Ptilk
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Spending half the night in an emergency room is quite an educational experience...
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Man. The stuff you see. I was there for about 5 hours and in that time I saw 5 OD's, 3 intoxicated to the point of needing medical assistance, and a couple of cases of DT's come in.
This is in a tiny rural hospital in a small town in Tennessee. The average age looked to be about 25 or so. Nurses running around like crazy cleaning up after the druggies, cleaning up after the DT cases....all of which seemed to be spewing and shitting all over the place non-stop. Working their asses off to take care of self inflicted sickness. It was sad.
My doctor and nurse both actually thanked me for giving them someone to work on who wasn't messed up on drugs or booze and giving them a reason not to have to take part in that insanity. Have to say, that all the people working there were amazing. They put up with situations and people that no one should ever have to deal with, and did it with a smile and graciously. Even taking time to console and comfort the people whose bodily waste they were cleaning off the walls. If you know a nurse or CNA who works in an emergency room, thank them, hell hug them, they deserve it.
As I was waiting to be discharged things had calmed down somewhat and I got to talk to a bunch of the people working there. They told me this was just an average weekday night and not an unusual amount of drug and DT cases. I was sorta shocked. I mean damn, I was a drunk for years, about as bad a drunk as I thought you could get....but never to the point of needing medical assistance. WTF are people doing these days? So young and so messed up.
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Crooq_Lionfang
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Spending half the night in an emergency room is quite an educational experience...
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Picking them up somewhere in the streets and getting spit/vomited on, cursed out and have them try to beat you isn't that much fun either  Thank god we don't have much drug problems outside of the usual weekend coma drinkers (well, we got some MJ smokers as well of course, but they rarely end up needing our help)
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ineenia
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Spending half the night in an emergency room is quite an educational experience...
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Ptilk posted:
Man. The stuff you see. I was there for about 5 hours and in that time I saw 5 OD's, 3 intoxicated to the point of needing medical assistance, and a couple of cases of DT's come in.
This is in a tiny rural hospital in a small town in Tennessee. The average age looked to be about 25 or so. Nurses running around like crazy cleaning up after the druggies, cleaning up after the DT cases....all of which seemed to be spewing and shitting all over the place non-stop. Working their asses off to take care of self inflicted sickness. It was sad.
My doctor and nurse both actually thanked me for giving them someone to work on who wasn't messed up on drugs or booze and giving them a reason not to have to take part in that insanity. Have to say, that all the people working there were amazing. They put up with situations and people that no one should ever have to deal with, and did it with a smile and graciously. Even taking time to console and comfort the people whose bodily waste they were cleaning off the walls. If you know a nurse or CNA who works in an emergency room, thank them, hell hug them, they deserve it.
As I was waiting to be discharged things had calmed down somewhat and I got to talk to a bunch of the people working there. They told me this was just an average weekday night and not an unusual amount of drug and DT cases. I was sorta shocked. I mean damn, I was a drunk for years, about as bad a drunk as I thought you could get....but never to the point of needing medical assistance. WTF are people doing these days? So young and so messed up.
Pills are popular now add a few pills to a few drinks and you can get into trouble fast(obviously depending on what the pills are).
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Ptilk
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Spending half the night in an emergency room is quite an educational experience...
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Of course props also to the med techs and other ambulance personnel who bring in those sad cases. No way in hell I could work in any job that had to deal with that crap. I'd strangle all the patients if I had to do so.
It's a sad comment on our society, and a sad comment on the state of medical care in this country, that all those idiots were in the emergency room on a Thursday night.
As I was checking out I listened to the patient advocate talking to the families of some of the druggies. They didn't have insurance, no money, were working out deals to pay 20 bucks a month or whatever on the bills they incured.
No idea what you get charged for an OD, but my 5 hours cost me a bit over 4k and all I had done was an EKG a CT scan and an injection to stabilize a ruptured vertebra. I wonder if they charge extra to clean your poop off the wall?
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NuEM
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Spending half the night in an emergency room is quite an educational experience...
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Crooq_Lionfang posted:
Picking them up somewhere in the streets and getting spit/vomited on, cursed out and have them try to beat you isn't that much fun either Thank god we don't have much drug problems outside of the usual weekend coma drinkers (well, we got some MJ smokers as well of course, but they rarely end up needing our help)
Btw you're doing a job I probably couldn't do and I am very thankful for your service. They should pay you more.
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Crooq_Lionfang
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Spending half the night in an emergency room is quite an educational experience...
