Embarrassing Medical Moments

embarrass: to cause to feel self-conscious, confused, and ill at ease; disconcert; fluster (Webster's New World Dictionary, Third College Edition)



#1 No Inbreeding Jokes (Baltimore, MD):

While working as a nurse practitioner for a cardiology group, I was asked to obtain a history and physical on a patient being admitted for a cardiac catheterization. Everything was going smoothly. It felt as though there was good rapport. Butthe time had come to discuss family history. She proceeded to tell me about her husband's medical conditions, but interrupted herself to say, "Oh! But he's not a blood relative."

With a smile I replied, "Unless you're from West Virginia."

Dead silence... All of the family members just looked at each other.

"Don't tell me," I said, "You're from West Virginia." She nodded slowly.

Still silent.



#2 Know Your Anatomy (Philadelphia, PA):

As a fourth year medical student on a psychiatry rotation, I was required to spend some time in the geriatric psch unit. One of the first patients I had to see required a rectal exam.

I entered the room, introduced myself, and performed a fairly complete history and physical exam. Then, I explained to the patient the reasons for the rectal exam and she agreed. I drew the curtain and began to do the exam. While unfastening the tape of the woman's adult diaper, someone entered thz room and said, "Housekeeping! I'm just gonna get the trash."

I kept on with the exam and readied the KY Jelly, only to find that the patient's bottom was covered with stool. Rather than take the easy way out and just test a sample of stool, I proceeded to sift through stool until I could properly perform the exam.

My technique left a lot to be desired however, because I soon heard the patient scream, "Hey! You're in the wrong hole!" Entirely embarrassed, I heme tested her stool, washed my hands and left, only to find the janitor outside of the room leaning on his cart laughing so hard he could barely get the words out, "You a'int married are ya buddy?"



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#3 Oops (Baltimore, MD):

It was towards the end of my first year of my residency, so I was a seasoned veteran at having end-of-life talks. When I went into the TB isolation room and found Mr. Williams with the covers pulled up to the bridge of his nose, I knew it was time to have a heart-to-heart talk.

I started off by re-introducing myself and then followed with affirming the social isolation associated with HIV and now TB isolation. He concurred with a sigh and continued to keep the covers over half of his face. I gently proceeded to discuss the grim realities of end-stage AIDS with him. I mentioned that the frequency and types of opportunistic infections he was facing, combined with a CD4 count of 2, warrant a discussion about his life expectancy numbered in weeks-to-months rather than months-to-years. Mr. Williams said to me, "I hear ya."

At that moment, a phlebotomist came in and said, "Mr. Jackson, I'm back to take some more blood." To my horror, as he pulled his arm out from under the covers, his arm band confirmed it. This wasn't Mr. Williams at all. I just told the wrong guy he was dying.



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#4 There's Gotta Be A Rule Against That (Philadelphia, PA):

I was a fourth year medical student doing a rotation at a Catholic hospital. It happened to be a Sunday when I was on-call. I went into a patient's room to examine her. The room was a semi-private one, with a curtain between the two beds. I drew the curtain closed as the patient's roommate was on the commode and I think all of us felt uncomfortable.

While listening to my patient's lungs, I was interrupted by a priest who had come in to offer Communion. He saw me and said that he'd come back in a few minutes. He then proceeded to give Communion to my patient's roommate while she was sitting on the commode.



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#5 Ooooo, That Must Hurt (Silver Spring, MD):

As a pharmacist, I am often patients' source of information about their medications. When one woman came to the pharmacy to get a refill on her suppositories, she asked me if I had any suggestions she could bring to her doctor. She said that the suppositories were not working. "And not only don't they work, they hurt! Sometimes they even make me bleed!"

I looked at her prescription, pulled some suppositories from the shelf, and opened the box for her. She then showed me that the corners of the hard foil wrapper were sharp. Of course, I cringed when I realized that she was not removing the hard foil covers before inserting them.



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#6 The Doctor Told Me To Do It (Baltimore, MD):

I was a resident in my second year of training for Internal Medicine. I was on-call and spending much of my night in the ER doing admissions. Our seats for writing up the admission orders and notes were kind of situated in an area where patients and their family members would come up and ask questions.

One night in particular, I was near one of our ER physicians when he was giving out discharge instructions to someone he was sending home. He handed the paper to the patient. He was looking at the discharge instructions as the ER physician explained them.

The ER doc suddenly snatched the discharge paperwork from the patient and said, "Give me that." He went back to his desk and started writing up another set. After the patient had left, the doc gave me a copy of the discharge paperwork. It read:

Discharge diagnosis = nephrolithiasis (kidney stones)
Discharge instructions = Drink plenty of urine
Of course, I copied the paper, made it into an overhead, and showed it at morning report



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...More to come

__________________
Thank you GOD

You think I'm crazy?

We have quite a few deaf patients in our practice. Over the years, I have picked up a few American Sign Language signs that I will use. However, I found it is not good to try and make up my own.

While taking a particular difficult medical history (without a sign interpreter), I found myself talking louder, and of course, using some animated signs of my own.

I wanted to ask her if she was feeling dizzy, so as I enunciated the words (so she could read my lips in spite of my mustache), I used my index finger to create a series of circles around my ear. Apparently, that does not mean "dizzy".

"You think I'm crazy?" she responded.

Please don't use baby-talk when you interact with your baby.

A few years ago, I entered the examination room only to see a mother happily playing with her baby.

"Eees a coot 'lil boy. Looka es cootie toes. Mama tickle em? Es wanna a ba-wa?"

Huh? After a few minutes of this baby-babble, I thought I should say something. When babies hear baby-talk, they are more likely to imitate baby talk when they start to speak.

"You should not use baby-talk. It would be better for you to speak more clearly."

She responded with a puzzled look. "I no speeka baby-talk. I speeka good." Of course, I was not aware that the mother had a speech impediment.

Oh, I am so sorry. The last patient must have put a dirty diaper in the trash.

My wife, also a PA, entered a particularly stinky exam room. Immediately, she assumed that the previous patients, a new father with his two-year old, probably put a poopy diaper in the trash - a big no-no in medical office. Moms never do this; fathers on the other hand, do it all of the time.

She put on some gloves and began digging in the trash to find the offending diaper. After a few minutes, the embarrassed patient admitted to passing some unintended gas (She farted just before my wife came in).

Weren't you in jail?

I love teasing little children. One day, I saw a cute little guy, about four years old, peaking over the front desk in our waiting room. All I could see was his little hands and the top part of his head over the counter.

"Hey, I know you. I thought you were in jail."

He responded loudly, "No, I wasn't in jail. But, my Daddy is!"

The entire waiting room stopped reading their magazines and looked up.