at all because you’re your own doctor?”
“It depends on what I’m going in for. As a background, I’m an oncologist so I’ve trained in internal medicine before. For most internal medicine-type stuff, I don’t bother going in unless I need something that I can’t easily get for myself (e.g. labs or images).
“For specialty stuff I wasn’t trained in, I go in and try to give them the best history I can, but let them do their own thing.” ~ alkahdia
I don’t get involved in the management. I let the doctor seeing me lead that unless they missed something huge and I would just double-check.”
“The main difference is I can present the whole history and relevant info in about 30 seconds flat and the doctor with that info can just give me the management plan in about the same time.”
“Fastest consultations ever. Very methodical.” ~ triple_threatt
“Doctor here (neurologist) I’m not good at going to the doctor. I don’t go often but when I do I usually just STFU, especially if it’s a field of medicine I have no idea about (like say…derm).”
“That being said, the doctor usually knows I’m a physician as well, and so the language tends to be more technical.”
“I also find that we practice less defensively with each other since we can be more open (“We could do ABC tests but honestly what you probably have is X so take this and if it doesn’t get better then we can do ABC”).” ~ Telamir
“The pace and density of the conversations is different, I’m sure.”
“I’m an emergency physician who has, over time, treated various physicians in my community including internists, surgeons, radiation oncologists, some from my hospital and some not. Keep in mind that each specialty is quite different from the others.”
“The Rad Onc, for example, thinks and speaks differently than the Ortho Surgeon, and I felt like my treatment of each of them was really quite similar to treating a professor of engineering.”
“Academically minded people tend to ask lots of questions and research stuff while you’re out of the room, as compared to populations that request a more paternalistic bent and just want you to tell them what to do so they can get on with their day.”
“I’m careful to credit that the number of hours that went into my family physician’s training is the same as mine; simply a different topic.”
“She knows tons of stuff about management and screening for chronic disease that I don’t, and I … well I know how to intubate people, manage a bad LSD trip, or use a jar of bubbles to distinguish between kids that are scared and kids that are head injured.” ~ procast1natrix
“I’m an ER doctor, and sometimes I have other doctors as patients. For the most part, they’re pretty good patients because they can give a good description of their symptoms in a way that’s useful to me.”
“They usually ask good questions and are well equipped to have an informed discussion about their diagnosis and treatment.
“Sometimes it’s hard for me to dial back my ‘patient talk’ where I simplify medical terms for laypeople. Sometimes it’s challenging if their area of expertise is totally unrelated to the issue at hand and they don’t recognize their limited understanding.”
“The worst patients are those who have just a little medical knowledge and think they know everything. Some version of: ‘My aunt is a nurse, and she said a need a whole-body MRI for this runny nose…’”
“As far as self-diagnosing, I usually deal with my own minor medical issues. If I noticed signs of something more serious, I would go to someone else.” ~ Yeti_MD
“Doctor here (family medicine).”
“I self diagnose most things, but for my 1-year-old daughter I decided a while ago that I don’t want to do that for her. So her pediatrician doesn’t know I’m a doctor – I never told her. I want her to treat me like any other parent, and explain everything to me like I’m 5 years old.”
“I’m afraid of being too nonchalant with my daughter’s health that I’ll miss something (or the doctor assuming I know more than I really do).”
“It’s actually a strategy I’ve adopted since on myself; if I go to a doctor (say a gynecologist for a routine check-up) I sometimes just don’t say what I do so I can legitimacy ask dumb questions about things that I should really know – or so that the other doctor won’t leave out important info that they assume I know for fear of insulting me.”
“On the other hand, my regular doctors do know, such as the gynecologist who saw me through my pregnancies, and that enables more complex and nuanced discussions about health decisions, as in debating questions and giving me options that he wouldn’t necessarily do with it he patients, because he can be sure I understand the medical pros and cons well once I’m given a basic explanation.” ~ HermioneGranger8888
“Doctor here – it is a bit dependent on the field of medicine involved.”
“For example, I don’t know much about neurological issues so if I went to see a neurologist I certainly wouldn’t be chipping in.”
“For more generic conditions I have previously offered my thoughts to my doctor about what it could be. Ultimately I still go to the doctor as they can prescribe drugs/order tests for me that would be difficult/questionable for me to do myself.” ~ drbigmac69
“Doctor here. In general, we are not good about going to the doctor. For me, it’s physicals about half as often as recommended and that time I had strep a year and a half ago that didn’t resolve with whatever antibiotics I had in my medicine cabinet.”
“When we do go in, it is like a group project. We usually hash things out together but ultimately I am going to defer to someone with more expertise than me in that area who can make an objective decision.” ~ nellyann
“I always go to someone who doesn’t know me, and I wouldn’t say that I’m a doctor as well. On the other hand, my significant other is a doctor too, and whenever we feel something we do discuss it like a group project in which he always refuses any treatment until his symptoms get to the very worst.” ~ eatfart420
“I try to act like any other patient. Medical people can very much sabotage their own care by taking shortcuts or perhaps declining to approach their own problems the way other patients do.”
