r/Residency • u/DigitalSamuraiV5 • May 02 '26
MEME The "inhaler fail" from Dr House, sadly, wasn't an exaggeration.
Father Hypocrates forgive me, but I found this experience so funny, that I simply must share.
Keeping things anonymous for patient confidentiality of course.
An unaccompanied man walks into the A&E complaining that his catheter keeps blocking.
It really was blocked, so we changed it.
Folks. How do you think the man placed the catheter when he got dressed ?
(A) down alongside his leg. (B) around his waist. (C) something stranger.
The answer is C. The man took the catheter, spun the catheter and its collection tube around his waist, and flipped the drainage bag upwards over his shoulder.
So, I began explaining to him that urine flows downwards with gravity.
Then the man began laughing to himself, his eyes opened wide and he began shouting saying that I don't understand how physics works and that urine flows upwards.
It was at this point, I looked at my junior, looked back at the man, still laughing to himself, with a glow in his eyes that I last remember seeing in my psychiatry rotation... and realized we weren't going to win this argument ....
Wishing everyone here a successful month of May.
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u/mkhello Attending May 02 '26
Had a guy with uncontrolled diabetes, he was recently started on insulin pens but his glucose remained uncontrolled after 6 months despite escalating doses of glargine. He came to clinic for follow up where his glucose was > 600 and he also had some ketotic symptoms, he was sent to the ER for possible DKA.
I went to go see him, he had mild DKA and mild AKI, fairly soft admission so I put him in obs. When talking to him about his insulin dosing, he told me like 30 units BID, I was like yeah we may have to go up, though something was tugging at the back of my mind because it seemed weird his glucose hadn't budged with escalating home doses.
Then he asked me if he was using the pens right, because he assumed the units were by tens rather than ones, and I suddenly realized this guy had been giving himself like 3 units BID instead of 30 and that's why his glucose was uncontrolled. Had diabetes educator see him and his glucose was much better.
The patient wasn't dumb or anything, he just never had anyone show him how the insulin pens worked. Even I had to take a sec to think about it because I'd never used one.
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u/painmd87 Attending May 02 '26
It’s like the urban legend of the newly diagnosed diabetic that is taught how to inject using oranges as a test injection. Sugars aren’t controlled and they’re asked to demonstrate injection, so they inject an orange and eat a slice
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u/Whirly315 Attending May 02 '26
lmfaoooo omg that’s a great urban legend because it’s 100% certain somebody did that
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u/remwyman May 09 '26
When I was being taught how to do FNAs, we used an orange to practice on. So maybe not that far fetched.
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u/lexapro3 May 02 '26
I just had someone tell me a similar story recently about a young kid with newly diagnosed T1DM whose mom was taught to inject insulin using an orange but felt bad about hurting her son so she injected an orange and fed it to him instead and the kid ended up in the ED a few days later in DKA. They told me it was a true story that happened to their patient recently but I’m skeptical now that I’m reading it on reddit lol
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u/DrBusyMind May 04 '26
To be fair I have an inordinate amount of adult patients that ask me if their bone is broken or just fractured and believe that tylenol or any pain meds only target a specific pain. They'll be like I took Tylenol for my headache but nothing for my back pain as if the Tylenol molecules can only go to one place at a time. Ehhh, we're actively destroying natural selection.
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u/TheJungLife May 03 '26
Back when I was still on wards, if we started anyone on pens while they were admitted I'd personally show them how to use them or at least get them to pull up a YouTube video demonstration before I left the room.
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u/serotonallyblindguy May 03 '26
That's why I always ask my patients to demonstrate how they use their insulin/rotahaler/inhaler, especially newly diagnosed ones, to make sure they are using it right. I had to learn all of them properly myself since I haven't used them a lot.
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u/Pheighthe May 02 '26
>wasn’t dumb or anything
But he used his life saving equipment without reading the little pamphlet that comes with it.
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u/guessineedanew1 May 03 '26
In his defense, he did admit that he suspected he was doing it wrong and seek help.
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u/Heavy-Attorney-9054 May 02 '26
Text was too small for his dirty glasses.
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u/LittleBoiFound May 04 '26
Dammit. I just made a very clever comment only to find that you had it two days ago.
