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“Medical Workers Of Bored Panda, What’s The Weirdest Thing A Patient Has Ever Come In With?” (40 Stories)
If you ask a medical worker about their worst patient or encounter, they are unlikely to reveal much in person. However, I figured that if you offer them an anonymous online thread, they'll tell you all about their oddest, saddest, and funniest stories (and most of the time all of that combined into one)!
With that being said, I decided to ask medical workers of Bored Panda to share their weirdest patient stories and they sure delivered without hesitation!
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I once had a patient who came in with her baby daughter. The daughter was a baby, maybe one by the looks of it. The lady told me all these things about how she was anti-vax and blah blah. She then asked me to “fix” her baby. You guys, it was d**d. She was holding a goddamn corpse.
Before I had a liver transplant, I suffered from a condition called "Ascites" that makes you retain fluids and your belly looks like you are 11 months pregnant (I am a guy). Every week I'd go to the hospital to get the fluids drained (usually around 10 to 11 liters). Since it was a teaching hospital, more often than not there was an attending nurse and a very young doctor.
The procedure required an ultrasound machine, operated by the nurse, and a 9" needle to penetrate the abdomen and find the sack with the liquid. Most young doctors had never done anything like it and they were nervous and a little bit disturbed. Once this very young doctor got physically sick and white as a sheet. He also couldn't find the sack. He kept prodding and getting more and more panicked. By then I was an old hand at it and I had seen it done properly at least a dozen times, so I asked him "do you mind if I give it a shot?".
At first, he blabbed something incoherent, so I added, "I won't tell anyone, I just can't afford to leave without being drained, this is the one day a week when I get to feel normal for a few hours". He finally agreed and I took hold of the 9" needle. Watching the ultrasound screen, in a few seconds I found the sack and we started filling 2-liter bottles with the liquid.
It was a 12 liters day, requiring six two-liter bottles. My father-in-law drove me there that day, and he was watching the proceedings, but it was too much even for him. He passed out and had to be put on a gurney. Both the doc and my FIL were traumatized. The nurse joked with me about it. I eventually got a liver transplant and that issue went away. I am almost at the 20 years mark.
I had a patient that wouldn’t let me take his temperature with a non-contact device on his forehead. He was worried about “blasting radiation into his pituitary gland”. First of all, you’re 90 so I’m sure by now your pituitary gland is a little bag of sand by now; and secondly, where did you get this info? Facebook?
Too many!
The guy that used tampons as earplugs at night, forgot to take them out and had a shower. He didn't realize how absorbent they were!
The woman complained of a sudden and severe irritation 'down there'. She had sequin knickers and wore them inside out, several of them had come loose and worked their way inside.
The lovely old lady who came in with 'stabbing pains in the chest', upon inspection we noted that she was indeed being stabbed, by the lamb-chop bone in her bra.
The young lad that had a speculum stuck in his mouth. We don't where/how he got it but apparently, he was trying to pretend to be a duck. (For the guys out there that don't know, a speculum is a medical tool that is most commonly used for examining vaginas).
My friend was an ER doctor. Had a guy come in with a flashlight stuck up his b**t. When my friend came back from his break he asked the other doc how the patient with the flashlight up his b**t was doing and the other doc asked him, "Which one?" It was a busy night!
We had a patient who came to the ER after a car accident and had a metal fence pole all the way through his right chest, in the front, out the back. He previously had his right lung removed so he walked away with no injury after a pipe through the chest.
Encountered something like that when I did an ER nurse internship. Of course he was lying on his side. The pole was so long they couldn't get him through the doors without calling a welder emergently to cut it smaller. Meanwhile we worked on him outside.
He didn't walk away with NO injury...he would have had two pretty decent wounds...
Many years ago the base commander (I think) had a similar accident. They had to cut around half his body to remove it. **shudder**
South Africa late 80's was doing Friday night shift when a fella walked with an ad in his head. I was very new to the job and literally almost fainted. After x-rays it was discovered that the ad was stuck in a slice of bone. No real damage. He was stitched up observed for a couple.of hours. I went to check on him before he was due to go up to the ward and he told me.I was burning Friday night and he had some drinking to do and.left. Never heard.any more about it.