“It’s a mistake. I have seen harm done that way. I don’t come in for trivial things like self-limiting infections or things that are harmless because I know that they are. But I do go see my regular doctor for problems that really bother me or for routine exams like anyone else.”
“It can be weirdly stressful to be the doctor or the patient in this kind of interaction. I’ve learned to not let it bother me when I am the doctor seeing other doctors. It can be harmful to the doctor as a patient if you let that kind of interaction get to you.”
“I try not to generate stress for other doctors who see me and know what I am. That could be detrimental to me.” ~ Zapranotho777
“Forensic pathologist here: I keep my mouth shut and let my doctor be a doctor. I have a pulse, so I am not the expert here. Doctors that self-doctor are scary and arrogant, in my honest opinion.” ~ TheresNoIinAutopsy
Well, it’s safe to say I learned a lot.
These answers are remarkably insightful. Next time you go to the doctor, you’ll have a newfound appreciation for them and what they do.
Doctors are people just like you, with concerns about their own health. Given their experience and knowledge, it also takes a lot of humility to just let other professionals do their jobs.
I’d like to think that when my time is up, I’ll have no regrets.
But I guess you never really know what that will be like until you reach the end of the road, right? I think that we can all agree that listening to people talk about regrets when they’re close to passing away has to be very hard…
Let’s take a look at these stories from folks on AskReddit.
“I worked as an oncology nurse right out of nursing school. I was barely 21 years old.
Had a patient about my age who was dying of lung cancer. A few hours before he died I sat with him and he was telling me how much he wished that he would have had more time-to maybe fall in love, marry, have kids. He was so young.
He asked me to call his parents and he died shortly after they arrived. It was awful. His regrets were more about the life not lived. Many older patients had some interesting life stories and most wanted to tell them before they died.
Most were at peace with the life they lived. Many regretted working so much and not spending enough time with family.”
“I was a hospice nurse. One of my elderly patients had skin cancer, a huge malignant melanoma on the side of his neck that was growing rapidly.
He had been a farmer all his life and never married. One night we were talking and I asked him if there was anything he wished he had done differently in his life, and he thought about it a minute and said he wished he had worn a hat when he was farming.
I wish he did too.”
“There was an old man. I’d play cards with him.
We’d talk about working on the farm we had. He was a nice guy. He figured out I was being physically abused. His health started declining and he couldn’t play cards or get out of bed. The last time I saw him.
He said he was sorry he wasn’t younger and that he couldn’t help me. Almost 25 yrs ago and I still remember him.”
“”Not yet! I can’t die yet. I still have so much growing to do. I want to see my children and grandchildren grow up…”
I am a physician trainee who has done a decent amount of palliative care. I have been privileged to hear many stories and be part of many deaths, but I still can’t explain why it is that certain lines remain with me and hit me so much harder.
The gentleman who told me the line above was in his late 60s-early 70s. It made me reflect on how I view patients in this age group – yes, much older than myself, but still with growing and living to do.”
“I think of a woman in her 50s I met early on in my training.
She and her female partner had never married – partly due to laws, partly because it had never seemed important. When she was diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer, they regretted never making that step.
I attended their small wedding in the hospital. She died a few days later.”
“I had a patient who I was in the room with when her doctor explained she only had a few weeks to live. I knew her well, spent quite a bit of time talking to her up to the news.
The days that followed, she seemed to have accepted she was dying. She lived this beautiful, independent, and successful life, maybe not money successful, but just plain happy.
Anyways when I was helping her to the tub on day 10 since receiving the news, she just broke down crying and couldn’t stop crying about how much she wished she didn’t put her dog down b/c they could have died together.
Come to find out her dog was on his death bed too. I guess she put her dog down a few days before going into the hospital, she knew her life was over so she put him down first. She hated herself for it and for the fact she blew the opportunity for them to spend their last moments together. Really heartbreaking to watch, to hear that unfold.
She passed early in the morning two days later. I took a couple of mental health days off after she passed and spent some time looking up dogs to adopt and new jobs to apply for.”
“I had a 17 year old girl that came in on a Tylenol overdose.
I normally don’t listen or really even get invested with patients because it’s usually the same faces on a loop but she kept trying to strike up a conversation and eventually I relented and she told me how stupid she was and it was over a boy and where she was going to go to college and what she wanted to do and basically her life story.
I left and she was stable in the ER. Next day I came in and asked if she went home or if she was in an inpatient unit. They told me she died a few hours after my shift.
It’s been like 5 years and thinking about it I start crying like a baby. I don’t cry. I think the last time I cried other than this was my grand pa passing but even that I can discuss without crying now.
Her death is the only thing that completely breaks me down.”
“Top regret was not spending time with family and/or lost time due to a family feud.
Probably number two was wasting their life with their spouse (for various reasons) when they could have possibly been with someone they loved/met a soul mate.
Number three was usually not accomplishing a bucket list item such as living in a foreign country.”
“27 year old male who tried to end his life, died from the injuries. I still remember it clearly, he told me his entire life story. I didn’t sleep for a few days after hearing it and sometimes it still haunts me to this day.
He was bullied in middle school straight until the end of high school. He had mild Aspergers and was quite intelligent but because of his looks and weird mannerisms he was picked on.