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I completely agree with the notion that they should pay me more 
But truth is, most of the time the job isn't half of what it's made out to be in the media. I often feel like a glorified taxi driver with nifty sound and flashy lights, especially when the patient is located close to the next hospital On the other hand, standing in the middle of nowhere at 2am trying to get some drunk out of the car he just wrapped around a tree and having to wait 20 minutes for a doctor because the closest emergency physician was already busy somewhere else and the next closest has to be called in from a different district definitely has it's moments of thrill
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Taliesihne
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Spending half the night in an emergency room is quite an educational experience...
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The economy is in shambles. That we are having epic troubles with drugs and alcohol does not surprise me.
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Spending half the night in an emergency room is quite an educational experience...
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I'd make a horrible doctor, nurse, EMT, or cop. Some people are just to stupid to save.
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eodoll
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Spending half the night in an emergency room is quite an educational experience...
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Whats a DT?
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Rikarus
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Spending half the night in an emergency room is quite an educational experience...
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could care less abou thte druggies, and it sucks the medical profs have to help them....
But are you ok?
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Spending half the night in an emergency room is quite an educational experience...
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eodoll posted:
Whats a DT?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delirium_tremens
Hope you are okay  Ptilk
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Akza
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Spending half the night in an emergency room is quite an educational experience...
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when i lived in southern california, the ER was always full of mexicans. easily 90%.
they used the ER for checkups, colds, etc because they cant be turned away for care.
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Ptilk
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Spending half the night in an emergency room is quite an educational experience...
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They have fixed the "use the ER as a primary care physician" problem around here. The emergency room has a little annex and if you come in for anything but immediate, life threatening problems (or the possibility of one) they shuffle you off to that annex and you wait 20 hours or something to see a PA and get your antibiotics or whatever.
I'm fine btw. Thanks. I have ruptured vertebra in my back and neck that occasionally swell a bit which causes some weird side affects like acute dizziness, shooting pains in my arms or legs, and heart palpitations. I'm always pretty sure that's what is going on, but I go in for an EKG if it gets serious enough....just to be really sure.
They fix me up and send me on my way. Shoot some crap into the affected vertebra and swelling goes down and I feel fine again in a couple of hours. I generally go to my doctor or the VA hospital, but didn't really feel like going all the way into town and I had a friend over, so just had her take me to the local hospital. First time I ever went and I was completely shocked at the number of drug and booze related problems.
I'm going over tonite to take all the folks that work there a gift basket and to thank them again for the help. They treated me, and everyone else I saw, wonderful. Hard to call time in the ER pleasant, but last night was as close as it could get.
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Modeeb
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Spending half the night in an emergency room is quite an educational experience...
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In my late 20's I was drinking heavily traveling by speed boat from bar to bar in Newport Beach , CA. I drank too much. I tried to do a handstand on a steel rail about ten feet above the dock where the boat was moored. I lost my balance and fell the ten feet right on my face. I broke my nose good. My friends brought me to the emergency room. While there, not realizing my face looked terrifying bloody broken, I was flirting with the nurses, who were not giving me the time of day. What a stoonad. Drinking is a very damaging drug.
Ptilk, how are you doing today?
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Bowlartz
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Spending half the night in an emergency room is quite an educational experience...
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My brother finished his RN hired before his senior year started. The hospital that recruited him paid for not only his last year of school but reimbursed him for the previous one provided he work for them for five years. He is making a killer salary, upwards of 60+ dollars an hour when he does 2nd, 3rd shift or weekend work. He strictly works in the ER.
They hired him and pay him so much because he is 6'5 and weighs a solid (muscle bound type) 240lbs. The told him they needed nurses to help with all of the drunks, ODs and other violent crazies that the more traditional female nurses are at risk trying to...control.
He works in Florida near West Palm Beach and has already decided when his contract is up...hes out of there. He would much rather take a lesser salary and not deal with the mental institution like atmosphere. He has had to have two rounds or HIV preventative meds after being bitten.
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Phlegm573
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Spending half the night in an emergency room is quite an educational experience...
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Cops, EMTs and ER workers share a special bond in that they all get to enjoy the most delightful members of society. Drunks, skels, drug seekers, inmates faking chest pains, young slingers shot while "standing on the corner minding my own business," domestic dispute couples, victims of beatdowns who usually had it coming for being a gmeral dirtbag... Cops, EMTs and ER workers are in the brotherhood of Society's Janitors, dealing with the trash and the s**t so that you don't have to.
Ptilk, patients like you can be a breath of fresh air for them, especially on weekend nights.
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Ptilk
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Spending half the night in an emergency room is quite an educational experience...
