Dumbest thing you have been asked

[Medic744]

I was wondering if anybody else has ever been asked something really stupid by a supposed medical professional? I had a call at a Rehab hospital that turned out to be a septic woman with a severe rectal bleed and while my partner and I were evaluating the woman and getting her ready for transport I swear a nurse looked me dead in the eye and asked "Well are you going to hold pressure on the bleed?" I almost fell over laughing and replied no that I was pretty sure the patient would not bleed out before we got to the ER 2 blocks away (literally 2 blocks away). And then to make matters worse as we are taking our patient out the on duty Doctor looks at me and asks "One of ya'll is going to ride in the back with her, right?" At that point there was so much going wrong with this call we just shook our heads and kept going.

 

[spnx]

I had someone fall and hit just under their eye on concrete steps, declining level of consciousness, pupils weren't PERL; things weren't looking good.

A paramedic refused to transport, saying he was fine, the guy would work through it, didn't need any attention and insisted it was a "face injury", not a head injury.

I pressed the issue for a while that arguably anything above the neck, including the face, would be the head, but being an EMR instead of a PCP, I lost the argument...

 

[LukaPL]

one of a student doctors was doing assessment on a woman in the er room. wanted to check her rectum (motorbike accident) put glove on then hand under the sheet pulled back with little blood on his index finger.
- we have rectal bleeding
and the lady said:
- sir, wrong hole i have period now

whole room cracked with laugh

 

[Hastings]

Personally, for dumb, I prefer patients.

Today, I noticed a guy drive up next to the ambulance, get out, and start walking towards us. I'm like, okay, he just wants directions. That's fairly common.

He approaches my side, and I roll down the window. I say hello, and ask how he's doing. He calmly replies that he's doing alright. And then he holds up his hand and says:

"Hey, you guys thinks you could remove this for me?"

Well, it's a screw, impaled into his wrist, with about 2 inches showing outside his wrist. He starts massaging the skin around the area to show us. Yeah, the screw isn't moving. It's secured into his bone.

"Can you move your fingers?", I ask.

"Sure." (And he does.)

"And you still have feeling in your fingers?"

"Yep."

"..."

"..."

"So how did this happen?"

"I fell on it."

"Oh..."

"So do you think you could remove this for me?"

"No, we can't. You'll need to go to the hospital for that."

"Oh, okay..."

"..."

"...Do you think I should just pull it out?"

"NO!"



Although...

There's a system for getting drug orders in one of our areas. So, you call, and it goes something like this.

"Doctor, I have an obvious fracture here. (Insert full story.) Patient is in a lot of pain, and I'd like to give them some pain medication."

"Oh. Okay. Well, what do you have?"

"Well, I'd like to give them morphine."

"You carry morphine?"

"Yes."

"Okay, how much do you think you should give them?"

"Well, I think 4 would be a good place to start."

"Okay, you can give 16 mg. Oh, wait, how much does the patient weigh?"

"About 110 pounds."

"Oh, you might want to start with a lower dose."

 

[PapaBear434]

I got yelled at by a brand new resident at the local trauma center a couple months back. We had a guy that was at his job, loading a cabinet onto the back of a pickup truck. He had his foot up on the tailgate, to help him push it up toward the cab. The tailgate let loose, and he fell sideways. He landed on his feet, but smacked his left kidney really hard on the end of the tailgate.

He said it immediately felt hot and spreading, and felt like he had to pee. So he went inside, and urinated what he said "looked like pure blood." He got a light headed at that sight, so he walked out to the main office, where the secretary and the boss both were, sat down on the floor, gently laid himself down, and passed out.

We show up, confirm that he did not fall and that he had no head/neck/spine pain, no deformities of any sort, and no signs whatsoever of trauma. We decided that we could safely release C-Spine, helped him onto the stretcher, and started rolling to the nearest trauma center Priority 3.

The resident, who had just been there a week, started freaking out us. He had heard the word "fall," and decided by default that he should have been backboarded, collared, and brought in Priority 1. He threatened to take our "license," have security remove us from the hospital and even not let us take the ambulance back because we "...weren't fit to be seen in it." He then started collaring the guy, ineptly I might add, because he couldn't figure out how to apply the collar.

He called our medical director, who came to the hospital immediately. He looked at the patient, talked to him, talked to us, and promptly told the resident to go get the attending. He told him he might want to put a leash on the new guy, because we did exactly what we were supposed to do and that the resident way overstepped his bounds, not including issuing impotent threats to take away our ambulance with no such authority to do so.

I just about cheered when I heard that, but I kept it to a smile. It helped that my partner that day was one of the chiefs, a 29 year medic, and friends with the director, but that resident was a moron.