No injury; except the massive skin and muscle damage and broken bones?
"Doctor, the metal pipe in my chest is a bit sore. Would you mind removing it?"
I don't know if I'd call that "no injury." Surely it qualifies as a puncture wound still.
"he walked away with no injury" - yeah, I need more than an anecdote to believe that happened, I'm afraid.
Not medical, but dental. Had a woman who was obviously an addict come in for a tooth ache. I had to help her fill out the new patient form because it confused her too much. Every health question was met with ‘what’s that?’. We finally get her back in the room to start X-rays and holy smokes. No wonder this lady had a toothache. She was LITERALLY growing ALGAE on her teeth. It was horrendous. We ended up having to refer her to a dental hospital because the work was so extensive. I couldn’t eat anything with seaweed in it for years. It looked just like the stuff on her teeth.
BRB, gonna brush my teeth again. Edit: Just got back from the dentist. No cavities!
I work in learning disability care and once had to accompany a young lady to the hospital who was complaining about pain when urinating.
Somehow she had inserted peas into her urethra and attempted to fish them out with a bobby pin - over a week before she went to the ED.
A 79-year-old man presents to ER with an aerosol air freshener can up his a**…told the doctor it “slipped in" when he went to sit on the toilet…it was so far in there he needed full abdominal surgery to remove it because even the colonoscope couldn’t reach it!
Not me but my dad who was a physician. He said he hated the ER, this was back when there were no "ER specialists" just doctors on call. I asked him why, and he said he was sick of "removing" things that had no business being where they were. I said, "like what?" And he said, "like flashlights, baby bottles, and squash." I asked no more.
A woman came into our ER with a very swollen finger and in a lot of pain. While doing a lot of dishes, a box of spaghetti fell over, as she tried to catch it to avoid it falling into the sudsy sink, one strand impaled itself under her fingernail. Since her hands were so wet, the spaghetti slid all the way to the top of the nail. It. Was. Horrifying. Everyone was cringing! The doctor had to cut a slit into her fingernail to fish it out! We all had funny reactions! The woman said it was so painful that she wanted her finger cut off! She had instant relief when the doc cut the nail and relieved the pressure.
I once had to explain to a patient that there was no need for us to check his b12 levels because he was actually not on a vegan diet.
Still, he insisted on being a vegan because he only ate poultry regularly, while other meats or fish only "a few times a month" and also it was always organic. He genuinely thought he was a vegan and therefore needed his b12 level checked.
I ended up saying, "b12 deficiency is only a problem for those vegans who don't eat meat."
Was on a med-surg-gyn-weird diseases floor. Had a patient come in with Pemphigus. A skin disease. A not often seen one.
Also had a patient come in with a rare genetic disease that both parents were Caucasian, but the baby had very dark skin and hair and their features were Caucasian. He was also in a wheelchair and his skin was very delicate and broke down easily. Can’t remember the name of it, De. … something. But it was very interesting.
I also had several patients with cystic fibrosis, under this one doctor’s care. They aged from teens to 36. Very old for a patient with CF. He was very invested in their care. One patient came in and he was dying. He asked that any nurse not comfortable with his morphine dosing schedule, not take care of his patient. He was of the opinion, that they could pretty much tell you when and how much they wanted or needed, and where to get it. He later was in the news as the doctor who broke the genetic code for CF. He was based in Orlando, Fl. He was an amazing doctor!
I’m the patient here. Guess what I did?
Yeah, I ate a flower with a bee on it. Not only did I get stung, but guess what else?
The flower was the one thing I was allergic to. I couldn’t breathe because I still had a petal AND a bee stuck in my mouth, and my tongue basically blew up. I did not eat any greens, or anything purple because the flower was purple.
