While I am on a "call your doctor first" kick, let me elaborate. I am pretty sure that at least 99% of L&D nurses agree with me on that one.
Last week we had a lady walk up to the nurses station and say "I'm here!" Um, OK. Who are you and who is your doctor? This is followed with "Did you call their office?" She tells us that when she calls the office they either tell her to come to the office or go to the hospital so this time she decided to just save herself the trouble come to the hospital.
You see genuis, that is kind of the point of calling the doctor first. They can listen to what the problem is and decide where the best place to see you is. Going to the hospital is never the easiest option.
We ask her what brought her to the hospital.
"I need an ultrasound".
"Excuse me?"
"I need an ultrasound. I haven't had an ultrasound in two weeks and I am having twins. I am supposed to have an ultrasound every week with twins".
"No, that isn't true but let's get you into a bed and I will page your doctor."
"Am I going to be here long?"
At this point I am thinking, "Crap, lady, you walk into the hospital trying to "admit" yourself for an ultrasound to Labor & Delivery and you want to know how long you are going to be here? I am sure we all hope your stay will be short." I hold myself together and explain very nicely that since she came to the hospital she will be there at least a couple of hours, maybe longer.
Now she is irate. She snuck out of her house to come to the hospital hoping that no one would even notice she was gone. It is pretty obvious her thinking is flawed. It also turns out she had spent all afternoon on the phone with every hospital in a tri-state area trying to figure out who she could con into doing an ultrasound. They had all told her it wasn't necessary.
Within the hour her husband had found her and was up there yelling at her for sneaking out (and probably other things if I had to guess) . She got to waste half her day and several thousand dollars and best of all, she didn't get that ultrasound.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
You can't sneak in and out of the hospital.
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7 comments:
sounds like she needs a psych consult.
Yep, I've had those patients. What a pain in the arse!
now that it's getting icy...I love the "I slipped and fell today, do you think they'll do an u/s?"
why anyone would want MORE ultrasounds than absolutely medically neccessary is beyond me!
sounds like the losers who show up in the ER and say "I need a CT Scan" yeah...ok...sit your butt down for 15 hours and then we'll talk about it.
If she wanted an u/s so bad, she could have gone to one of those 3D u/s places at the mall. It wouldn't have cost her thousands, and she could have snuck back into her house before her husband found out. (What grown woman sneaks out of her own house anyway? *boggle* Sounds like a lovely environment to bring a child in to.)
Well, for what it's worth, I called my doctor at 35 weeks the first time and told him I'd been having upper abdominal pain off and on for a week that felt like a gallbladder attack (I had mine out years ago and that is what it used to feel like). He told me I just had a foot stuck in my ribs and not to worry about it, pregnancy was just uncomfortable and I needed to deal with it. I could come in and see him but he wouldn't be able to do anything for me anyway and would just end up sending me to L&D and if I really wanted to I could just go straight there, so I did. Thank goodness I did, it turned out I had HELLP syndrome with a platelet count of 50K and I was delivered via emergency-C within a few hours of arriving. I had no previous indications of this and did not have pre-e along with it, and my ONLY symptom was the abdominal aching. I understand there are a lot of people that try to pull one over on L&D and think they're sneaky or subtle, but occasionally there is a true emergency and you never know until it gets checked out. Just sayin... I do enjoy your blog, just wanted to point this out for the record.
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