Then it got worse.
The girls would make him drink out of the toilet, the guys would chokehold him until he passed out or tied him up inside the gym and woke up alone after school ended, only to go home and get beaten by his parents for being late.
The girls would often make up fake accusations and he’d be suspended, only to be beaten up by parents once more. The guys would steal his clothes and toss them in the dumpster only for him to go crawling in it while naked.
The girls would replace his lunch with rotten food or feces, the guys would pelt him with rocks. It was just unf*cking believable.
He finished high school but just barely, dropped out of college and left home to go into the service industry but it only got worse for him there as he couldn’t do well with stress.
He had his own issues, said he was one of those incels and his only reason for living was so that others could abuse him to make themselves feel better. Told me he tried to end it because he was tired of it and also financially broken by then (this was around 2008 mind you).
He said he wish he stood up for himself from the start, perhaps things would have turned out differently for him.
He passed away a few days later while I was off shift. We all knew inside that he wasn’t going to make it from the start given his injuries, but I still listened to the story and it haunts me to this day.
I hope he’s at peace now.”
“I remember of this 40 year old patient that I had was dying from breast cancer that spread throughout her body. She was diagnosed with breast cancer 10 years earlier and had a mastectomy.
The doctor recommended for her to have a bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction due to high risk of recurrence of cancer. She said that she wanted to keep her breast (a real breast rather than an implant) incase she remarries and will be somewhat whole.
She regretted not getting the bilateral mastectomy. If she did, she would not gotten cancer in her remaining breast and dying at such a young age. The patient never ended up marrying after all.
A week later, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I instantly told the doctor that I want a bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction. I also had an aggressive form of cancer.
My doctor kept pushing a lumpectomy which I probably would’ve gotten before I have heard how much she regretted her decision. I feel that she actually saved my life sharing and opening up with her regret of all time.”
“He wished he had been a better father to his daughter.
He wished they had reconnected. His dementia prevented him from remembering they had reconnected years before and that she visited often.
I wish I could have made him aware that he had accomplished his last wish. But he died not really understanding that.”
“I’m a hospice social worker, so I have the honor of getting to listen to peoples’ life stories, including favorite memories and regrets. Most regrets center around what they didn’t get to do, like never traveling to Italy when their family was originally from Naples.
Some regret not getting specific education – wanting to go to college but never doing it. Some regret their choice in partner, especially when alcohol/drug abuse was involved, or cheating. Many express a sadness that looks a lot like regret if they are estranged from family. And some have anticipatory grief from knowing they will miss a milestone, like the birth of a grandchild.
Some regret not taking better care of their health (people with COPD who regret ever having a cigarette). In general life is long and time smooths some of the rough edges, so people tend to focus on the good.”
“I work in a hospital. Whenever someone is at the end of their life, they always just want to be with their loved ones.
Any regrets I’ve heard is always family related. They wanted more time with the people they love. Most people are at peace with things though.
People also tend to wish they took their health seriously.”
“He was one of my first patients as a nursing student, named Frank. He was 92.
After knowing him a few days, he disclosed to me his regret was outliving everyone he loved.. that he and his wife hadn’t had kids, and he was “all that was left” and that he wanted to see his wife again.
I wasn’t sure how to respond , so I just listened… and it made me realize how living so long isn’t great if everyone you love is gone.
He passed away later that week, and while I distinctly recall some of my classmates being upset, I felt relief for him. I knew he was where he wanted to be. I’ve had many patients since, but you tend to remember your first ones.”
Have you ever heard any last words from someone?
Patients? Friends? Loved ones?
Please share your stories with us in the comments.
The post Hospital Workers Discuss Regrets They’ve Heard From Dying Patients appeared first on UberFacts.
Doctors have a tough job. Actually, EVERYONE who works in health care has a tough job when it comes down to it.
And they get to see every aspect of our society at their jobs. They deal with the good, the bad, and the ugly on a daily basis.
And that’s why these stories are gonna be very informative!
Here’s what AskReddit users had to say about the interesting patients they’ve dealt with.
“I once cared for a repeat self-harmer that put a knife into their neck, regretted it, taped it in place … and BICYCLED TO THE HOSPITAL. A few miles, past carfuls of normal people. Parked the bike, walked in to triage to check in.
Through a waiting room of grannies and kids and men with chest pain. With a kitchen paring knife duct taped in place sticking straight out.
CT scan later showed that the tip of the blade was 2mm from the carotid artery.”
“60~70 year old lady arrives at Trauma ER.
She was being CHASED BY A COW, running for her life and fell off a 2 meter ledge. She had several fractures, but only really complained about her leg, and tried to get up and walk away several times telling us she was fine.
Initially we thought she had some head trauma and was completely disoriented, but it turns out she was just that stubborn. She was hospitalized for awhile and had a good recovery.
I do wonder if the cow fell of the cliff as well…”
“In my Obgyn clerkship, this woman came in pretty hesitantly at the urging of her girlfriend for pelvic pain. She apologized if she was wasting our time and said it was probably nothing.
This poor lady had a cyst THE SIZE OF MY HEAD on her ovary that caused torsion (twisting and cutting off blood supply). She was rushed into surgery but lost that ovary. People say it’s more painful than child birth and here she was, apologizing to us.”