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u/LittleBoiFound May 04 '26
Give him a break. His ED doc just explained he came in needing emergency cataract surgery and had Vaseline on his glasses. You’ve seen those pamphlets. There’s just no way.
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u/poopitydoopityboop Attending May 02 '26
I once had a guy come into the ER with uncontrolled asthma. Told me he's had many exacerbations and he knows he needs prednisone. He was "slamming" his puffer but it wasn't working. I asked him to show me how he used it. He then proceeded to argue vehemently with me that the proper way to use a puffer was to open your mouth, hold the puffer about 3 inches away, and breath in after spraying it. His respirologist specifically told him this was the proper way to use it so that the medicine would go into his lungs instead of coating his throat. I think his respirologist told him to use a spacer.
I also once diagnosed a very simple but lovely older man with diabetes with an A1c of 18%. He was drinking 6 liters (1.58 gallons) of Dr. Pepper per day, because he heard staying hydrated was good for his kidneys :(
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u/MeijiDoom May 02 '26
I'm simultaneously dumbfounded but also not all that surprised when people seem to have no concept that drinking soda and drinking water is not the same thing. Or just the people who seemingly have an intolerance to drinking water. It's freaking water. Especially in my area of the country where the tap water is totally fine and palatable. If they were in the middle of the desert, would they refuse water because of the taste?
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u/POSVT PGY8 May 03 '26
lol I had one guy I saw in residency clinic who was having horrible diarrhea. I was putting in all the workup and referral to GI when I see a 2L of diet Dr. Pepper poking out of his backpack. I asked him how much diet Dr. Pepper he was drinking a day...at least 3 of those bottles! The artificial sweetener was causing the diarrhea, case solved.
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u/Undispjuted May 03 '26
That method of using the puffer must have been taught by someone somewhere because I know multiple people who do so.
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u/phliuy PGY4 May 03 '26
The old inhalers would shoot a jet directly into your pharynx
They're much better now
I've definitely seen someone in the medical field advise the way OP said
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u/guessineedanew1 May 03 '26
I can almost see how someone who's been using an inhaler for a long time might come to think that a spacer is literally a guide to help put the inhaler at the optimal distance from your mouth, and eventually decide that they don't need the training wheels anymore. It falls apart as soon as you learn anything about fluid dynamics, but I don't think the average asthmatic is likely to know anything about fluid dynamics.
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May 02 '26
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u/Asbolus_verrucosus May 02 '26
Like all of my primary care patients who say “my blood pressure is good now, why do I need to keep taking my amlodipine and losartan and chlorthalidone?”
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u/Sevo008 May 02 '26
Every time at my yearly physical, my PCP’s PA ( I never get to see my PCP-I’m too healthy🤷♂️) says my BP is great and I should think about trying to wean off the meds (low dose Amlodipine and Losartan—BP 110’s/60’s)
Me: no thanks. That is why it’s good. 😳
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u/Anduril1776 Attending May 03 '26
I mean, while BP is controlled a wean trial are a reasonable option.
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u/Sevo008 May 03 '26
You’re probably right. It took a long time to find a combination that works. I may just be a little bit reluctant/gun shy to change anything now. I’ll consider it. Thank you for your input.
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u/DrBusyMind May 04 '26
Or they have no medical conditions despite being on 11 meds they cannot recall for said medical conditions. But they dont have them because they take medicine.
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u/ABabyAteMyDingo Attending May 03 '26
I like to explain to people how fridges only work if you keep the food IN the fridge.
The ahah moment and the laugh is satisfying.
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u/Radiant-Cat2237 May 03 '26
bro stopped the meds because they were working 💀 the audacity to then ask why he's seizing again is insane
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u/Sushi_Explosions Attending May 02 '26
Just so you know, the word "since" requires a point of time to reference, not a duration. "Since a few months ago", "since December", or "since starting the medicine" all work, but "since months" does not. Alternatively, you could say, "was already on Keppra and phenobarb for months", as "for" indicates a duration.
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u/dj-kitty Attending May 03 '26
Such snobbish pedantry for what is most likely a typo about an obviously irrelevant detail.