Not my story but my friend is a paramedic and got called to a house where someone thought a person "might" be d**d. The guy had hanged himself at least 3 weeks previously. Think advanced state of decomposition. She said she can remember thinking, "What do they expect us to do? Resuscitate him?"
Obviously, she didn't say anything and just contacted the police. I assume some people just panic and don't know who to call in this situation.
so sad no one had worried where he was for 3 weeks that guy certainly needed some friends
Had a patient call 9-1-1 with a three-liter coke bottle up his a**.
I'm not a doctor, but I was once in the doctor's office waiting for a check-up when this woman bolts in with her young child, screaming that she was bleeding. Her kid was on her period.
My wife works in the ICU and a large lady came in once and they had to give her a sponge bath and they found an old oreo under her b**b.
I had a severely psychotic patient who was convinced she had consumed human flesh and was always trying to induce vomiting. She was eventually discharged. Later she was re-admitted when her relative (a new mother) had caught this patient preparing to eat the baby.
As a paramedic with over 25 years in the job, I have witnessed a lot of things.
One that sticks with me is a call I dealt with over 20 years ago. A lady dialed 999 and the call was passed as "broken finger". It was only when we arrived we found that she had actually broken a fingernail, and was wanting us to fix it as she was going to a dinner party and wanted to look her best. For context, the patient lived in a large house with a private drive and considered herself to be in the upper class.
My crew mate did indeed 'fix' the broken fingernail back on, with a big comedy bandage you would normally expect to see in a cartoon. Our patient was not impressed by this, as it made her look ridiculous, and she uttered that immortal line "I will get you sacked for this".
My crew mate, being less subtle than me, educated the lady on the inappropriateness of the situation (in words of very few syllabus) and it would be a shame if we did get sacked and details of this call 'leaked' to the press. I don't believe a complaint was ever made...
She should have had to pay a fine for this. Not that it would have made a dent in her bank account. But she'd probably be pissed to have to pay it. Or contact some connection to get it tossed.
Not a doctor. Sat in the waiting room at the health center, waiting for my doctor when a worker from the building project next door came in. He had his hand wrapped in a big towel and just stood in the line for the receptionist.
He left a large trail of blood running from the towel. Not dripping, running in a small stream. Luckily someone more or less shouted to get him some attention. When a couple of nurses came running the dude said something like: "I just cut myself a bit", not really seeming to realize it had to be bad. Either he was cool as a cucumber or in chock. Probably the latter.
If he thinks he just cut himself “a bit” what could he have done that was worse than this?
Parents brought their 8 yo daughter in with a crooked forearm, stating they had no idea what happened. Turns out the girl broke her arm right before departing on a Disney vacation. They asked her if she'd rather go to the hospital or go on vacation. She chose vacation (shock) and as a result of really poor parenting, something that would have been remedied with a simple cast turned into surgery and a longer, more painful recovery for their daughter.
Horribly irresponsible! Some people either shouldn't have kids or they should ACT like parents!!
P**is fish…. A fish swam up into this man’s urethra. He had been on vacation and WAITED UNTIL HE WAS BACK to get looked at!!! That was nearly 20 years ago and I will never forget that poor guy.
The TV show River Monsters had an episode on that fish. If I remember correctly it lives in the Amazon River
Mostly ER.
1. Dead babies brought in.
2. 17 yo girl stabbed in the heart by someone who tried to steal her cellphone, dead on arrival.
3. Lady attacked by a pet python. I clamped onto her wrist and wrapped itself around her neck, luckily she survived.
4. Guy took Viagra, effects did not wear off, 36 hrs later he came into ER because to pain was too much.
5. Police officer shot in the face, had to have total reconstructive surgery.
And so much more...
Emergency rooms are horror stories and unbelievable things have to be attended to its the next worst thing from COVID!
I once handled a man that had inserted the p**is in an active vacuum cleaning pipe, it swelled a lot and got stuck. Totally purple after removal.
A patient who filled a condom with Hard as Nails (a glue that sets hard as nails) inserted it while the glue was still not set. Then it set and it took every surgical instrument we could think of to extract it.