“A patient can in through the ER for a series of x-rays. He claimed to have fallen down some stairs and we basically had to x-ray both legs from the knee down.
I have never met a bigger, whinier baby. He moaned and groaned and flinched at the lightest touch, refused to hold still, would not straighten his legs, complained about the table and xray cassette being too hard…
There were no visible injuries aside from a few scrapes and nothing obvious on the x-rays. He was still convinced that he would never walk again and had broken both legs irreparably.
Funniest part was that we had a different patient come in on the same day with a similar complaint. He actually had fractures in both legs and fee.”
“Young trauma patient ~17yo T-boned by a garbage truck.
Moving him on to the CT table he said “OW” and silent tears cane down his face. Then he apologized for complaining, and thanked us profusely. Turns out he had a few broken vertebrae, broke half his ribs, and had a fractured hip and clavicle.
Kid whimpered a few times during the CTs, and again apologized when we came back in. Like dude, you could scream in my face and I’d understand.”
“Patient presented to the Trauma ER with an 18 inch machete blade firmly implanted across the top of his skull.
He was driven to the hospital by a friend, walked on his own into the ER, had totally normal vital signs in triage, a slight steady trickle of blood from the wound, denied pain and was in no apparent distress.
Due to a mass trauma event, the ER was insanely busy, so it took us a while to get him a bed. In the meantime, he calmly sat in the waiting area, (nearest to the Triage station so we could keep an eye on him) and watched TV, as staff were running around like crazy, phones ringing nonstop, patients b*tching about the wait time to be seen and exhibiting other types of tomfoolery.
Machete man just sat there tranquilly exhibiting his true Zen mastery of machete head wounds.
All these years later, I can still see him with that machete lodged in his skull. He had an uncomplicated treatment course and suffered no impairment from the injury. He was cooperative and nice to all his care givers.
He also profusely thanked us for caring for him. Probably one of the few that did that night!”
“Guy was about 30 years old with a decent laceration on his face but nothing major, stated he was jumped by some guy in the bushes out of nowhere and had to fight him off.
He didn’t really complain about his laceration too much and stated his back was a little sore and that he feels fine and didn’t want to go to the hospital. Vitals all looked good and he appeared fine. But Just to be safe I wanted to give his whole body a look over to be sure he didn’t have any other lacerations and God was I glad I did.
As I pulled this guy’s large coat off (winter at night) I see a knife protruding from his lower right back with a slow but steady stream of blood coming out. Guy was as shocked as I was.”
“A woman walks into the ER walking very bow legged. She seems calm and explains that she has some swelling in the right side of her external genitals. She thought she my have had an infected cyst and she drove herself hoping for help draining it and antibiotics.
We didn’t think much of it, it clearly wasn’t a rush to the front of the line emergency. So an hour or so later they bring her in to a room. She has a fever and high blood pressure but still calm and stoic.
So the NP gets her story and has her remove her pants and underwear and cover with a sheet. She is apologizing profusely about not being able to clean herself very well before coming in.
When NP pulls up the sheet her l*b*a is swollen to the size of a coconut. She had an abscess that was starting to cause sepsis.
The only emotion she showed was embarrassment about not being able to clean herself because of the pain and a single tear down her face when the wheeled her to the ER.”
“There was a guy who attempted suicide by firing a nail gun into his ear. I took care of him in the ICU and he remembers everything. He’d been depressed a long time and decided to end it.
Nailed himself, sat around a while before deciding he didn’t want to die, drove himself to the ER, walked inside and fainted. It was so weird how stoic he was about it all.”
“As a med student, I was third row in helping to try to code a drying GI bleeder.
People who have end stage liver disease don’t make clotting factor well, and also have anatomical difficulty that leads to big, ropy vulnerable blood vessels in the stomach that are at risk to bleed. And when people bleed inside the stomach you can’t hold pressure – you simply must get them stable enough to have life saving endoscopy and clipping of the bleeder.
This guy was Exorcist level vomiting bright red blood, he was exsanguinating into his stomach and we couldn’t get his blood pressure to stabilize enough to get a scope into him for a while. There were runners bringing us coolers of emergency release blood, and the splatters and pools of blood he had vomited reached across the hall.
When we finally got him packed up to go to the endo suite, the family next door quietly apologized for taking our time for their chronic non-emergent issue and could they go home now?”
“We had a patient recently who was palliative (expected to die naturally). His body functions were only at about 10%, he wasn’t eating or drinking and he wasn’t peeing or defecating anymore. He just laid in bed with his eyes closed breathing.
When people get to this point usually the only care we provide is for comfort vs. Sparing life. So we dont give people food or water because they are usually unconscious and more likely to choke and be harmed.
This patient’s daughter was some big shot lawyer from the US and when she saw that we weren’t feeding her dad she started recording everything we did and said to her and then phoned the police. I remember a police officer coming to the unit, asking to speak to me (the most responsible nurse at the time) and asking me why I was withholding food.
I explained to the officer that I had physicians orders to withhold food, and that the patient was at a severe aspiration risk. The police officer was like “cool, case closed”, and left.