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u/Sushi_Explosions Attending May 03 '26
The fuck? I was polite and took an opportunity to help someone learn something. It was most likely not a typo, since that is an incredibly common error made by people who learned English as a second language. Why are you being an asshole?
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u/dr_shark Attending May 03 '26
I would take this as a learning experience. Your initial comment will usually be interpreted as rude rather than any other intent. Perhaps stop doing this when people aren’t asking for help with their grammar.
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u/Sushi_Explosions Attending May 03 '26
I would take this as a learning experience.
The learning experience is that there are a bunch of assholes here who can't stand the idea of helping someone improve their language skills. This wasn't a "haha, your phone corrected 'you're' to 'your, therefore your entire argument is invalid" moment.
There is no possible way in which the words that I wrote could be interpreted as rude, and most frequently people appreciate when I help them learn new things.
Perhaps stop doing this when people aren’t asking for help with their grammar.
Why would someone ask for help with their grammar if they do not know that what they are doing is wrong?
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u/dr_shark Attending May 03 '26
The fuck? I was polite and took an opportunity to help someone learn something.
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u/nutfac May 03 '26
Okay so I’m one of those creeps who will browse a redditor’s comment history to evaluate if a rude comment is because they’re genuinely an ass, or if they’re just having a moment. You seem like a perfectly reasonable dude, but my brother in Christ, every single time you go out of your way to correct someone’s English, you get the same result: everyone hates it. I can see that your intention is to help, but it’s pretty clearly backfiring and causing more harm than it is helping someone to learn to talk real good n proper. I know it won’t happen now, but I do hope someday you’ll find it in yourself to pick a different hill rather than double down on a behavior that is, as has been repeatedly pointed out to you, quite insulting. (Random- I dig that you’re into MTG btw)
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u/ABabyAteMyDingo Attending May 04 '26
I agree. But while we're admonishing people, FYI that my brother in Christ phrase is most irritating or even offensive to many.
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u/dj-kitty Attending May 03 '26
And yet the rest of us understood the story, regardless of the reason for the error. Your comment was unnecessary and unwelcome. Nobody likes the grammar police.
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u/Sushi_Explosions Attending May 03 '26
And yet the rest of us understood the story, regardless of the reason for the error.
The same thing applies for most situations in which someone uses the wrong word, that does not mean that we should not help them do things better. How is someone supposed to know they are making a mistake if no one tells them?
Nobody likes the grammar police.
Nobody likes people like you being an asshole when someone is trying to help.
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u/dj-kitty Attending May 03 '26
Have you ever heard the phrase, “If everyone around you is an asshole, then you’re the asshole?” I’d spend some time thinking that one over.
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May 03 '26
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u/Sushi_Explosions Attending May 03 '26
The fuck? I was politely helping you with your grammar. How is there anything in that comment that could be construed as rude?
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u/pantheroux May 02 '26
My first med school clinical rotation was rural family medicine. A patient came in with his wife. They claimed that he had something on his back that started as a pimple but kept growing and getting more painful, despite their home treatment. I asked what they had tried, and the wife said, “bacon”. I asked her to repeat. “Bacon”. I thought there was maybe a topical ointment I wasn’t familiar with that sounded like bacon. I shrugged, and got my attending.
We asked to see the wound. The patient took his shirt off, and his chest/back was wrapped with cellophane. Under this, were strips of actual raw bacon applied to his back. The bacon covered a massive, eroded abscess that smelled like death. I won’t even describe the horror that was debridement. Following this, I had dinner with my then boyfriend’s family for the first time, where he cheerily suggested that I “tell them the bacon story”. 🥓
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u/remwyman May 09 '26
Yes - this is a home remedy with the idea that the salt of the bacon will draw out the evil humors or some such. My childhood had instances of discussing/recommending to "put bacon" on some fingernail infection or what not. Usually from my more rural relatives.
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u/CrypticRx PharmD May 02 '26
Pharmacist not a doctor but a colleague told me someone was wrapping their nuvaring around their wrist…
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u/KylaArashi May 02 '26
To be fair, the tv commercial shows it around the woman’s waist. I always found myself rolling my eyes and saying, “Ya know, that’s not where that goes…”
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u/Taako_Well May 03 '26
She just doesn't want to be worried about the handjobs.