My mom was an ER doctor. Years ago an older man had a motorcycle wreck on the turnpike and they were ready when he came in. Everyone took their places (he was unconscious) and began cutting clothes off. All of the sudden everyone stopped…. He had a tiny padlock through the end of his penis with a chain going up to a nipple and a tiny lick holding it there. No keys to fit on his person. They had to call maintenance to bring cutters to cut the locks.
I work registration in the emergency room…I’ve seen some weird stuff in the month and a half I’ve been here. We had one woman come in with a lit cigarette and a newborn…she had given birth in her car, and decided to wait to come in so she could finish smoking.
A month and a half? Oh its just the beginning! Be prepared to see anything and everything.
Found a 6mm fragment of a metal axe in a guy's eyelid - he had no idea it was there.
Saw this guy who ‘accidentally’ injected an EpiPen into his junk.
He got worried and came into the ED. He claimed it was totally an accident and just wanted to see how the thing worked, but his friend told us he was out of viagra and wanted to see if the EpiPen works as a replacement, since it’s epinephrine/adrenaline.
Spoiler alert, it doesn’t.
Another Facebook medical education probably - when will they ever learn?
Urgent care registration staff here. Had a man come in because he "needed a boil on his arm checked out". I didn't ask him to, but he unzipped his jacket (no shirt on underneath) and showed me his arms. This was NOT just a boil, he had rubber surgical drains coming out multiple sites on each arm.
He had left an out-of-state hospital where he was being treated for purulent cellulitis without notifying doctors or getting his Rx for antibiotics. He said he had to get to Montana for a friend's funeral and didn't have time to stop long. Our doctors told him his case was too severe and he needed to go to the ER because he was septic. He refused an ambulance ride and said he'd drive himself. We checked hospital records later that day and the man never checked in at the ER. He just continued his drive across state lines.
Maybe there were eventually 2 funerals in Montana that day.
My mum, before retirement was a diabetic wound care specialist (UK based). One patient (no names were given) she told me about was a gentleman who came in with what looked like lots of ulcers over his leg. For those who don’t know about diabetes, patients have to look after their legs and feet due to circulation issues, due to not looking after their blood sugars. Anyway, this gentleman had these ulcers on his legs and my mum asked “what on earth had happened?!!” Turned out that due to his diabetes he had lost the feeling in his legs and he was chatting away on the telephone, not realising that his new puppy had been chomping away at his legs!!!!
I work in an Emergency Operations Centre where the emergency calls come in. Took a call from someone reporting an RTC. Patient wasn't breathing well so I advised the caller to put one hand on the patient's forehead and another hand under their neck and to tilt the head back to open the airways. Caller said 'I'm not going to do that'. When I asked why he said 'He doesn't have a forehead any more'. The patient had jumped from a bridge and then been hit by a lorry and dragged several feet along the tarmac.
Patient was me but it wasn't anything really weird...I got hit by a hockey ball in the face, which hit the bone on my right cheek...very clean and semi-deep cut so blood went EVERYWHERE and fast. Other kids I was training with were horrified, as were coaches. Not going to lie, even with holding pressure against the cut when I turned up in the ER it was hard to tell where I was injured there was so much blood. I looked like Carrie. Traumatised more than a few people. Oops.
When I was about 5 or 6 I shoved a peanut so far up my nose I had to go to hospital to have it removed, the thing that I remember most was how surprised I was that the doctor just dropped the peanut (once removed) down the back of a radiator instead of giving it back to me to eat.
My co worker from years ago was a RN and she was fond of casually telling ER horror stories. One memorable story she told was when this motorcyclist was brought into ER, fully conscious, but he had a broom handle that had impaled him through the stomach, he had somehow run into a broom stick. He had been wearing a leather jacket and the zipper had come out the other side.
A friend of my dad died when they made a motorcycle tour. That friend's brakes were broken. He flew out of a curve, head first into a tree. He was wearing a helmet, but of course still had a headache. Dad told him to take off his helmet to check for injuries. As the friend takes off the helmet, the skull pops open and the friend falls over dead. The helmet had held his cracked skull together. That was almost 40 years ago, Dad only got to talk about it recently. Even today he can't forgive himself for telling his buddy to take off his helmet. He could live.
