Subj : Re: Working in a (real) ER
To   : alt.tv.er
From : DawnK
Date : Mon Oct 03 2005 09:18:38

From Newsgroup: alt.tv.er


"Sharon Three" <nobody@nowhere.com> wrote in message 
news:QU90f.198$L24.134@lakeread01...
>
> One or two big traumas a day is the norm, even in the big places and the 
> mass casualty type things occur once in a blue moon, probably less than 
> once yearly. On ER, we see several huge traumas a shift with at least 
> several mass casualties a season.
>
> 99% of what comes through the door in any ER, even in the inner city, is 
> small stuff.  Babies with runny noses and earaches, kids with sprains and 
> needing stitches, people with chronic things that don't belong in the ER 
> in the first place.  If I had a nickel for every woman referred to me by 
> an ER who went there because she had been having pelvic pain for months or 
> years....  Most of the traumas are minor auto accidents with neck or back 
> pain.  There are also plenty of substance abusers looking for meds with 
> vague complaints and 'allergies' to everything but vicodin.  There are 
> also plenty of elderly patients with pneumonia or heart failure.
>
> Big city ER's have become the primary caregiver for the uninsured and 
> underinsured these days and most of the patients seen there (my estimate 
> would be about 75%) either don't need to see anyone at all or would be 
> better treated in a private physician's office but the patient can't or 
> won't pay for that so they go to the ER where they can't be turned away 
> even if they've been there a dozen times and never paid a dime.
>
> Doc Sharon
>

Yeah, the big stuff doesn't really happen that often.  We get the same stuff 
in the walk-in!  What kills me is when someone has chest pain, calls their 
doctor and they tell them to go to the walk-in, so while we are doing an EKG 
and stuff like that, we have already called the ambulance to take them to 
the ER!

We get the drug-seekers, the chronic things that need a PMD, a guy who came 
in with severe abd pain for 5 days!  A lot of our stuff is the 
self-diagnosed strep throat!  Must be a special skill!  Most of the time the 
rapid strep is negative, too!

Dawn

.