The daughter was unfortunately banned from the hospital premises by management for interfering with patient care.”
“The underdramatic are more interesting:
Mid-70s woman, generally healthy, presents to outpatient neurology clinic with an altered gait. Dragging feet more than usual, feels she’s tripping when walking up steps. Family describes tendency to repeat herself more often.
Neurological examination normal other than a slightly odd, slow and dragging gait. Honestly looks like she’s “faking” an odd gait, suspect malingering but above average amounts of liquid in the areas surrounding the brain can give these types of symptoms.
CT scan the brain, almost half of her brain was smushed to the other side and filled up with water (massive sub-arachnoid cyst, think intracranial water ballon), probably been growing for years. No other symptoms, she only came in to our clinic since her daughters were worried about her memory.
Made a full recovery by draining the fluid, still makes me wonder how many people out there are walking around with half a smushed brain without knowing about it.”
“Overdramatic: Tons of stories but the most recent was a patient demanding a heavy Percocet Rx (far more than I would prescribe even post-surgery) after having a nasal swab for COVID-19 completed.
I get that it’s temporarily uncomfortable as I’ve had it done several times myself but no way was I buying him writhing around screeching about how much pain he was in. When the patient eventually realized I wasn’t budging it was as if someone had flipped a switch and he “miraculously” recovered.
Underdramatic: Patient tried extracting his own tooth and inadvertently pushed it up through the abscess and into his right maxillary sinus. To my surprise he adamantly declined even local anesthesia no matter how much my staff was pleading with him.
Patient autonomy is a grey area here in the US (given how insanely litigious everything is) so after receiving clearance/written consent to proceed with treatment I figured he’d just have to learn the hard way. Instead of performing a lateral window root tip retrieval I took a surgical suction tip/curette and removed all three fragments through the alveolar ridge warning him several times beforehand that it would hurt like hell.
The guy never even flinched. I was able to complete the procedure, debride the infection and graft the floor of the sinus with membrane/sutures without incident.
Go figure.”
How about you?
Do you work in healthcare?
If so, tell us about some of the interesting patients you’ve had to deal with. We look forward to hearing from you!
The post Doctors Open up About the Interesting Patients They’ve Had to Deal With appeared first on UberFacts.
Let’s get creepy!
I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be a therapist who had a scary patient and I guess now I’m gonna find out.
Because we’re about to read responses from therapists who’ve had patients that they were genuinely afraid of.
Check out these responses from AskReddit users.
“This was early on in training but a mandated client had dropped acid before the session and it started coming on while we were talking.
He didn’t want to be there as it was and was much larger than me (5’0″). Once he got to threatening me for being the reason everything was wrong with the world I ended up needing to get up and leave my own office to get a supervisor.
I definitely thought he would hit and/or strangle me if I stayed.”
“The only one I have felt a little scared of was one who threatened to kill me. I knew she meant it.
She had already assaulted a number of other staff. She got sent to a higher security ward and I heard she had broke staff’s fingers first day she was there.
She held staff and other patients hostage in one of our rooms threatening them but circling the table as if playing with them first. I see violence and aggression regularly and it doesn’t phase me but she did.
I would purposely avoid eye contact and look straight ahead avoiding her and pretend I wasn’t intimidated, as that’s what she wanted.”
“I have a student who is 6’4” with emotional behavioral issues.
Reading his social history made me cry because of all the sh*t he’s been through. So, of course, I have a soft spot for him. But his anger gets out of control and it can be very scary. He punched a pole right in front of me once and narrowly missed my face.
I looked at him in the eyes and sternly said do you realize you almost just punched me in the face? He snapped out of his rage and apologized profusely.
I wanted to hug him and tell him everything was going to be alright. “
“I was pretty nervous when the drunk partner of a client backed me into a corner, and pretty goddamn sweaty when a violent s*x offender with a good 80 pounds on me blocked my exit and told me he was going to kill me and my family.
The one that really got me long term was a 15 year old girl in a residential program I worked at. She had substance use issues, which is why she was there, but it was clear from the jump that she had deep, DEEP mental health stuff stemming from her child.
She had been adopted out of a Russian orphanage where she and a younger sibling has been left in a crib alone for god knows how long, covered in lice and shaved bald. She had a lot of (expected) attachment issues but talking to her was like talking to a black pit full of hatred. She hated everyone and everything and had no conception of consequences or what self preservation was.
She’d do stuff that would spin your head around in terms of how unsafe it was…and she just had no reaction. There was no getting through to her, as she needed the interventions when she was a very small child to be able to move forward successfully. She was discharged when it was found out that she was hiding knives under her mattress.
I would not be surprised if she was in jail at this point.”
“In my first semester as a therapist I had a client bring a large hunting knife to session one day, he had it in his waist band in the back.
He revealed it halfway through our session He had been referred to our practice for anger issues.
When in doubt, REPORT.”
“Enough to quit my job.
Had high case load of suicidal teens. Most were medicated and low risk, but had two kiddos who had several suicide attempts prior to me, and while under my watch.
I was getting physically ill, not sleeping well, constantly worried. I tried to transfer them to a higher level of care but our company was greedy and didn’t want to transfer them and lose those funds.