 

[GR1N53N]

I had someone fall and hit just under their eye on concrete steps, declining level of consciousness, pupils weren't PERL; things weren't looking good.

A paramedic refused to transport, saying he was fine, the guy would work through it, didn't need any attention and insisted it was a "face injury", not a head injury.

I pressed the issue for a while that arguably anything above the neck, including the face, would be the head, but being an EMR instead of a PCP, I lost the argument...

Wow. So the PCP actually got him to sign a refusal? Did you at least send him to the ED to get assessed?



My favourite question (asked of another member of our service): "So, do you guys carry guns?"

 

[spnx]

No, it wasn't a refusal of care. It was more like a refusal that anything was wrong at all, on all sides.

Actually, it was a kid, and the mother agreed that he'd be ok as well. After all, her husband was an EMT ten years ago.

I didn't follow that pattern of logic either...

 

[firecoins]

one of a student doctors was doing assessment on a woman in the er room. wanted to check her rectum (motorbike accident) put glove on then hand under the sheet pulled back with little blood on his index finger.
- we have rectal bleeding
and the lady said:
- sir, wrong hole i have period now

whole room cracked with laugh

whoops!:blush: Ill bet he will never forget that.

 

[Melclin]

one of a student doctors was doing assessment on a woman in the er room. wanted to check her rectum (motorbike accident) put glove on then hand under the sheet pulled back with little blood on his index finger.
- we have rectal bleeding
and the lady said:
- sir, wrong hole i have period now

whole room cracked with laugh

That is quite possibly the funniest thing I've ever heard.^_^

 

[emt_angel25]

so we were on scene of a cardiac arrest that was witnesed by the pts neighbor. anyway we are on all doing our thing getting ready to load and go when the son shows up. he was about 5'5", 100lbs, thinning brown hair that was ALMOST a mullet. and his two front teeth missing. he approaches seveal of the firefighters on scene and asks for his fathers WILL. he wanted to know what it said before his sisters got there and tried to screw him out of their dads things.

 

[zman]

I was doing a refusal once and I told the guy to call back if anything changed. He looked at me and asked "whats your number." I looked at him, smiled and said "i can be reached at 911."

-z

 

[mycrofft]

"Didn't YOU pick up the eleven blade?".

(We left the scalpel behind in a house full of kids and drunks after finishing a birth into a toilet by one of their unumber. Kid APGAR'ed at a "10").

 

[EMTinNEPA]

"Who do I contact to make a donation to you? I want to help the fire department out" (said to me in the back of a private ambulance)

Was also asked (on the same unit)...

"Did you guys leave work to take care of me?"

and

"I volunteered with you guys for years... how much is a membership nowadays?"

 

[Medic506]

I was taught my EMT-B skills through the company that I work for. Anyone in the company could come and sit in to earn 4 hrs of continuing education hours. I had a man who had been a Basic for the company for almost 25yrs sitting beside me at one class about traumas.

When my instructor (who would soon be one of my managers after I joined the company) mentioned platelets and white/red blood cells, the guy said:

"Huh, I never knew there were platelets in blood." :blink:

 

[DV_EMT]

a PT said this to me once while i was working in the IV room

Pt: Sir, I see your wearing a long lab coat. Why are you wearing that?

Me: Because Its for proper BSI technique.

Pt: Oh...... (long pause).... so it doesnt have anything to do with "the longer the lab coat the longer you've been working?"

Me: No..... (long pause)..... Im 20 y/o, not 60


astounded by the stupidity and malinformed public

 

[EMTinNEPA]

so it doesnt have anything to do with "the longer the lab coat the longer you've been working?"

lolwut?

Ten characters

 

[WuLabsWuTecH]

I can see that mistake.

Medical Student = Short white coat
MD = Long White Coat

 

[VCEMT]

Had a doctor ask us what are BLS and ALS.

 

[PapaBear434]

Had a doctor ask us what are BLS and ALS.

Eh, that's not too bad. I had a Doc have to ask me to put a collar on a patient, because he couldn't figure the damn thing out.

Not really stupid, as he doesn't work with them on a usual basis. But it WAS kind of funny.

 

[usafmedic45]

I was asked by a famous rock musician while working medical standby at a concert:
Him: "Uh, can I see that....what do you call it? The shocky thing?"
Me: "The defibrillator? The thing with the paddles?"
Him: "Yeah, uh, that's it.....can I see it?"
Me: "Then you can see the defib" *pulls the batteries out of the defib*

I was not about to go down in history as the guy who let a rock legend inadvertently defib himself.