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I can totally see why they would want some big guys working in an ER. They had 2 off duty cops working as security last night, and they still had to call for more a couple of times. One deputy was there 3 different times because this drugged out girl was trying to kill herself and kept ripping out her IV and grabbing anything she could get and attacking the staff with it. Two of the CNA's looked like ex-NFL linemen and they really earned their pay last night.
They had a number of rooms set up as "crazy patient tanks". Nothing in them but a bed and they had lockable doors, not curtains...but those were filled up even before I got there and the drug addicts just kept coming.
What was so shocking is that this is a small town and a tiny hospital (only 10 in patient rooms), and they had that many drug OD's and drunks on a weeknight....and it was just a normal night. I knew drugs and booze problems were bad around here, I didn't know they were that bad.
I used to wonder why such a small town had 3 different ambulance companies....now I know.
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eodoll
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Spending half the night in an emergency room is quite an educational experience...
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ER workers generally do a crap job though.. Ive seen them miss a lot of things like appendicitis and not do proper followup with various sorts of pains.
It seems like what they focus on is:
"Get you out of here ASAP"
Which means give you drugs, charge your insurance and have you leave.
Any of us can do that job..if they made the drugs they give available at CVS then most people wouldnt go to the ER.
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Sansfear
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Spending half the night in an emergency room is quite an educational experience...
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Ptilk posted:
No idea what you get charged for an OD, but my 5 hours cost me a bit over 4k and all I had done was an EKG a CT scan and an injection to stabilize a ruptured vertebra. I wonder if they charge extra to clean your poop off the wall?
Giving free health care to drug addicts, drunks and other indigents is a significant part of why your stay cost you 4K. Hospitals give billions in free care every year and they have to make up that money somewhere.
Glad you are OK.
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Halloweve
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Spending half the night in an emergency room is quite an educational experience...
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I'm glad you are ok Ptilk.
That is very thoughtful of you to take them a goodies basket. We all need to know someone cares.
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Sgian_Dubh
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Spending half the night in an emergency room is quite an educational experience...
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I went to an ER once for a head injury.
I tripped and fell, hit my head on my desk and ended up getting 34 stitches.
This was at 3 in the morning and there wasn't a soul in there. I still had to wait 6 hours for the damn stitches.
During my wait, the police questioned me twice and questioned my wife 4 times about domestic violence. I was also asked to take a drug and alcohol test.
It was the first and only time I had ever gone to an ER, and I had no idea I would be treated like a criminal just for having an injury.
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Crooq_Lionfang
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Spending half the night in an emergency room is quite an educational experience...
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Last time I was in an ER as a patient I had a head injury as well. Slipped on a wet floor and hit my head on a flight of stairs. Some lidocaine, 6 stitches, 25 minutes tops, 417 euro charged to my insurance company.
And the doctor was freakin' hawt
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eodoll
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Spending half the night in an emergency room is quite an educational experience...
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My favorite experience with a hot doctor in the ER was after a mtn bike injury, where i skewered my groin. I had to get full on naked and she had to put her wrist over my penis while stitching me up. She even stuck her finger in the hole i created in my groin.
Surreal experience. I was bleeding like crazy actually, so i had several ER nurses clean up my balls and groin. Lol.
The biggest shock was that the cute ER doctor called me a few days later to see how i was doing. Its pretty rare for a dr to make personal calls.
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IMHO
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Spending half the night in an emergency room is quite an educational experience...
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How much does it cost to go to the ER?
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ZigmundZag
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Spending half the night in an emergency room is quite an educational experience...
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IMHO posted:
How much does it cost to go to the ER?
Depends on the hospital and what you're doing there, but I'd say even for a quick in/out without insurance it's probably going to be $400 at a minimum.
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Fist_de_Yuma
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Spending half the night in an emergency room is quite an educational experience...
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Call me heartless but I would just leave those overdosing to die. It would go far to ending our medical cost and drug problems. Sadly we are too "civilized" to do that. It is far better punishing everyone else for the mistakes of a few.
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Onslaught.
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Spending half the night in an emergency room is quite an educational experience...
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Fist_de_Yuma posted:
Call me heartless but I would just leave those overdosing to die. It would go far to ending our medical cost and drug problems. Sadly we are too "civilized" to do that. It is far better punishing everyone else for the mistakes of a few.
I feel the same way about people that eat their way in to strokes, heart disease, diabetes and other fat people diseases. Same with people who refuse to wear safety equipment or do things that I think are too dangerous.
See where this slippery slope leads you?
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