Friday, March 4, 2011

What part of no do you not understand?

Phone call last night:

Caller: Yada, yada, yada, pain. Yada ER CT showed ovarian cyst of 2 cm. Yada, yada, yada, sees Dr Johnson (my partner). Yada, yada, yada, need pain meds.

Me: I do not prescribe pain medicines for anyone I have not personally seen or examined.

Patient: But I'm in pain!

Me: I do not prescribe pain medicines for anyone I have not personally seen or examined.

Patient: Well, what are you going to do for me?

Me: If you are in that much pain, go back to the ER. Otherwise call in the morning for an appointment with Dr. Johnson.

Caller: But I can't afford to go back to the ER! Can't you call in a little something?

Me (feeling like a broken record by this point): I do not prescribe pain medicines for anyone I have not personally seen or examined.

Caller: Can you call Dr. Johnson and ask him what to do?

Me: He is not on call tonight. I am and I will not call him. Also, I can tell you that he will not call in pain medicine for anyone, so that's a dead end as well.

Caller: Well thanks for nothing.
Click.

Any bets on getting a complaint from her?

7 comments:

kate sweeten said...

I love getting those kinds of patient complaints...I got one recently from a woman who complained that I was "denying her care" because I wouldn't book her a follow up on the 4th of July...since, you know, we'll be closed.

terri c said...

Well, I dunno. I had a big fat ovarian cyst rupture many years ago. At the time it happened the pain was so intense that there would have been no way I could have GOTTEN to a doctor. By the next day when I saw my PCP the remains of it were 2 cm and the pain was essentially gone. I felt stupid even going to the doctor.

Grumpy, M.D. said...

Nutz.

Anonymous said...

The worst part of this kind of conversation is how long it takes me to go back to sleep. Being jerked around tends to cause simmering anger.

Anonymous said...

handled very smoothly. kudos, er mom.

C said...

The pain won't kill you, warm compress, Tylenol, Motrin, here are the signs something is urgent, blah blah blah.

Good night.

Ahhhh......

Thank you for doing what you do, my head would be spinning and daggers would be coming out of my eyes!

Dragonfly said...

There are times when you are tempted to just make a sign "not going to prescribe you the strong stuff no matter what" and wave it at them.

Also: word verification - pelvedic. :-)