re: people come to the ER at 2 AM for the stupidest crap

That one time, I was there for 5 hours. Trust me, it was empty. Small-ish hospital and they even had 90% of the lights off in the waiting room.

Other times, I've gone back and it's like everyone is so inconvenienced by a person coming in. Like I'm ruining your night by making you do your job


Eta: That's not saying everyone that works in the ER is like that. I'm saying most of the people I've encountered working in the ER are like that. Never had a problem anywhere else in a hospital, and everyone is much more pleasant

Maybe the triage nurse checked your hands and was afraid to deal with you.

Wife was working the switch board grave yard shift at a local ER, just down the hall & one night heard a huge burst of laughter. An ER nurse friend told her later that a man had been caught cheating by his wife, unbeknownst to him. She had filled his rubbers with red pepper. Used one while she was out, cock caught "fire", he ran to the frig, grabbed the first cold thing he could find, a milk bottle. Stuck it in, cock swelled up & got stuck in the bottle. Went to ER to get it removed. And this was small town USA, so the whole town knew in a matter of days.

My favorite report from ER is. "Okay this guy got kicked in the head while jerking off a horse". And it was legit! I didn't know that there was big money to be made in jerking off horses, but there is, depending on the particular horse.
This why I loved working In a teaching hospital. Learning something new every day

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vaginal discharge

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Wtf?! I'd hate to be an ER doctor and have Big Bertha coming to the ER at 3am for this...I think I just threw up little.

Call for maintenance to get the pressure washer and see what she does

My BIL worked the ER at Grady in Atlanta at one point in his training. A morbidly obese woman came in with, as he described it, a FUO - Fever, Unknown Origin. He was instructed to check her out from top to bottom for any wounds or possible sources of infection. He found a moldy Bojangles biscuit under one of her pendulous breasts. He was able to identify it because she told him what it was after initially responding, "I been lookin' for that."

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You're an absolute idiot if you think going to school to be a teacher is in any way comparable to med school. Same for law school. .

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Show me where I said that. The only comparison that I made to law school was that law students, much like med students and residents, bang each other to maintain a social life while in school/residency, which means that, unless you are an awkward frick, it's actually not an awful social life.

As for the teacher thing, someone in here was saying "Oh, I only make 40k as a resident." My point was that some professions don't get paid to intern, so why even complain about it?

Obviously, making it through med school requires a tremendous amount of dedication and, as I already stated, I don't have an issue with what doctor's make. It's the incessant bitching about patients that is annoying. It's like they can't recognize that at the end of the day they are in a profession where they can make a great salary and don't have to work around-the-clock hours or travel away from their families for an extended period of time to make 6 figures. Again, what other profession is that possible in? Deal with your ignorant patients and learn to like it.

God forbid, I point out that doctors should recognize the pros of their profession; otherwise, the OT MD's come out in droves with their pitch forks and tell me I have my head stuck up my arse.

yes, with thing stuck up an orifice.

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Most ER MD/PAs are part of the problem, not the solution. Especially the fricker I work with. Orders Dissections/PEs like they're more frequent than the common cold. Mostly on perfectly healthy patients from early 20's to mid 30's. You've got a belly complaint? CT and/pel. Headache? CT head. On and on. Complete with full workup of every diagnostic tool at their disposal. No matter the level of urgency. Ordering tens of thousands of dollars worth of exams/labs before even seeing the patient. 90% are non paying, no insurance patients.

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This is a huge problem, too. With ERs having door to disposition metrics, triage nurses actually order a lot of the work ups (why would anyone want to be a physician where a nurse does your work up?). The amount of unnecessary labs, imaging and consults is unreal.

I get consulted an unbelievable amount of times. Probably 85% I either don't need to see or could follow up on clinic in a week or so. And I'm at a hospital that made the US News honor roll for best hospitals.