Musical Interlude

Every time a baby’s born at the House of God, they play the “baby bells” which is essentially a digitized 10 second version of Brahms Lullaby.  (And if you have twins, they play it twice in a row.  Ask me how I know.)
Being the cynical ER dwellers that we are, we’ve been developing a list [...]

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Board Silly

In honor of taking my recertification boards today (yes, it’s been 6 years – time flies) I give you the following, with my apologies for not blogging much.  I’ve been spending my free time reading up on the intricacies of rheumatology labs and metabolic disorders.
Interested in a medical specialty?  Let the following flowchart help you [...]

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Not Dead

Has it really been three weeks since I posted?  Criminy.  Since then, I’ve spent three days at the farm, fought a nasty case of mastitis (first 102+ temp I’ve had in I don’t know how long) and worked 132 hours in the House of God. 
We opened the new ER on the 23rd, leading to an [...]

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Another Rhodes Scholar

You know it’s never going to be good when the chief complaint on the tracking board is “Genital FB*” and it’s a 53 year old male.  Not.  Good. 
I headed into Mr. FB’s room, fortunately a private one (smart triage nurse, there.)  Sitting on the bed is the most normal-looking guy you can imagine – I [...]

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Compliance

Dear Gallbladder Girl (let’s call you GBG for short):
It was lovely to see you in the cafeteria this morning, just after you were discharged from the ER.  (Sometimes surviving night shift just means staying awake long enough to hit the cafeteria at 0600 for a diet coke and blueberry muffin.)
Glad to see that the instructions [...]

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Overheard in the ER

“That docta gave me chlamydia!”
No, ma’am, I can assure you, I didn’t *give* you chlamydia.  Examined you?  Yes.  Diagnosed you?  Yes.  Treated you?  Yes.  And your asshole boyfriend?  Yes.  After hours of listening to the two of you yell at staff, each other, me, security, etc, etc, ad nauseum?  Yes.  But I definitely didn’t give [...]

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Lightning

Apparently lightning sometimes does strike twice, because we had two separate individuals turn up in the ER within hours of each other,  with complaint of “struck by lightning” recently and the incidents were totally unrelated, and both pretty freaky.  (No one standing out on a hill, or flying a kite, or anything.)  We think they’ll both be [...]

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Medical Morality, Part 2

I hadn’t revisited the Medical Morality poll on healthcare providers providing abortions, what with the ginormous drama that is my grandmother’s illness, but since things have momentarily stabilized, here goes.
I’m really interested to know, in particular, three things.  Please address any of the questions in comments – and if you prefer, make up a name and email [...]

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The Sublime, The Ridiculous, and the Utterly Depressing

I’ll let you choose which is which.
1) A coworker recently discovered that the local children’s hospital transport line number (1-800-getthisreallysickkidoutofmyER) is only one digit off of a phone sex line, offering “Genuine Shemales” including “chicks with dicks and dudes with boobs.” Much hilarity ensued.
2) Best chief complaint of last night. “Pt calls ambulance stating “I [...]

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Medical Morality

The current administration is considering rescinding the “conscience clause” currently observed by the Dept of Health and Human Services, which allows  health care providers to opt out of performing abortions (and still keep federal funding.)
So, a poll:
Feel free to comment in, well, the comments.  You can guess that as an emergency medicine HCP, bound by [...]

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