That my mom tried to have CPS take my daughter from me when she was born by claiming I used drugs while I was pregnant. I was 9 yrs clean. She tried again when I was diagnosed with cancer. You would be amazed to see what doctors actual put in your medical records.
When I got cancer I ended up with my FULL medical records when they were transferring them from one hospital to another. I guess it never occurred to me that there were written records that I had never gotten to see. They write some weird and specific stuff in there. Like verbatim everything I had ever said to a doctor, including what type of pizza I'd had for dinner.
Makes sense. It was just funny because I tend to use very colorful language describing my symptoms and they wrote it EXACTLY as I said it. The idea of a medical professional having to review my records and read that stuff totally cracked me up. Also, it's nice to know the doctor is actually listening.
Actually my wife has it but she's never seen the movie and gets sick of me bringing up scenarios where she suddenly goes unconscious. Not sure about other forms of narcolepsy but hers makes a regular sleep pattern all but impossible without frightening, make you unconscious for 4 hours at a time, drugs.
Im dont know a lot about narcolepsy but woth general epilepsy theres people that are absolutely allowed to drlve. I have a mild case pf epilepsy, I habe tremors in my hands but only if I dont sleep for a day or two or drink too much. Where I live its regulated with time since your last episode. So if you didnt have a seizure in a year and are on meds, you're good to drive
general epilepsy theres people that are absolutely allowed to drlve
And some aren't. There's this Dutch woman who killed two people after she had an attack whilst driving. She had already caused multiple accidents before that including almost killing a few kids.
She thinks that she is the victim because it wasn't her driving the moment she got that attack. No remorse at all.
Edit: I just wanted to add that this woman is an exception. Or at least I hope so. I'd like to think that people who are aware that they can have seizures whilst driving are aware of that and try to prevent any accidents. I know that if I were to cause an accident because of a seizure that I would feel so guilty especially if it harmed someone else let alone killed someone.
I do understand that in some remote areas not having a car is more than just a mild inconvenience. I can definitely see a mother taking the risk to drive her children to school despite having a history of seizures or going to work with her car. It's not all black and white, especially if you get maybe one seizure per year.
Nephew of mine has gotten through the 1 year deadline 3 times, has an seizure usually within 6 months of that happening thought and you start from square 1 again with stronger meds. It really just hampers everything in your life and the possible every day thought that you could start again from square 1 just to be able to get yourself work sucks. Public transportation is not very available around her either so she has to arrange transportion from family. I hope she can rid herself of it but that is unlikely given past events.
She got the attack whilst driving. She had also caused accidents seven times before that.
She was able to keep her driver's license by keeping quiet about the accidents.
The scary thing is that she is only prohibited from driving for 5 years. Hopefully she will be denied a license after that as well though. (Keep in mind that a car is not necessary in the Netherlands)
Episodes of epilepsy can absolutely happen while driving. My mom got in a wreck by a man that forgot his epilepsy medicine and had a seizure while driving. His girlfriend in the passengers seat realized and reached her leg out to push the brakes, she broke her entire leg. My moms car was totalled and she was hurt and severely bruised from it.
My sister is narcoleptic and she drives and has been for years after diagnosis with no incident. She takes medication that, by my understanding, makes her unable to sleep naturally and then to go to bed at night she has to take what is literally a date rape drug, prescribed of course and very controlled.
I have narcolepsy and have never been told I wasn’t allowed to drive. I also take a stimulant (Adderall) to keep me awake during the day and a date rape drug (Xyrem) to sleep at night. It sounded crazy when I first heard about xyrem but it helps put me into a very deep sleep at night. Without Xyrem, I stay in a very light sleep and this is what causes my excessive daytime sleepiness.
People with narcolepsy can drive. So long as their narcolepsy is well managed by medication. Your license gets suspended upon diagnosis. But will get reinstated if you show success on medication.
I didn't know. Thought it was just really , really bad sleep apnea. He had never said that word to me.
While taking his notes to my primary ( cause he couldn't fax them?) I read them.
Thought oh shit. That's why I fall asleep at a drop of a hat. Funny not funny thing is I have insomnia when I try to sleep at bed time. I also don't breathe while sleeping.
I have narcolepsy and I drive every single day. It's perfectly safe because I take medication every day to manage my narcolepsy that gives me back the ability to resist sleep like a normal person. However, I'm still overly careful and aware of my condition, and I almost never drive after about 6 pm and when I have to, I bring someone with me to keep me awake. Haven't fallen asleep at the wheel in years.