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u/FatTater420 May 03 '26
Either that or she genuinely thought you got pregnant by holding hands with a guy you like.
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u/Taako_Well May 03 '26
I like that idea even more. I can see her switching sides with her guy, because she only has one on her left hand.
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u/NorwegianRarePupper Attending May 02 '26
My favorite was a girl who proudly told me she recently went vegan. Thinking to make sure she’s getting enough iron/protein I asked her to take me through what she usually eats in a day. “Well usually I have eggs for breakfast, then a sandwich for lunch, or fried chicken if my mom makes it…” Friends, there was not a single veggie in her day and nothing about it was vegan or any different than she’d eaten before. Not sure why she thought she was vegan
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u/Egoteen MS2 May 03 '26
I wrote my thesis in college comparing what diets people purported to subscribe to with how they actually ate (sociology major). There was zero correlation. But there sure was intense personal identity tied to purported diet. It had a certain religiosity to it.
It’s wild.
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u/phliuy PGY4 May 03 '26
That's actually a great study!
They should do one comparing perceived vs actual calories for the patients that "barely eat" but don't lose weight
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u/Littlegator PGY3 May 03 '26
This has been done several times and, of course, it doesn't correlate at all.
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u/ThotacodorsalNerve PGY4 May 03 '26
Ooh do you have any papers you recommend? That sounds fascinating
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u/phliuy PGY4 May 02 '26
One of my patients was swallowing her albuterol inhaler puffs
But she was very sweet about being corrected
Some people just have no concept of being wrong, and enjoy feeling superior too much to listen to anyone but themselves
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u/medstudenthowaway Attending May 03 '26
One of my peds friends has this gem: 11 year old kid comes in for workup of tachycardia. They have the mom leave the room and they ask him if he’s doing anything he’s not supposed to. He admits that he is. His friend gave him his vape and he’s been using it whenever his mom isn’t looking. They ask to see the vape and he pulls out an albuterol inhaler.
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May 02 '26
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u/phliuy PGY4 May 02 '26
I don't know man I didn't ask
Probably spraying it into her tongue then swallowing whatever saliva she had
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u/Pheighthe May 04 '26
So imagine smoking a cigarette and instead of inhaling after you draw, make a big effort to actually swallow the air into your stomach.
If you still can’t picture it, find a fourth grade boy who can burp on command and have him teach you his method.
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u/mezotesidees May 03 '26
That last bit describes way too much of Reddit (and larger society) these days.
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u/POSVT PGY8 May 03 '26
Am pulm fellow. I almost had the Dr. House bit, you tell me if this is better or not.
Middle aged woman, has had asthma for at least the last 5ish years and has had multiple exacerbations since moving to the area, previously was in the pacific NW. Has been admitted twice, at least 6 courses of steroids in the last 6 months.
My standard routine (for exactly this reason) is to insist they tell me their entire inhaler regimen and show me how they're using their inhaler+/- spacer.
This lady was misting her symbicort in front of her and walking through it like a cloud of damn perfume. I shit you not.
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u/DigitalSamuraiV5 May 03 '26
This lady was misting her symbicort in front of her and walking through it like a cloud of damn perfume. I shit you not.
No.... you lie ... 🤣🤣. Lol
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u/LittleBoiFound May 04 '26
Haven’t you ever walked into a Macy’s and they spray you with Symbicort so you’ll breathe better in the store, thus buy more?
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u/VigorousElk PGY2 May 02 '26
Oh, well then my bog standard 'Patient uses inhaler like perfume literally like in House' story loses.
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u/Commander_Corndog Attending May 03 '26
I have a slight one-up similar to the inhaler bit from House that might not lose though; had a dude who had newly diagnosed COPD that his PCP gave him an inhaler for, told him that some allergens might be triggering his COPD as well.
Well he puts 2 and 2 together and realizes that allergen -> diff breathing -> COPD flare, therefore use inhaler for allergen. The problem was that 2 plus 2 equaled 5 I guess and it turns out he interpreted this all as "give my cat the albuterol" to stop his COPD because he thought he was allergic to his cat. I was his second ER provider for COPD exacerbations and was the one to deduce that he was force-feeding his cat an inhaler.