I ended up quitting on the spot for these kids to be given a trauma focused therapist and get the help they needed.
Best decision for both myself and those kids.”
“They were very delusional and a heavy addict.
They decided our therapeutic engagement was a love story unfolding. Ended with the swat team showing up at the office when they showed up with a weapon and lost their sh*t when I wasn’t there. They disappeared for a couple years.
They appeared behind me on a bus one day and said I saw you with your daughter at your house she’s really pretty. Then gave me my address. They are a known s*x offender. I moved as soon as I could.”
“Worked with a patient that complained of reoccurring night terrors about lobsters being boiled alive.
He couldn’t figure out what was causing them.
The fact he killed his gf, chopped her up and boiled her head didn’t seem come to him as a reason he might be having these dreams.
My only fear is the system will have to release him one day as they could never get him sane enough to stand trial.”
“I remember when I was working on an adult acute unit, there was a guy who had come to be there through some kind of bizarre circumstances.
He was a pretty important person in the rural area he was from, and he was pretty charismatic. Had a huge family that all showed up for the family session despite having to drive several hours to get there.
The unit had windows that were translucent from ceiling to floor so that light could get in but no one could see into or out of the unit for privacy.
I met with each patient individually as well as in groups, and my office door locked automatically (as is typical for acute units). No one but myself and the custodian had a key. For this reason, I usually tried to meet with folks individually in the group room when it was empty, so we had privacy but I could also get help if needed.
This guy came to my office door and knocked. When I opened it, he came in without an invitation and sat in one of the 2 chairs on the door side of my desk. I sat in the other. He was going on about how much he appreciated my work and how much I’d helped him (which felt disingenuous—he frequently indicated he didn’t feel he needed to be there).
I became gradually aware that he was between me and the door, which was not usually a problem. You actually want to make sure folks have easy access to an exit. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t want to be between a patient and the door.
I did home-based work after I left inpatient work, and in that context, you most definitely do need to be closest to the door). I was also uncomfortably aware of how close he was to me. He could easily touch me if he decided to. I was aware of the fact that I don’t usually feel uncomfortable with proximity, as long as I generally feel safe, so alarm bells started going off.
Then he suddenly said, “how do you like driving that little silver [make and model of my exact car]?” As I said, the windows of this building were all frosted, so there was no way for him to see me getting into or out of my car. All the hairs on my body stood on end.
I had the mental image of being in a room with a tiger. Maybe I’d be fine. Maybe the tiger wasn’t hungry or mad. Or maybe he was. I was only going to get out of that room safely if he decided to let me, which is exactly the experience he wanted me to have, and I could see that he was enjoying it.
That was scary, even though I didn’t have any reason to think he was interested in hurting me physically.
Thank god I have a degree in theatre. I’m sure his predatory instincts told him that I’d received his message loud and clear, but I gave no outward indication of my feelings. I got him out by saying I had to meet with the psychiatrist, and he left the unit soon after.
That was very early in my career, and one of the first of a handful of instances. I’ve done meaningful work with murderers, rapists, animal and child abusers, and just ordinary bullies, and like I said, it’s not about what someone has done.
The folks who have frightened me were (with one notable exception) just ordinary people without scary rap sheets.”
“Used to be a therapist at a behavioral health hospital. I had some patients who genuinely scared me in theory, but nothing ever happened with them. I was significantly attacked twice at work.
Both patients were young women. Neither of them “scared” me beforehand. Both were incredibly quiet, withdrawn, and unassuming. One strangled me with my keys- my lanyard was a breakaway for that very reason, but she had tried to steal them several times that shift in attempt to escape the building and run into traffic, so I stupidly knotted off the breakaway portion.
We carried panic buttons on the lanyards and I was able to press it while being strangled with it.
The other attack occurred when I was fairly new and on a low-security unit, in view of other staff. I was walking away from the patient and she grabbed me by my hair, pulled me to the ground, and dragged me for several feet down the hallway where she began kicking me in the chest and stomach.
She was sent to a higher security unit as a result. I guess I was afraid of her after that, but she wasn’t there long. There was law enforcement intervention after she assaulted a pregnant nurse, pulled her to the ground as well, and stomped on her stomach.”
“Worked residential for 20 years. Had only 2 kids scare me
. One put his baby sister in the freezer. She was found quickly and was ok. He was charming, a good looking kid and quite clever. Also no history of trauma or abuse. Serious serial killer vibes.
One was horribly abused and somehow figured out I was pregnant. I wasn’t showing at all since I was fat. He would just stare at my stomach. I asked to be moved to a different group. First kid was or still may be a case study for students at the local big university.”
“The only time I’ve ever been scared is when my physical safety is threatened such as a patient blocking the door, hinting they know where I live, or implying they’d like to hurt or r*pe me.
I have a stellar poker face and once these really tough patients realize that I’m unfazed they usually drop it. My strength in therapy is mostly just broad acceptance and tolerance of whatever they bring to the table.
I let them know when I have to break confidentiality from the get go and that’s that.”
Have you ever had a patient, a co-worker, a friend, or a family member who you were legitimately afraid of?