My dad is an er doc and I’ve heard it all. Eyeball hanging out by optic nerve. Saved the eye. Also cysts. Lots and lots of cysts. Cups of pus. I will never be a doctor due to these stories.
Does an eye still work the same after that? Seems like the muscles that move it would be torn off. Do they try to reattach them?
Guy had a penile pump. His wife gave him a powerful bj and the thing popped! He’d come in for a replacement
Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia, i was a fairly nee nurse and the diagnosis was a long shot. It took 8-10 weeks to get the results and by then everyone assumed it was negative. Surprise!!!
Wow! With those kinds of things they usually tell us we've been reading waaaay to much, and come up with weird suggestions. Good on ya for speaking up and thankful they listened to you. I was an experienced nurse and had worked in a hospital where A LOT of docs would never encounter the things we dealt with in their entire careers. At a hospital I worked at later we had a patient where labs said something was wrong with his pancreas and he had a high fever. Scans showed nothing. I suggested to the doc she do something called a Spiral CT. Something not usually done. I suggested this because of what I had encountered at the previous hospital. I said that I'd bet he had an infection in the back of his pancreas. Hard to diagnose. She did, and sure enough there it was. She thanked.me for saving his life.
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To those who are commenting negatively on this thread: this was just supposed to be a fun place were people can share some interesting medical stories. No one except for the posters know who the patients are. Thank you KimB for your help in corrections. I didn't mean to offend anyone with this AskPandas. Enjoy your day.
Imagine how many ER visited could be avoided if people stopped shoving stuff in their a$$.
People won't stop! If they didn't feel shame buying appropriate toys (with flared bases) there would be less 'lost' items. People need educating.
Load More Replies...Today I learned that do-it-yourself sex appears to be the leading cause of visits to the ER. That and drunken bets. I was in a car accident about 24 years ago and they took forever to look at my injuries, but promptly attended to the woman in the next bay who had hurt her back doing some sort of drunken party challenge.
My mom was mending my dad's pants when she sewed right over her finger. She jerked and the needle broke off in her finger. She cane to me, "I think we need to go to emerg". The doctors didn't believe that it was still in her finger until the x-rayed it. Then they cut her finger open on the fingerprint side and pulled it through. She reminded me to be careful when I sew
ha, I've had the exact same accident! I felt a bit ashamed about going to the doctor for it, because it seemed like a minor injury to me, so I first spend an evening pushing and poking it hoping it would pop out like a splinter, which it didn't because it got stuck in the bone. Poor surgeon had a whale of a time trying to get it out, and I got a stern talking to about taking my injuries more seriously ;)
Load More Replies...I had a patient who was African American, born and raised in a southern state. He had such severe mental illness and would lapse into these dissociative states where he would chant neo-nazi slogans and say the most appalling racist things about Jews and Black people. We couldn't let any of the staff who were black anywhere near him because he would just attack them. It was so startling and sad to witness.
I was a junior doctor (F1) doing ward round with my consultant and registrar and went to see a long term patient in a side room. Out of the corner of my eye I see a pair of bare boobs. Turn my head and realise there's a full size blow up sex doll in the corner of his room. Consultant's eyes flickered to it briefly and then carried on talking to the patient. Registrar carried on writing in the patient notes. Patient answered all our questions as normal. We exit the room without any acknowledgement of the sex doll.
Not me but one of my oldest friends; when she was on rotation as a 3rd year med student, she did a stint in A&E. One evening a guy came in with two Bic biro pen lids and the handle of a plastic teaspoon down the end of his penis. He had apparently, inserted the pen with the lid on for reasons only known to him. But when he pulled it out, the clip on the lid snagged and remained inside. He poked another pen down, lid first in an attempt to get the first one out but this failed and that lid also snagged and stayed inside. THEN, he inserted the plastic teaspoon handle first, to try and get the two pen lids out but the handle snapped off and it was at this point, that he decided he should probably get to A&E.