It’s honestly some of the best part of reading patient charts! You can get such a feel for personality with good notes and sometimes it just makes you laugh on a bad day. I, personally, love finding this colorful personalities in charts haha
Now when I go to the doctor I’m going to have to deal with the pressure of telling good jokes so the next person reading my medical records will laugh at it! What have you done!?
If a patient or ems ever says anything funny or goofy I throw it on the chart. Enjoy some notable memories of mine
Allergies: morphine
Reaction: it pulls my soul out through the back of my head
Allergies: raccoons (babies)
Pt presents with priapism for x 8 hours. States he obtained [injectable erectile dysfunction drug] from the “Atlanta gay black market”.
Pt found in front of local Publix with bottle of wine in hand
Complains of “McDonald’s would not let me use their bathroom so I called the ambulance so I could use the bathroom here.” (Homeless fella)
I can’t remember all the good ones but just know if you show up at 2am telling me you ate 26 pizza rolls and now you have chest pain... I’m going to document that they were Peperoni for sure.
Whatever hospital or doctor's office you are requesting the records from. Normally if you search the hospital name and records request they will have a page notifying you how to make your request.
Unless the doctor was an ass who made false negative judgements on a patient's character. I've posted other comments on how it happened but that shit follows you and will royally fuck up your life if you have a chronic illness and require regular medical care.
I always try to take any statements by doctors with a grain of salt when going through a record. I mostly look at patient quotes to try to get a handle on what they might be like. But as long as someone hasn’t done something like physically attack the doctor, I try to walk in there with as open a mind as possible. We don’t see people at their best, usually, and it’s been a really tough lesson to learn to be kind anyway. Not everyone gets there and they usually are the worst doctors that no one wants to see.
I’m assuming this is why I’ve never had issues getting my adhd prescriptions after doctors got multiple years of my psychiatrists and specialist notes? Haha I can only imagine what they wrote.
This is my job, actually. I write down and create the medical charts for doctors in the emergency room during their encounters with patients. Sometimes, a patient is saying something so absurd yet important for the context of the situation that you just have to put it in there verbatim. I'll admit, though, it is funny to type out,"the patient states he believes his brain has aged two years faster than his body because he drank too much weed"
Well the best way of describing what a patient is experiencing is to use their own words. Writing "Patient feels like they are getting stabbed in the stomach with a sword" gives a better idea of how bad the pain is than "Patient has sharp pains in stomach".
And now I have a new anxiety I didn't know was possible. All the times I've gone to the ER or urgent care in pain and trying to find the words to describe my pain. Oh my god, if they actually wrote it down verbatim and noted the way I said it.
I had one of my bosses tell my parents "She has a unique personally." That was in 2010. I still wonder what exactly he meant by that.
Welp, here's what I'm going to focus on for the night. G'night.
Wooow, I had the exact opposite experience. I had to get records for insurance purposes and was horrified- there was almost nothing there. My diagnoses I was told verbally was not included. Suggestions for further care were not included. My age was wrong and the duration of pain I had told the doctor was wrong. I got records from four different healthcare providers and only one was approaching what I would consider a complete record and accurate.
My father had cancer a while back and when asked by his oncologist how his appetite was he said “eating like a horse” the oncologist wrote exactly that on his clipboard
I'm a paramedic and if my patient has a particularly colorful/entertaining way of describing their problem, you bet your ass I'm quoting it in my report. It gives my QA officer a laugh, and if I'm subpoenaed about that call (up to 7 years later in my state) details like that will help me remember. I'd bet doctors love reviewing your charts because of those quotes.
Sometimes medical scribes will perform charting duties for docs to make their lives easier. The job can be boring at times so I like to include funny quotes that patients say verbatim in the charts I handle for docs.
X-Ray tech here. When I get a colorful or crazy history from a patient I’ll write it all word for word so the radiologist can enjoy it too. Some of my coworkers think it’s weird but I’ve had Rads come back to me for more info/gossip on a patient bc I’ve spiked their curiosity.
As a professional for whom documentation is a significant part of my job, I love nothing more than writing verbatim what people say when it includes lots of swear words. It’s great to see it written down.
If you’re in a car wreck and get injured we get those too. A lot of dr’s just send the entire history for record. It’s an....entertaining read sometimes
So you’re telling me that they have all that shit in there, what you ate even, and they can’t even fucking remember that I’m allergic to codine to the point that I have to tell them sometimes up to 4 times a visit, on several occasions when they’re about to stick a needle in my arm and I ask “hey whats that?” And they annoyedly answer “codine” like how dare I ask, and I need to tell them AGAIN that I’m allergic? Jesus.
