Awkward Chats: Medical Professionals Share Their Most Absurd Talks with People

Understanding medicine and the human body is not easy. However, everyone should have a basic knowledge about their own body and how it works. After all, we are responsible for our health and our own safety.

If not, you’ll be one of those people medical professionals encounter who make them think twice and doubt the patient's capacity. Like, how can they even function every day?

1. Inedible Plastic

I am not a doctor (yet), but an ER tech for ~2 years. Mom comes in with her baby, plus two more older kids. Complains that the baby hasn't pooped in a while and won't stop crying.

As I'm settling them in with one of the nurses, the baby is bawling like an opera singer's lungs bawling. Suddenly, mom whips out a white plastic shopping bag and sticks an end in the kid's mouth, saying, "This is the only way she can stop crying."

The nurse and I took a look and immediately ordered an emergency x-ray of the kid's stomach. Turns out she had ingested a good amount of these bags, and it was blocking up in her stomach.

It is a big deal, potentially life-threatening. When we confronted the mom about her baby's feeding habits, her only words of defense were, "Well, I checked all over the bag, and I couldn't find anything that said 'non-edible.”

abridged64

When I was an Internal Medicine resident, I came across a very nice 50-year-old Dominican lady. She was well-mannered, but one could tell she was not the sharpest tool in the shed.

As I was prepping her chart for our first visit, I noticed that she'd been seen by every single digestive disease MD in our hospital system. Not only that, she'd had EVERY SINGLE PROCEDURE IN THE BOOK.

Ranging from endoscopies up both holes and culminating in an exploratory laparotomy (you're opened up to basically look inside you when you have no clue what's going on).

All of this is because, for years, she had one single complaint: she reported severe gnawing pain in her stomach. At this point, I should mention that she spoke only Spanish.

Not only that, she had a very heavy Dominican accent, and I was the first Hispanic doctor to ever see her. My first language is Spanish, and even I had difficulty understanding her.

So she comes in, and after exchanging some first-time pleasantries, I politely ask her how she's doing. Sure enough, although she was smiling and said she felt well, she pointed at her belly and said "it" was biting again and asked for the cream to kill "it."

At this point, I got intrigued. Her medication list only mentioned a cream used for herpes breakthroughs. The previous fellow only mentioned in his note that on every single visit, she only asked for the cream and nothing else.

When I asked what she meant by the biting and what she intended to do with the cream, she very calmly told me she intended to use the cream in order to kill the bird living inside her.

After delving more deeply into her story, it turns out she didn't have a medical condition. Ever since she was a little girl, she believed that after eating a whole quail egg, the bird had spawned inside her and gnawed away at her insides whenever she was very hungry.

After a short visit to psych, she was diagnosed with a somatic type disorder. No amount of medication or psychotherapy would cure her, but she was still a fully functional mother of 2 who paid her taxes and had two part-time jobs.

I reached out to every digestive disease doctor in our hospital system once more, to make sure she never received an inappropriate invasive intervention. I've been following her now for three years and she's happy as one can be, considering she has a bird living inside her.

savershin

My S.O. is a medical student. He helped to diagnose a 40-year-old woman who finally sought out a doctor after having open, festering wounds on her entire torso for over a year.

The open wounds only appeared after more than a year of painful, visible lumps on her body. She had never sought treatment prior to this.

S.O. had to inform her that her entire body was riddled with cancer, that there was no treatment to help her, and that she would be dead very soon.

Her sister, who was there the entire time, began loudly proclaiming what a shame it was that nothing could ever have been done and that, hopefully, someday, we would be able to detect cancer sooner.

S.O. watched the doctor explain that pretty much any other woman in the country would have gotten effective treatment at the first sign of the lumps. This was DURING breast cancer awareness month.

ufonyx

I worked at a vet clinic when I was in high school. One day, a vet came out of an exam room and asked me how to tell whether a puppy was a girl or a boy.

Thinking it was a joke or a trick question, I said, "You flip them over and look, right?" The vet sighed and walked away. I was puzzled.

Apparently, this client, who fancied herself a breeder (multiple litters at this point, expensive breed), had asked dead seriously how you tell if a puppy is a boy or a girl.

[deleted]

My brother works as a vet tech. He told me they used to have a high schooler working with them since she was interested in being a vet.

She was on the phone with someone, and as he walked into the room, he heard the girl say, "I don't know, let me ask." She then asked my brother, "Is there any way we can make a girl dog into a boy dog?"

My brother told her there wasn't. She then asked, "What about the other way, boy into a girl?" Again, he told her there wasn't.

The girl then got back on the phone and informed whoever she was talking to that she was sorry, and unfortunately, they didn't do animal gender reassignment.