In my stint(s)? Saw same, witha knitting needle. We called in a psych consult.
Load More Replies...ER duty in 2021: Guy comes in hand wrapped up, with a baggie of ice and a finger in it. "Can you put this back on?"... Us: When did it get cut off. Him: Couple days ago. .... That's a no. (Reason he didn't come in: "It doesn't hurt that bad." And people ask why I don't stick with *practice* instead of *research* in medicine?!)
7 years in the ER taught me never underestimate people doing dumb things lol
Load More Replies...Outpatient stool collections can be very interesting. Once we got stool in a Walmart bag taped up with masking tape. Just stool in a bag. We also get butter dishes, Tupperware, etc. I always wonder if doctors give their patients containers, or just say collect a sample in whatever. There was also someone who gouged their own eyes out in the ER. Very scary.
When I was in college, I sat down on the floor only to brush up against my backpack. Inside the bag was an exacto knife, with no cap on. (Graphic arts student) I basically cut a nice one inch hole into my tush. Drove myself to the ER and when I was laying on the table waiting to get stitched up, the nurses were calling the other nurses/doctors whoever into the room to take a look and everyone was giggling. Cool Cool Cool... As a 19 year old, I was mortified. lol
when i was about 4 i was playing with a spring that was from a broken toy i was trying to unwind it not sure why i managed to wind it right into my finger so my mum called an ambulance and they thought she said i had string stuck in my finger and thought it was a joke you would think thats the worst part but no here in the UK at the time the ambulances were on strike so instead a police van turns up and takes me to hospital they numbed my finger took the spring out and out a plaster on there was 2 little marks where the injection was i remember thinking my finger looked like and elephant
57mm anti-tank shell. "Slipped and fell". https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/16923295/bomb-squad-hospital-bottom-shell/
I used to babysit for an ER nurse. She told me about a traveling salesman who came into town and hooked up with a prostitute. The lady had a seizure while doing a bj. He punched her in the head trying to get her to release him. He was in shreds and she was all beat up. I was 12. She told me about this when I was 12. I let my mom know. I didn't go back over there again.
My elderly mother is terrified of young medical personnel because of this type of thread. It all started with an at- home colon screening where she was supposed to defecate directly into a box and mail it. She started to cry and said It can't be correct and if she does the test wrong it will "go viral" even if her name and face isn't used. Her friends show her all sorts of social media and she thinks everyone under 60 in scrubs from the receptionist to the lab tech are mocking her and wanting to shame her even if they don't actually do it. So far I can't get her through the door of any dr office and she did not return any stool sample and will not get her blood work done. What a consequence for poking a little fun to lighten a work day? Is that it? I'm frustrated and sad and hope to find some positive social media to reassure her and I know many are ethical people. She had confidence in medical staff before last fall. I am very nervous about her aging now.
So basically it's cheaper and less embarrassing to just buy a sex toy.
There was a women who came in and said aliens had implanted a tiny bomb in here breast.
The woman next door told my missus her sister came for a visit prior to going on a very long trip. The sis decided to have her annual pap smear done before she left and asked if she could use the local doctor. Returning from the exam she was furious and threatening to sue for malpractice. When asked what happened, the sis explained she had freshened up and put on a shot of feminine hygiene spray she borrowed from a bathroom cabinet. In the stirrups the doctor had remarked, "How fancy!". The neighbour burst into laughter as she explained that she didn't have any hygiene spray, and the can that was used was glitter from her daughter's school craft project.
If the ER can't remove your home-made but plug, you'll need a colostomy. Think on that.
Every ER doc has stories of foreign objects men have stuck up their butts,, or stuck their peens into. The worst i heard involved a man and his little dog. The dog died. ER doc said the wrong patient died.
some of these are funny. After I got my ears pierced as a child, I had an allergic reaction to Polysporin, huge rash and raw skin. The backing on my earring went in to the lobe through the piercing, off to the ER to get it out. The backing was very small.
