by whitecoat
Monday is medical news day. See more stories from around the web over at EP Monthly.com.
Logic 101 for criminals: If you commit a crime, are shot with birdshot, and then get away, guess where the police are going to go to look for you. No, not the CVS store in the tweezer aisle. No, not the Home Depot looking for a super strong magnet. If you guessed the emergency department, you’re right! Have fun picking out the pellets in lockup.
Patient drives to hospital in labor, parks her car in emergency department parking lot, then scumbag steals her car and apparently lists it for parts on CraigsList.
Where to draw the line between controlling a patient’s pain and being a “pill mill”? Doctor in Springfield, IL has license suspended. Now his patients are being labeled “drug seekers” and having difficulty obtaining prescriptions for their pain. As the thumb screws are tightened on physicians and their prescribing habits, I again warn everyone to be careful what they wish for.
Chef and kitchen helper in restaurant end up dead after eating stir fry with “Death Cap” mushrooms.
May not be a patient gone wild, but still a schlubb. 30 year old Dover, Delaware man hits 72 woman in head and grabs her purse – while she’s sitting in the emergency department waiting room.
by Doc
So, I often blog about drug seekers (all ER bloggers do) and recently our new state narcotic database has become a formidable weapon in our armamentarium against them.
However, just as importantly, it can help people. For example, perhaps your personality is kinda whiny. Maybe you are melodramatic or demanding. If you have these attributes, you are likely to be looked at with a quizzical eye when you come in screaming for pain meds, especially when there is nothing obvious going on and your work up is negative.
A quick look on the database can show us that you haven’t had any narc prescriptions for the last year, thereby verifying your story. Of course you could have gone to another state for them of you could be buying them on the street but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and chalk up your screaming, swooning, and drama to the unfortunate personality you were born with.
by Doc
The reason I went into Emergency Medicine is to treat sick patients and hopefully make them better. I enjoy the surge of adrenaline and the feeling of deep satisfaction when I bring someone back from the brink of doom. It used to be that a bad attack of acute congestive heart failure afforded me just such an opportunity. Support the airway (intubate if necessary) and get ‘em on a nitro drip and blast them with Lasix. Very satisfying watching the patient start to breathe easier.
Anyway, no longer. Why? No, not because patients are taking better care of themselves and watching their salt intake. It’s because of our paramedics! They take away my chance to shine because they have gotten too good at managing it themselves in the field! Then can give endless sprays of sublingual nitro. The have 100 of Lasix. And most importantly they have BiPAP. It’s not uncommon for me to field a call from them where it sounds like the patient is going down the tubes and by the time they get to the ER, they are smiling from under their face mask asking for a urinal to diurese in! Sats that go from 78 to 98 by the time they are with me are not uncommon.
The only good thing about this is that I can fart around on the Internet for a few more minutes before I have to get off my ass and go see them….
Good job crew!