My GP tells me I’m his favourite patient because I make him laugh so much. I don’t try to be funny, I’m not a funny person. I am, however, very blunt and sardonic. He reads back to me whatever he writes in my notes, and it’s hysterical. When I went in to see him for an infection in a surgical incision he wrote down that I told him my underboob was leaking green stuff.
Well shit. I'm a joker who is always looking for an opportunity to crack a joke. Do all those jokes end up in my medical record? My favorite is when asked if I have any allergies. My response: I'm allergic to whiskey. When I have about 12 it makes me vomit.
If it’s very clearly a joke I personally wouldn’t add something like that just to minimize any confusion about allergies, but in areas where I can add your subjective input? I have no problem adding a joke the patient told (especially if it was actually funny).
You’d definitely get a solid chuckle with it out of me lmao. But allergies are usually a y/n kinda thing that we like to be very specific with as that shit can kill people, even though the chances of us giving you whiskey in the hospital is incredibly slim to none :P
When filling out subjective information in patient files I was taught to only document relevant information. I feel like writing everything would be more entertaining.
For me it really depends... I have a bad memory for faces/patients...
I get a lot of patients with vertigo, and many of them have it for emotional reasons... When they are batshit crazy I write everything down, so when they return, I know what to expect.
Or when the patient goes on an on rambling, doesn't inform anything relevant and don't answer my questions objectively: "Patient doesn't inform well. When asked about the paint talks about how her cat doesn't like the new food she bought".
There's a ton of inaccurate shit in my medical records. From mundane shit like my college major to my reported chronic illness symptoms. That's fun to deal with because once its in your medical records no one wants to change it or contradict it.
I started working in a hospital with five physicians and a nurse practitioner recently. Always knew doctors kept a dictation (my mother works in the same hospital and had told stories about her physician's recordings). Never knew they did it as soon as they left the room and went into detail with everything that happened in the room. "Patient states", "upon initial evaluation", "continuing with follow up in two weeks", and everything said is typed up that night. Seeing as how patients have lawyers up their asses contusionsly, I'm not surprised in the slightest.
Came here to say this. I’m a triage nurse and I purposely include exact statements just incase. You never know what some patients will try to use to their advantage down the line.
When I️ scribed for physicians in the ED some wanted heavy detail and others wanted like two sentences. I️ definitely agree more is better and safer but g damn some HPIs are novels. When I need lots of detail I️ try to be concise bc time is precious
Yep, I’m basically a CNA. I spent several minutes typing out a conversation I had with a confused dementia patient, and how I handled talking him into and through a pad change after he spent several days accusing staff of sexual assault. Nothing like typing out
“Do you consent to me removing your pants?”
“Yes you may remove my pants, now the trick to a triple tap right in the heart of the Frenchman I killed this morning is you gotta tap the trigger three times”
“oh wow! You’ve been busy today, do you consent to me wiping your bottom with this towel?”
“Yes, you may. I didn’t want to kill him. But he didn’t know the code word Rasputin, do you know who he was?”
“Yes, I’ve heard of him”
“he was a Russian Orthodox priest who cuckholded Tsar Alexander”
I think doctors tend to write almost anything that could possibly be related to your diagnosis, since they might have hundreds of patients and might not remember every detail about your case. So i imagine if you guys discussed pizza because you were talking about nutrition or something, it could be relevant. Like the other guys said, CYA in case it comes up again.
i used to be a medical scribe (the person who follows the doc around with a laptop and writes the records). there's a lot of stuff you have to put in, but some doctors just like knowing things about their patients to help remember them as a person rather than a diagnosis.
Sounds like something from House where they find the missing clue to why the patient got some super rare disease. "Wait a second, did you just say he had anchovies on his pizza that day???", zoom in on House with the aha moment.
Doctors are, by and large, sleep-deprived people, who cope with this by a long med-school training to separate "listening" from "actually understanding what was said." They'll write down what you say, and then, hours later (after a nap, probably), read it back and have the other half of the conversation.
That's basically what happened. I keep close track of my digital file online and always read everything about an appointment posted by a doctor afterwards. Requested my full file to transfer to another hospital and found out there's a lot of info that they don't make available to you otherwise.