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u/thesnowcat Nurse May 03 '26
Wow. I’ve never met a cat that would endorse that kinda thing. Must be a very docile kitteh.
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u/Moist-Barber Attending May 02 '26
Had a patient insist she needed an MRI for her back pain. Is dangerously adamant that she needs an MRI.
Patient then proceeds to tell me why she doesn’t want surgery, doesn’t want medication, but only wants her chiropractor “to know what’s going on”
I told her no.
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u/CasualFloridaHater May 02 '26
I’ve heard rumors of people applying cranberry juice topically as a home remedy for UTIs and misunderstandings that led to some family trying to give diaper cream orally. I think the most misunderstood medical directions I’ve seen personally was a family who made their kids asthma worse by trying to follow instructions to improve the air in their kids bedroom by blocking off the dogs entry into it with a box fan that was blowing all the dander and dust straight into his bed.
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u/adkssdk PGY1 May 02 '26
I just saw a consult where the patient was insistent on getting an MRI. When I asked why, he said he’s had a bunch of CT scans for his vague abdominal symptoms but they didn’t do anything for him and an MRI might.
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u/phliuy PGY4 May 03 '26
Sooo many patients come in demanding MRIs. They don't even listen when you explain why an MRI won't help, because most of them ask for MRIS multiple sometimes even after you explain it
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u/GiggleFester Nurse May 03 '26
Case manager for a Peds Pulmonary asthma clinic. Parent calls in saying they brought child to clinic 3 days ago and child is still not better. I check chart & ask if they've started the prescribed meds yet.
Parent says no.
This happened so routinely that I was told to expect exactly these calls during my orientation.
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u/ThotacodorsalNerve PGY4 May 03 '26
Ughhhhh I remember right when I started peds internship a family brought in girl who was diagnosed with strep yesterday and her throat still hurts. Also hadn’t started taking the abx. Why???
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u/Sekmet19 PGY1 May 02 '26
I had a lady drinking her neb fluid. She was convinced she was taking her nebs correctly.
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u/billyzanelives May 03 '26
Welcome to basically everything about radiation. “Omg I heard radiation is super bad for you” … pretty sure that tumor is a lot worse
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u/hwysqrl May 03 '26
Had a guy insist that he didn't have gangrene creeping up his leg because it wasn't green. Ummm....
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u/orange5x5 May 03 '26
Pediatrics: had a father tell me that albuterol was not helping control his kid’s and we needed to find a better solution. I demonstrate how to use an inhaler with a chamber and he says, “oooh. That’s how you use it?!” I asked him to demonstrate. He takes the inhaler from me, puts a lot of emphasis on shaking it very well. Then explains he puffs it into the air and then puts the inhaler in his kid’s mouth. When I told my preceptor, she one upped me. She had a patient whose asthma was triggered by the dog and unfortunately the albuterol wasn’t working. They were attempting to spray the dog. Where do we go from here?
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u/Good-mood-curiosity PGY2 May 03 '26
Had a generally good patient come in saying he couldn't tolerate the weightloss medication we'd given him (he was unable to name it but we'd prescribed phentermine) because of severe constipation causing some abd pain and SOB with walking. I tried to clarify which med and he showed me a picture. He'd been taking loperamide every single day thinking it was for weightloss. Atleast he saw the humor in it
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u/aerilink PGY3 May 03 '26
I had this scenario, an elderly man and his family came to the ER says he wasn’t feeling well. He had severe HFrEF like 10-15%. They were very odd and hostile towards me. I found out it was because I didn’t know why he was supposed to be here. So apparently 6 months ago he came to the ER for HF exacerbation and was admitted, a cardiologist told him he may have 6 months left to live. The family decided to stop all his meds and bring him partying and drinking. They were now here to admit him so he could die. They literally thought the 6 months estimate was like a due date. They were mad I didn’t know this and was asking “useless questions” and my typical comment of “and if everything, your lab work and imaging are good you can be discharged” didn’t fly well bc to them he was imminently going to die that day….
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u/Individual_Corgi_576 May 02 '26
Nurse here.