We didn't know i was allergic to the Polysporin, until we started using it on my earrings :(
Load More Replies...No names or other personal identifiers have been used no breech of HIPPA
Load More Replies...Absolutely disagree. The contributors gave no identifying information other than diagnosis/situation. Besides, you can literally buy books about humorous medical situations and mishaps, which often give even more information than these stories do (like locations.)
Load More Replies...No one is mocking anyone we're sharing stories about things we've encountered and there's no dates times or locations listed anywhere so I don't see how anyone could "identify themselves". Medical professionals are normal everyday people who need to blow off steam just like anyone else and our senses of humor help us cope with what we see and keep our own sanity.
Load More Replies...To those who are commenting negatively on this thread: this was just supposed to be a fun place were people can share some interesting medical stories. No one except for the posters know who the patients are. Thank you KimB for your help in corrections. I didn't mean to offend anyone with this AskPandas. Enjoy your day.
Imagine how many ER visited could be avoided if people stopped shoving stuff in their a$$.
People won't stop! If they didn't feel shame buying appropriate toys (with flared bases) there would be less 'lost' items. People need educating.
Load More Replies...Today I learned that do-it-yourself sex appears to be the leading cause of visits to the ER. That and drunken bets. I was in a car accident about 24 years ago and they took forever to look at my injuries, but promptly attended to the woman in the next bay who had hurt her back doing some sort of drunken party challenge.
My mom was mending my dad's pants when she sewed right over her finger. She jerked and the needle broke off in her finger. She cane to me, "I think we need to go to emerg". The doctors didn't believe that it was still in her finger until the x-rayed it. Then they cut her finger open on the fingerprint side and pulled it through. She reminded me to be careful when I sew
ha, I've had the exact same accident! I felt a bit ashamed about going to the doctor for it, because it seemed like a minor injury to me, so I first spend an evening pushing and poking it hoping it would pop out like a splinter, which it didn't because it got stuck in the bone. Poor surgeon had a whale of a time trying to get it out, and I got a stern talking to about taking my injuries more seriously ;)
Load More Replies...I had a patient who was African American, born and raised in a southern state. He had such severe mental illness and would lapse into these dissociative states where he would chant neo-nazi slogans and say the most appalling racist things about Jews and Black people. We couldn't let any of the staff who were black anywhere near him because he would just attack them. It was so startling and sad to witness.
I was a junior doctor (F1) doing ward round with my consultant and registrar and went to see a long term patient in a side room. Out of the corner of my eye I see a pair of bare boobs. Turn my head and realise there's a full size blow up sex doll in the corner of his room. Consultant's eyes flickered to it briefly and then carried on talking to the patient. Registrar carried on writing in the patient notes. Patient answered all our questions as normal. We exit the room without any acknowledgement of the sex doll.
Not me but one of my oldest friends; when she was on rotation as a 3rd year med student, she did a stint in A&E. One evening a guy came in with two Bic biro pen lids and the handle of a plastic teaspoon down the end of his penis. He had apparently, inserted the pen with the lid on for reasons only known to him. But when he pulled it out, the clip on the lid snagged and remained inside. He poked another pen down, lid first in an attempt to get the first one out but this failed and that lid also snagged and stayed inside. THEN, he inserted the plastic teaspoon handle first, to try and get the two pen lids out but the handle snapped off and it was at this point, that he decided he should probably get to A&E.
In my stint(s)? Saw same, witha knitting needle. We called in a psych consult.
Load More Replies...ER duty in 2021: Guy comes in hand wrapped up, with a baggie of ice and a finger in it. "Can you put this back on?"... Us: When did it get cut off. Him: Couple days ago. .... That's a no. (Reason he didn't come in: "It doesn't hurt that bad." And people ask why I don't stick with *practice* instead of *research* in medicine?!)