ADGHill22

I was a vet tech for eight years. One of our clients, who was probably one of the dumbest people I've ever met, got a new cat, a female.

We were about to give her her vaccinations, but the doctor had to step out for a second. The kitty rolled onto her back, and the lady pointed to the cats' chest and asked what those spots were.

And I told her what they were. Then she asks, "Is that where the kittens come from?" I think the doctor came back in shortly after that, and I let him take it from there because honestly, I was so wtf, lady?!

EatAtGrizzlebees

I had a friend (luckily who didn't wear contacts) actually genuinely thought that the 24-hour disposable contacts were dissolvable and all you did is left them in, went to bed, then woke up the next day and put the next pair in...

Multiple people tried to convince him that this was insane, but he still went on believing it. He was in his mid-20s at the time.

Slightly related, my mother used to wear old school hard (also possibly non-permeable, I think) contact lenses (she has worn contacts for as long as I can remember). Over the years, the shape of her eyes actually changed.

Djinjja-Ninja

I shadowed my GP when I was a senior and was considering medical school. He was moonlighting at a free clinic in a low-income area.

His nurse received a call late one morning from an elderly lady who was speaking Spanish. Her Spanish wasn't very good, so she passed it over to the fluent doctor. All she was saying was, "I've got vines in my poot."

He couldn't figure out what she was saying and attributed it to an odd local dialect where she was from, so he just told her to come on into the clinic. She came in a couple of hours later, and upon examination, she indeed had vines growing out of her private part.

Turns out her insides had started to fall, and her solution was to place a potato up there to hold it in place. There where the potato was sprouting...and thriving.

WisdomtheGrey

I used to work as an optician, and I found that a very large amount of people didn't understand how eyes or glasses work, even though they've been told numerous times.

Glasses don't cure your eyesight issues. They just get the best out of what you have.

Also, lots of older people would come in and complain about not being able to see as well as they could 20 years ago.

Apparently, that's our fault. 20 years ago, you probably didn't have grey hair. Your body deteriorates with age, and your eyes are no different.

Brooktipus

A patient comes to the ER, a 19-year-old male, and I'm getting his history. Why are you here today? "Every morning when I wake up, my stomach hurts."

How long has it been hurting? "All my life." Well, what is different today that made you come here? "My girlfriend doesn't think that is normal."

More questions, an exam by an ER physician, and lab tests. The abdominal pain always goes away after he eats. Always. He wakes up hungry. He thinks it is pain.

Warningwaffle

I remember a teacher telling us about this patient who was asked to gurgle or rinse his mouth with salted lukewarm water following a tooth extraction.

In the local language, the word for "lukewarm" is "kushum." Kushum is also a word for "egg yolk," and in this case, it is always preceded by the word for "egg," as in "egg yolk."

When the patient returned for a follow-up appointment, a smelly mouth was the least of the problems. The doctor had to explain that one's mouth is to be rinsed with clean water (with some salt for therapeutic purposes), not water with raw egg yolk mixed in.

MonsterMango

My mother helps the Amish get dental care. One Amish woman complained that she needed new dentures. Of course, the professional asked her more questions.

When asked why she thought so, she replied, "Well, I've lost weight, and you know that when you lose weight, you lose it in your gums first."

Doctors and dentists: if you're looking for a community to serve, the Amish can truly use your help. I could write a book about the things I've seen.

[deleted]

I was a newly minted graduate with fresh and optimistic views on my life as a doctor. Second week in came this old lady and her very dysfunctional family.

They would argue and complain about everything, from the food to the nurses they didn't like to every single medical decision we made. She was very, very sick, so her management was just as complicated.

She had several children and they all didnt like one another and would not talk to one another. Each time we would have to explain a long update to every single one of them because they "are entitled to hear it from a doctor".

One of these stories is sitting down and explaining why you don't give Gatorade as an IV drip. They did not understand why we were giving "saltwater" to her.

A conversation with her son happened. Mother said, "Look, she likes Gatorade. She is drinking it, so why can't you give it to her through her drip?" We explain why.

Son frowns, "But it isotonic." We explain again. "Yes, but Gatorade has more electrolytes." We explain again. "Saltwater just seems to be too cheap. Can't you give her something else closer to Gatorade? That has electrolytes?"

Continues for two hours. Wash and repeat every day during her admission. Afterward, I told my fiance. He opened up a scene from Idiocracy on YouTube, and I sat there with my mouth open for a while.

bunbunmelon

ER nurse here...I was administering a bolus through a pump at 1200 ml/hr (a fairly fast rate). The patient's four adult daughters stood around watching the drip chamber in awe. "It's going in good! Her body is thirsty!"