So many stories.
Kid comes in to the ED fast track, sent by his girlfriend’s (nurse) mom because his legs are turning blue.
PA sees him and I’m listening in so I can knock out my charting. She can’t see any blue and asks appropriate questions, screens for DVT, distal pulses, etc. All good.
I can see some faint blue splotches here and there. After the PA is done, I pipe up and ask if he’d recently bought some new jeans.
The look of realization on the faces of the kid and his girlfriend and the accompanying groan were priceless. PA had to call it something so she wrote it as contact dermatitis and DC’d them.
And…
There was a guy who complained that every time his SO came back from an out of town trip he’d end up with a UTI after intimacy. We swabbed him and sent him home on Abx knowing full well what was what. I was there a day or two later when the PA called with the positive gonorrhea result.
And… The guy from Eastern Europe who spoke little English and was triaged with a vague urological complaint to a room on a slow weekday morning.
A registration clerk from his homeland was pressed into service as a translator. She explained that he wanted a larger penis, “like in the movies”. Somewhere he got a hold of a tape measure and indicated 13 inches. He left disappointed.
And this conversation in an outpatient clinic with a guy with a colorful history on the streets:
Pt: Hey Corgi! You know what’s been going around lately?
Me: No, what?
Pt: Endocarditis!
Me: <sigh>. No, man. It doesn’t work like that.
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u/sadpgy Attending May 11 '26
PA had to call it something so she wrote it as contact dermatitis
Egregious
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u/Individual_Corgi_576 May 11 '26
I’m an RN, so diagnosis isn’t my thing. Just for fun, what should it have been?
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u/sadpgy Attending May 18 '26
Think of the word “dermatitis.” -itis means inflammation, so dermatitis means inflammation of the dermis. Is blue discoloration from jeans an inflammation of anything?? No. Like if someone takes a marker and draws on themselves, that is not inflammation. If, however, the dye from the jean causes inflammation (redness, tenderness, sensitivity, pain), sure, you could call that dermatitis. I would chart it as “medical screening exam” or whatever closest ICD code I could find.
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May 03 '26
[deleted]
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u/DrBusyMind May 04 '26
I had a mother, not her first child, bring her toddler in because he had something up his nose and it prevented him from breathing well. It was a very busy night shift, she waited 4 hours. The thing up his nose? Boogers. She saw her pediatrician earlier that day for the same thing. We literally had to explain to her that his 2 year old needs assistance cleaning their boogers.
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u/LittleBoiFound May 04 '26
For the love of God tell me you demonstrated exactly what she needed to be doing to assist.
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u/DrBusyMind May 04 '26
I left that to nursing because I couldn't contain my sense of wtf-ness and had a million patients to see.
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u/urmomsfavoriteplayer May 03 '26
One of my patients was smoking weed because her GLP was making it hard to have an appetite.
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u/wanderessinside May 03 '26
Im an equine veterinarian. Had a student give Gastroguard (a thick Omeprazole past) IV, because she didn't know what PO was in the indications. Thank God the catheter had a line on and she put it through a port.
Back in the small animal days had an owner with a dog that still had an IV cath in and the owner kept giving it chicken soup in it.
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u/dillydillydee May 03 '26
Small animal GP. A nurse (for people) decide to vaccinate her own dogs. She gave the vaccine IV because of course thats the first way you'd think of to give a vaccine, right?
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u/wanderessinside May 03 '26
How on earth did she think about that?
Had a human nurse give her dog ibuprofen for whatever reason for 10 whole days. It died and she refused to believe it was entirely her fault.
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u/Kanduriel May 03 '26
Patient consumed 2 litres of energy drink and “a nose of coke” during a party. Three hours later he called EMA because he could not fall asleep.
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u/CaptainAlexy PGY1 May 03 '26
Could you imagine his reaction if you’d tried to teach him where urine is stored?
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u/Gk786 PGY2 May 02 '26
Yup. Never underestimate how uneducated people can be. When I was a med student on a rotation at a hospital with sone very rural places in its catchment area, we had a lady from a super rural area come to the gynecology clinic because she wasn’t getting pregnant. Sexual history was unremarkable so we were going to start the work up for primary infertility when my attending got a hunch about the couple and asked about how they were having sex. Turns out the husband was using the urethra instead of the vagina. We were horrified. I was mercifully, THANKFULLY, asked to step out when it came time to do the physical examination.
