This is a related post to my “Medical Malapropisms” post from a few days ago – in our Electronic Charting and Patient tracking system, the chief complaint is listed next to the name of the patient (like “chest pain”). Very often, what appears in this box is either misspelled, grammatically incorrect, or just hilarious otherwise. These tend to be written by either the overworked triage nurse or the registration clerk (and sometimes the exact wording a spelling the patient used is put in there as well).
1. ” Seizuring”
2. “Dropped a bowel on his foot”
3. “Has Lime disease”
4. ” Overwhelmed with fungus”
5. “Penis sticking up”
6. “Needs drugs”
7. “Wants an MRI”
8. “Sholder pain”
9. “I’m fine”
10. “Leave me alone”
11. “My head farted” (I will tell you more about this one in a later post)
You forgot “here to be admitted.”
I had a guy present to ED with diarrhoea. He didn’t want treatment, but the emergency was that he’d run out of toilet paper.
Easily fixed!
You forgot:
Broken upper tooth
Because my Doctor told me to come
cough x 3 weeks
and those who bring the whole damn family in at 3am for nonemergent flu symptoms.
My favorite is ‘vomiting alone’
This is a problem because we should all vomit in groups.
What about #5? Too much of that little blue pill?????
Or did it do that on its own?
One of my favorite ER triage conversations went something like this…
Mother (with heavy accent): My baby deezy.
Admitting clerk: How do you know your baby is dizzy?
Mother: Look! Shee look deezy.
All Time Fave, hand-written:
“I’m having a nervous breakfast”