7 years in the ER taught me never underestimate people doing dumb things lol
Load More Replies...Outpatient stool collections can be very interesting. Once we got stool in a Walmart bag taped up with masking tape. Just stool in a bag. We also get butter dishes, Tupperware, etc. I always wonder if doctors give their patients containers, or just say collect a sample in whatever. There was also someone who gouged their own eyes out in the ER. Very scary.
When I was in college, I sat down on the floor only to brush up against my backpack. Inside the bag was an exacto knife, with no cap on. (Graphic arts student) I basically cut a nice one inch hole into my tush. Drove myself to the ER and when I was laying on the table waiting to get stitched up, the nurses were calling the other nurses/doctors whoever into the room to take a look and everyone was giggling. Cool Cool Cool... As a 19 year old, I was mortified. lol
when i was about 4 i was playing with a spring that was from a broken toy i was trying to unwind it not sure why i managed to wind it right into my finger so my mum called an ambulance and they thought she said i had string stuck in my finger and thought it was a joke you would think thats the worst part but no here in the UK at the time the ambulances were on strike so instead a police van turns up and takes me to hospital they numbed my finger took the spring out and out a plaster on there was 2 little marks where the injection was i remember thinking my finger looked like and elephant
57mm anti-tank shell. "Slipped and fell". https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/16923295/bomb-squad-hospital-bottom-shell/
I used to babysit for an ER nurse. She told me about a traveling salesman who came into town and hooked up with a prostitute. The lady had a seizure while doing a bj. He punched her in the head trying to get her to release him. He was in shreds and she was all beat up. I was 12. She told me about this when I was 12. I let my mom know. I didn't go back over there again.
My elderly mother is terrified of young medical personnel because of this type of thread. It all started with an at- home colon screening where she was supposed to defecate directly into a box and mail it. She started to cry and said It can't be correct and if she does the test wrong it will "go viral" even if her name and face isn't used. Her friends show her all sorts of social media and she thinks everyone under 60 in scrubs from the receptionist to the lab tech are mocking her and wanting to shame her even if they don't actually do it. So far I can't get her through the door of any dr office and she did not return any stool sample and will not get her blood work done. What a consequence for poking a little fun to lighten a work day? Is that it? I'm frustrated and sad and hope to find some positive social media to reassure her and I know many are ethical people. She had confidence in medical staff before last fall. I am very nervous about her aging now.
So basically it's cheaper and less embarrassing to just buy a sex toy.
There was a women who came in and said aliens had implanted a tiny bomb in here breast.
The woman next door told my missus her sister came for a visit prior to going on a very long trip. The sis decided to have her annual pap smear done before she left and asked if she could use the local doctor. Returning from the exam she was furious and threatening to sue for malpractice. When asked what happened, the sis explained she had freshened up and put on a shot of feminine hygiene spray she borrowed from a bathroom cabinet. In the stirrups the doctor had remarked, "How fancy!". The neighbour burst into laughter as she explained that she didn't have any hygiene spray, and the can that was used was glitter from her daughter's school craft project.
If the ER can't remove your home-made but plug, you'll need a colostomy. Think on that.
Every ER doc has stories of foreign objects men have stuck up their butts,, or stuck their peens into. The worst i heard involved a man and his little dog. The dog died. ER doc said the wrong patient died.
some of these are funny. After I got my ears pierced as a child, I had an allergic reaction to Polysporin, huge rash and raw skin. The backing on my earring went in to the lobe through the piercing, off to the ER to get it out. The backing was very small.
We didn't know i was allergic to the Polysporin, until we started using it on my earrings :(
Load More Replies...No names or other personal identifiers have been used no breech of HIPPA
Load More Replies...Absolutely disagree. The contributors gave no identifying information other than diagnosis/situation. Besides, you can literally buy books about humorous medical situations and mishaps, which often give even more information than these stories do (like locations.)
Load More Replies...No one is mocking anyone we're sharing stories about things we've encountered and there's no dates times or locations listed anywhere so I don't see how anyone could "identify themselves". Medical professionals are normal everyday people who need to blow off steam just like anyone else and our senses of humor help us cope with what we see and keep our own sanity.
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