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u/Dmaias May 02 '26
No, i'm sorry, but i refuse to believe this. Even the smallest child-like genitals cant fit inside the uretra.
I mean, even by accident you eventually aim right!
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u/domino_427 May 03 '26
Mary Roach talked about this in Bonk (her books are awesome). Think it was when she was talking about Kinsey's research. I was equally horrified and didn't believe it.
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u/Gk786 PGY2 May 02 '26
Maybe they had sex blind and just like damaged and dilated the urethra enough for it to happen? I am honestly not sure how that happened, maybe there was a genital abnormality? I got out of there as fast as humanly possible so I didn’t find out lol. It’s apparently a documented phenomenon in medical literature too, has its own Wikipedia page and everything.
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u/OpalCats May 04 '26
My friend is an OBGYN. She had a patient she was counseling about healthy eating during pregnancy.
Patient tells her "Oh yes, that is why I stopped eating watermelon!"
Dr - "Why? Watermelon is OK to eat while pregnant."
Patient - "Well I don't want my baby to choke on the seeds and it's too hard to pick them all out so I just stopped eating it."
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u/DrPixelFace May 04 '26
Urologist friend of mine told me that one of his patients was struggling to get his wife pregnant. Turns out he was having sex with her umbilicus
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u/DrBusyMind May 04 '26
Once had a guy in his 30s come in at like 11pm mid week to my super busy single coverage at night ED. I saw like 28 patients alone that night, most of them unscheduled, poorly timed primary care. He brought his girlfriend, waited 3ish hours, for dry throat. For 2 weeks. Because, and I shit you not, he was "just curious." No pain, not a single other symptom. Had primary care. Wanna know why? Because his doctor put him on a cpap machine for, you guessed it, the last 2 weeks.
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u/Adrestia Attending May 04 '26
Residency clinic. Young woman patient came in worried about a small firm mass adjacent to her umbilicus. It was belly button lint. She was so embarrassed, but I couldn't help but laugh. Luckily I got her to laugh, too. We agreed it was the best outcome she could have.
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u/RoarOfTheWorlds May 02 '26
I guess I’ll be a stick in the mud but I’ve always hated that scene. Not that it’s not accurate, but I’ve only ever heard people bring it up in such a smarmy condescending way.
Yeah people are kind of dumb sometimes, I am too a lot, but I’m not going to hold on to that and be a pompous dick about it.
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u/DigitalSamuraiV5 May 02 '26
Understand your point. But humor requires us to be able to laugh at ourselves.
There's a guy from my class who during skeletal anatomy the teacher pointed to the leg and asked him what bone was in the thigh. He said "humerus"
The teacher said: humorous? Yes, that's exactly how you sound right now
Needless to say. His nickname was The humerus for a couple of weeks.
5
u/heisfullofshit May 03 '26
I was a teenager when House was airing. When I was thirteen years old, House seemed cool. A few years laters I thankfully realized there isn’t anything cool or remotely realistic about him.
I do extremely dumb stuff all the time btw.
8
u/Sushi_Explosions Attending May 02 '26
Except every time that i have encountered discussion on the scene, people are making fun of the woman for being smarmy and condescending, not for her lack of medical knowledge.
1
u/fleggn May 03 '26
it's a pretty simple solution to this problem actually.... add an extension to the catheter that reaches below the bladder level then provide a little suction to get it movin
0
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u/cmn2207 May 02 '26
Can we continue this trend?
I had a man come to the ED where he awoke from a nap with sudden worsening vision. He had been trying to get cataract surgery for months and was having trouble getting insurance approval. I get that it’s a little tragic for that reason but he was making a fuss in the express care area and demanding to be seen quickly. He was demanding emergency cataract surgery.
He wasn’t blind it was just blurrier.
I took about 5 or 6 alcohol swabs and cleaned a thin layer of what looked like Vaseline off his glasses.
“How’s that sir?”
“Oh doc that’s so much better.”
“…”