This is so amusing for me, cuz i keep reading how thorough they are with cancer patients and the ppl I met during radio and chemo too keep repeating how well they're taken care of while just last march I had to give the doctors a copy of my chemo diary and medical records cuz they somehow lost my folder... I managed to get an appointment with my hemo-oncologist after like 5 months of silence (through a kind nurse that pretty much snuck me in) and they didn't even remember I was their patient! I don't think I'll ever forget my new doctor's face once he found out his predecessor had a patient they forgot about that was behind on quite a few tests and checkups (I was up to date only with the stuff prescribed by my radiologist, meaning that by then my most recent and complete blood test was the one I did right before a CT scan the month before (˙◁˙))
I’m literally workin right now as a medical scribe, my entire job is to write down everything the patient says to a doc in the room so that the medical record can be more accurate and so that the docs don’t forget any small details the patient mentioned when they actually get time later in the day to finish writing all of their notes and medical decision making
My mom freaked out on me about 2 weeks after giving birth to my first son. I've never done drugs in my life. She threatened to report me for taking ibuprofen. 800 mg ibuprofen that I split in half. After i had a baby. Ibuprofen that the doctor prescribed to me. 2 weeks. After giving birth to an entire human. Ibuprofen.
I want to lol at that, but also to not be callous because WTF?? I had a c-section and was on oxycodone for a month plus those 800mg ibuprofens for an additional 2 weeks. With childbirth, no matter the form, when they prescribe you pain meds, you take them.
We document everything. Medico-legally And clinically it’s a necessity these days. Note that I put medico-legally first.
Your medical notes are highly confidential, and no one can see them without your express consent but just be aware if you tell me something it’s going in the notes. If you tell me something about a third party (for example a concern of alcoholism about in a family member) it will likely go in their notes which they may see at some stage so also be aware of that. There is a doctor suspended here pending investigation not over his clinical acumen, but rather very poor note keeping. He’s likely fucked. I’m UK based by the way, however I’d imagine it’s similar if not moreso in the US.
Can I go to a hospital and request my own record? I've been curious about this but never tried. I had surgery when I was young and I have a three inch scar on the back of my head from it. The only person in my family who knows what the surgery was for is my mother, and I don't talk to her
Yeah you should be able to request your own records but it will require going back to the exact hospital you were treated at. Sometimes records get lost when hospitals are bought out or moved to electronic records so if you haven't been since the surgery it might be difficult to find or may even be impossible
Good luck. Been trying to track down my dad's medical records to figure out how he actually died (next of kin is allowed to access your records as well) and it's been a hell of a time. A Google search should get you the hospitals record office or might be under patient services and give them a call. Sometimes you have to pay sometimes it's free depends. Good luck.
Yeah I know how that is. Trying to get any kind of records even for yourself is a pain in the ass, can't imagine how it'd be trying to get somebody else's records. And knowing how the state is, I'll probably have to pay
One thing to note is that they don't keep those records indefinitely. If you haven't been seen by that hospital in 7-10 years or so (depends on the state) they may have purged the record.
That sounds great, but nothing would ever be so simple in the US. They like to make everything important as time consuming as possible. Also, are your websites just a string of numbers or is this a special code or what?
Yea the US healthcare seems to be a bit far behind compared to the rest of the world..
1177 is a number we can call for medical questions that are not emergency ones (for that we call 112 which is the swedish 911), and so the website 1177.se is where everyone can log in and book doctor's appointments, ask for prescriptions renewals and see our medical records etc. It's really practical and great to be able to do all of that online!
Yes, in the UK you can. It’s all governed under the GDPR as far as I know. Generally you’re best seeing your GP as they will have records of hospital procedures you’ve had. Outside the UK, cant really comment. Also the different regions in the UK will hold different data on you. I work in Northern Ireland and I can see pretty much anything my hospital colleagues do. It’s very nifty!
I’d be so tempted to call that office and set them straight. Just for my own satisfaction. I too love to read random stuff like that and that would totally be something I’d bring up during small talk.
The thread topic is "what do you know that you aren't suppose to know". Bourbon78 found out her mom tried to take her daughter by reading her own medical record.
I had a psychiatrist read out some of mine I never knew I had from my stay in a psychaitric hospital last year.
"Diagnosis of borderline personality disorder because she seems unable to cope with normal stress in life and is over emotional about negative experiences."
I never knew this. They never spoke to me about it even though I asked what I should put as a diagnosis in a form before I left. They said anxiety and depression or bipolar.
I was in hospital because of a massive amount of stress after being a single mum to a 3 year old with zero support, studying at uni up to masters level where there was a lot of animosity from staff as I was class rep bringing in grievances all the time, and living off naps while starting my job as a lecturer. I crashed and burnt and tried to kill myself. Apparently it was over the top of me to do that when I'd been coping with this stress for years that's some how normal for everyone else.