If so, tell us all about it in the comments.
Thanks!
The post Therapists Discuss Patients That Actually Frightened Them appeared first on UberFacts.
There’s no shame in seeking help when your mental health is suffering. And sometimes that means you have to end up in a psychiatric ward for help.
If you believe the media and movies, these places are strange, scary, dangerous places… but is that the reality? At least the reality THESE days? Only people who have been inside know for sure.
These 20 confessions are from patients who’ve been institutionalized, and their stories will surprise you…
Photo Credit: Whisper
Photo Credit: Whisper
Photo Credit: Whisper
Photo Credit: Whisper
Photo Credit: Whisper
Photo Credit: Whisper
Photo Credit: Whisper
Photo Credit: Whisper
Photo Credit: Whisper
Photo Credit: Whisper
Photo Credit: Whisper
Photo Credit: Whisper
Photo Credit: Whisper
Photo Credit: Whisper
Photo Credit: Whisper
Photo Credit: Whisper
Photo Credit: Whisper
Photo Credit: Whisper
Photo Credit: Whisper
Photo Credit: Whisper
Sounds like some serious shenanigans can happen in mental hospitals!
Who knew?
The post Patients Share Jaw-Dropping Confessions About Their Stay in Mental Hospitals appeared first on UberFacts.
The emergency room is a CRAZY place. If you don’t believe me, check out this thread by Redditor FanisPapa, where asked other users this simple but brutal question: “Hospital staff of Reddit, what is an ER moment that has scarred you for life?”
Caution, the following stories are rough to read. You have been warned.
Ex-wife is an ER nurse and this is the worst story she ever told me.
Guy was driving his Jeep Wrangler with the roof and doors off. He also wasn’t wearing his seatbelt, you can guess where this is going. What should have been a minor MVA ends with the Jeep rolling over. Not wearing his seat belt means the guy is tossed out. The roll bar of the Jeep rolls right over the guy’s sternum. Every rib, EVERY RIB, was broken in multiple places. He made it to the ER, but didn’t live long after.
Worst part: he was a firefighter at the station right next to the hospital. Everyone knew the guy and he was well liked.
One of my colleagues told me about a guy that came in c/o eye pain and sensitivity.
Turns out he didn’t wear eye protection while doing some DIY home repair with a metal grinder of some sort. He had metal filings embedded in his cornea.
After numbing up his eye, they picked out some of the filings with a needle. My colleague was pretty sure that his coworker pierced through the cornea at some point.
I HATE eye stuff. I nearly puked when he told me this story.
My partner is an ER nurse so I asked her – she said an older lady came in one day and said that she couldn’t get a cork out of her vagina.
They asked how it got up there and she said when she shaved she puts a cork in to stop the shaving cream from getting in, but this time it wouldn’t come back out.
Said she had been doing it for years
Years ago we had a guy come into the ER with a broken penis….yep, a broken penis. He and his wife were having sexy time at what he described as “a very rapid pace” when he pulled back to far and came out when he went to shove it back in, he hit a dry spot on the side of her leg and bent his penis 90 degrees.
The problem was that he had ruptured his urethra. Scarred for life is a good way to describe the effect on the entire staff.
My mom works in the ER and tells me stories. Some take something out of her. Last year a two-year-old came in with head trauma. The 2-year old’s brother was backing out of the driveway and ran him over. After hours of trying to save him, he was gone. The ER went silent and the mothers scream echoed throughout the hospital. My mom said she couldn’t help but break out into tears when she left.
I have a son that was the same age at the time so it hit her hard. The Dr that was trying to save the child had already lost another patient that day and went on a leave of absence after that.
40-year-old man motor vehicle accident, not the patient’s fault, car swerved into his car on the highway. Patient comes into the trauma room with an EMT still giving chest compressions, patient’s vitals crashed on the way to the hospital. Nurses take over the chest compressions once the patient gets on the hospital stretcher. They continue compressions for 35 minutes with no positive response. Up until this moment, I’ve seen this before so not a big deal. A young 12-year-old girl walks up behind me and sees the compressions going on and stays silent. The ER doctor looked at her and then took over compressions for about 5 minutes. He tired out and a nurse took over. The doctor looked around the room at everyone with the familiar look of “are we all ready to call it”. The room is pure silence except for the noise of chest compressions. 5 more minutes go by. The doctor stops the nurse doing compressions with only his hands. The young girl starts to cry softly behind me. The patient was a single father, that girl became an orphan in an instant. I had to leave the room.
Not ER worker, but had an internship with a hospital’s IT department and on occasion would have to service equipment in the ER.
One time I was sent into a room to work on something and there was a young woman there who had overdosed. She was dead, but they were waiting for her parents to arrive, which all happened while I was there. The mother begins wailing, understandably, but the father immediately begins BEATING the daughter’s boyfriend, screaming it was all his fault. Beating to the point of skull fractures and blood splattering everywhere.
It took three security guards to subdue him.
10-year-old boy shot in the head with a high-powered bb gun by his cousin. Came in fully alert, talking, normal mental state. Just a tiny BB hole between the eyebrows.
By the time he got back from CT his words were slurring and he was a little confused.