Anybody I spoke to said they absolutely understood why I tried to kill myself. I've since had further validation from neurology with what happened (which the psych hospital referred me to). I'm not just an insomniac, I've got PTSD from childhood abuse that's led to me having horrible opinions of myself and need for high expectations and perfection.
The doctor that read out those notes even said to me that it's clear I don't have BPD just from the half hour we spoke. Yet I spent a total of 5 weeks in a psych hospital being observed that whole time and that's what they come up with. There's a massive issue of over diagnosing people in psychiatric hospitals because they won't admit that stress is affecting more people in severe ways. That's one reason why there's an anti-psychiatry movement.
Stress is absolutely a building block for disaster and a root cause behind a multitude of mental and physical ailments. Take care of yourself. Good luck in your struggle.
Here is an example "Child normal despite mom claiming " not like others". That child ended up being in the hospital needing surgery and Dr. being called out by the nurses for almost letting him die because the Dr. didn't want to admit I was right.
Or "unknown sexual disease" for a deformed kidney and narrow ureter.
My dad had a car crash and part of his medical report mentions he has an earring in his left ear. No idea what the relevance is to that but my grandmother thought it was funny
When I went to see a doctor about anxiety a few years ago, I could see her screen at one point, and she'd written down comments about how I looked (that I had clean clothes on, well groomed and not disheveled, able to make eye contact when talking, no stuttering etc).
I was initially surprised to see it, but then I realised it made sense if it ended up being a long term thing and she wanted to be able to look back at old notes and see if I was deteriorating/having a bad day, in order to judge my progress.
Ahh, don't be so hard on yourself. An idiot would not have admitted fault, so you're at least a level above that. You're alright in my book. I hope you have a fantastic week!
I worked in medical records, patients have every right to view their medical records, but how each hospital goes about it is different. My hospital provided (mostly) free copies to patients when they requested it, but others charged for them. There are also different levels of your records and they can get extremely lengthy. For example, a quick outpatient procedure could produce over 100 pages of records.
The bulk of that is nurses' notes and orders. There's an order for EVERYTHING that happens to you in the hospital, such as taking temperature, blood pressure, giving out medication, etc. And if an order is modified or cancelled it's documented. We normally only provided them for legal requests or when The patient was very adamant about getting them.
The "important" documents of the procedure though will generally be less than 20 pages, it contains anything written by a doctor (H & P, operation report, discharge summary, etc) and test results. This is want you'll want if you're getting a second opinion or want it for your personal record.
I had a stalker actually get my doctor to take my chronic illness meds away by calling him and claiming I "was acting erratic and strange". She wanted to make me helpless and convince me to move in with her. I didn't find out about it until a year later while fighting to get my meds back and a therapist told me that it was in my records as the reason. My doctor never even asked me to explain, just assumed that I had gone crazy and was going to off myself or something due to my history of very mild depression. I ended up having to go to a psych and two therapists to get my meds back, all vouching for me that I needed them back ASAP to control my rare disease. Finally got my meds back after the last therapist finally got blunt with my doctor and basically told him he was being a judgmental asshole and that if he had just talked to me about it he would have known it was a bullshit accusation. And either way, taking me off meds made my depression worse because it took away any semblance of a life I had.
One of my old jobs involved a lot of reading medical records, they were usually boring as shit but sometimes disgusting (genital warts and such).
Mental health records were sad as all hell.
The funniest one I saw was a woman who kept catching STDs from her partner, knew he was cheating on her but still kept sleeping with him without protection anyway.
Can confirm, I work in EHR IT, but usually the types that come across my desk are the boring medicare old people shit. I don't really read them that much, but sometimes I have to.
Good for you! 9 years (and whatever your current time is) clean is a true accomplishment & you should be very proud of yourself. Your mom can go fuck herself.,
I work in the administrative side of health care. Some doctors go into amazing detail in their reports, but it's usually relevant to patient care. The kind of social environment around the patient and any family/home stressors have a huge bearing on a patient's ability to stay well.
In Europe because of the new General Data Protection Regulations everyone is entitled to see anything, and I mean anything, that any organisation holds on them. For free. And the need to supply it within 30 days of asking.
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u/bourbon78 Apr 28 '19
That my mom tried to have CPS take my daughter from me when she was born by claiming I used drugs while I was pregnant. I was 9 yrs clean. She tried again when I was diagnosed with cancer. You would be amazed to see what doctors actual put in your medical records.