By the time Neurosurgery called back his eyes were pointing in 2 different directions.
By the time he was going up to the OR, he was starting to posture (abnormal body positioning due to primitive brain reflexes taking over when higher function shuts down).
This was all over the course of about 20-30 minutes.
The CT showed the BB went straight into the skull and pretty much just ricocheted all over the place. AFAIK the kid lived, but of course he’s never gonna be the same.
ER call one night when I was a medical student. Chief complaint was penile pain. Guy’s mid-forties, seems otherwise normal, no obvious past medical or surgical history. Ask him about when it started and he tells me that it’s been hurting ever since he “cracked it” that morning. I’m assuming I misheard or that he misspoke, so I ask for clarification. He proceeds to explain that, ever since he was a teenager, he started waking up with morning wood, so he would “crack” his penis to make it go away so he could get on with his day. He demonstrates cracking by placing his two closed hands together on top of each other, then quickly bending the top one ninety degrees. He’s completely lost as to why it still hurts today when it’s been thirty years and the pain always went away by mid-morning before.
FF/EMT turned ER Nurse here. Took care of a person who was attacked by several dogs. Responding officers had to use lethal force so that the medics could get the person into the ambulance. The dogs would end up testing positive for cocaine, steroids and other substances
We weren’t sure which hole in their “face” was the best to put a breathing tube into. I believe it was a 19-hour surgery.
She didn’t live too long after.
Nothing scarring just mildly interesting: 1. Buttock infection from self-administering street bought steroids. Right buttock so swollen and raw with underlying tissues macerated creating a tunneling into his rectum. 2. A guy with backpack stuck to his back. Found like that in his apartment. Severely necrotic ulcer and very foul. We scraped like a bag and a half of cute maggots (visible and hidden ones) 3. Homeless guy. Bed bugs and lice. Crawling all over. Like lots. We-all-ran-out-of-the-room lots.
I removed a guy’s sock once. “I haven’t taken those socks off in 3 months.” The flesh came off with the socks because over enough time it “soaked” into the sock so the cloth and flesh were one.
It was all muscle and tendons underneath.
A woman I knew from a previous stay in our hospital was admitted. The woman was already about 95, basically tetraplegic from two strokes she had the year before, and “cared” for by her daughter. The daughter said that it’s quite nice that the mom can’t move anymore because she could just put her in a chair or a bed and she couldn’t get up and walk, so the daughter could go and work. People who don’t move spontaneously usually have severe problems with skin breakdown due to pressure ulcers and need to be moved around regularly, so that was kind of a red flag. With social services and our whole team, we were able to put the patient in a nursing home where she was cared for appropriately.
The ER-occurrence happened about three months later. We knew that the daughter wasn’t quite happy about everything because she wanted the mom to change her will in her favor. The mom was in no condition to ever be able to do that, but the daughter just didn’t realize that.
Well, she was sent to the ER from the nursing home with cardiogenic shock (meaning her heart was not working properly, and she was dying). The nursing home wanted to just let her go in her own bed at the home, but the daughter threatened to call her lawyer if she wasn’t moved to the hospital. So we saw her in the night, saw that she was in her last few hours on Earth and she was going to die (see above, she was old and sick and there wasn’t much we could do). The daughter demanded (and I mean with screaming and waving with her lawyer’s card) not to give her anything to lessen her symptoms. We also had to try and put a cannula in to “revive” her. So we had to try really hard, knowing it was basically torture for her mom – but the daughter had a certificate showing that she was the person allowed to decide on medical issues.
Best part is: daughter has a private practice for karma healing.
House fire- family of six. One child didn’t make it.
Parent shrugged, laughed, said- “Well I’ve got three more don’t I?”
*To save the armchair psychologists of Reddit some time, this was not an instance of “Dark Humor”
In the early 80’s I was a night shift Orderly in a small hospital when an ambulance came in with two drowning victims. They were in an SUV that had rolled into the water and they were unable to escape. They had been under water for a long time so there was no attempt to resuscitate.
The State Police had been called to collect a blood alcohol sample and to maintain the chain of custody someone had to stay with the bodies until the Trooper arrived, and I drew the short straw. For a half hour, I was shut in a small examination room with two people who I knew (small town) waiting, and drowning victims make noises.
It was horrible having to see the parents arrive to identify their daughters and it was bad seeing a cardiac blood draw but the noises stuck with me for a long time. It didn’t help that I had been reading Stephen King’s Night Shift when the ambulance arrived.
Cousin told me this one. He was doing side work in an acute care nursing facility, and full time as a critical care nurse.
He is standing next to the bed of stroke victim. The guy is twisted into a knot, and suffering every moment of every day. There is no going back.
My cousin says to the man’s wife, “Look, this is as good as it gets. We can keep him alive for a long time, but every day will be a day of suffering. Maybe it is time to let him go.”
Her reply, “F_ck him. He cheated on me our whole marriage. That mother f_cker is getting the full ride. I only came out to see him suffer.”
He was stunned, but he couldn’t do a thing about it.
Well, that was insane.
Have a good night!
The post 16 Hospital Employees Share Their Most Emotionally Scarring Stories on the Job appeared first on UberFacts.