No, that's not how IV pumps work. I realize it was a moment for patient education but I was just struck speechless, and so were my colleagues when I related this story.

Same family: I asked for a urine specimen and told them the specimen cups were in the bathroom. One of the daughters asked, "What if they're used?"

I really wanted to say, "Just keep digging till you find a clean one, the lab will separate the pee out!" but I just looked at her and was like, "They're new," in the most serious tone I could muster.

helpmefindafit

Once, I worked with a guy who had some sort of blood-thinning meds at lunch. For half an hour afterward, he couldn't stand bright light (i.e., just the normal overhead lights in the warehouse, which were a lot dimmer than sunlight).

He told me it was heart medication, and the doctor had told him to fix his diet. His diet, at least at lunch at work, was like a full English breakfast - 2 eggs, bacon, sausages, all fried, plus toast.

He also told me he wasn't about to change a damn thing, that if he had to give up the food he liked, he might as well be dead. Like, damn?

I thought then that he was a sad bastard if the only thing worth living for was greasy food. He was married too, to a very nice lady.

[deleted]

I did a patient's glucose test the other day, and it came back in the 500s. They were complaining of stomach pain and nausea, just really miserable. I reported the number to the nurse, and while we waited for insulin, the patient asked me to bring them ice cream.

WHY. Their reaction was very clear once I told them what their blood sugar was- they knew it was bad; heck, they started crying.

But then immediately asked for ice cream. Because that'll totally solve the problem... I mean, I'm a biggish girl, and I'm no stranger to emotional eating.

But when your blood sugar comes back so high that the nurse has to drop everything to come to treat you, it's probably no bueno to reach for the sugar.

The nurse and I were able to convince them to throw away the pile of crap they had on their table (soda, candy, piece of pie, etc.) and that sugar-free applesauce was an improvement over eating ice cream.

But man... The next day, they were right back to ordering pizza delivered to the facility and not checking a single fruit or vegetable on their menu.

My job is to support the patient, but damn, it is hard sometimes. I can only "positively encourage them to select healthy options" so many times :\ If they don't want to eat their vegetables, I can't force them to.

AnyelevNokova

I'm an RN, not a doctor, but anyway...had a long-term patient once with a long list of chronic diseases, including wildly uncontrolled diabetes (and the most brittle diabetic I've seen to this day), chronic renal failure requiring dialysis, and sky-high blood pressure.

This is actually just the tip of the iceberg, but I want to keep this short. Anyway, she'd constantly complain of having nausea and refuse to eat the meals the hospital provided her.

But then, I'd walk in later and find her eating potato chips and chocolate while washing it down with regular pop (not the diet kind).

Oh, and she'd go through jars and jars of Cheeze Whiz even though she was lactose intolerant and C. diff positive (and no, she could not toilet herself).

duckface08

I was working in a GP and had a patient scheduled for an appointment. Looked through his notes to gain an idea of why he may be seeing me and saw he'd been seen a few times with knee pains/shoulder pains, and the like.

The guy is in his 70s, so it's probably just arthritis. I'm thinking I'll do an examination of his sore joints and ask a few questions, prescribe some painkillers, and it'll be a quick one.

Call him in, and he walks in, sits down, and is cheery as anything. "What seems to be the problem then, sir? I notice you've had some issues recently with sore joints," I ask.

He then proceeds to tell me about this sore knee. So I checked his knee and took a history, and it all seemed fine. Ask anything else, and he's like oh, actually, my neck is sore too.

So I checked his neck, and nothing untoward was found there either. At this point, he's like, well, thanks, doc, I'll be off then.

I say to him oh, good, glad we could help. And you have no other pains at all before you go? He then sits back down and tells me he's been having central, crushing chest pain radiating down his left arm and into his jaw since last night.

He had been feeling breathless, and when it happened, he had an impending sense of doom. I know a lot of you won't be doctors here, but I'm sure you all recognize signs of an MI there.

He had all the classic textbook symptoms. Called an ambulance, and he was rushed to hospital for PCI. I was glad to ask him about the last question because it turns out he had a heart attack last night.

Crobeam

I am not a Doctor, but when I was in Afghanistan, a local man came up to us on patrol with his hand wrapped in a sheet. He was in visible pain and was asking for a doctor.

So we got the medic to go see him, and I helped unwrap his hand, and it was just freaking huge.

He'd cut his hand very badly and, for whatever reason, kept it submerged in diesel for three days before seeking help.

His hand appeared to have soaked up a crap load of diesel, or it was just infected, but it resembled a water balloon, and lightly touching it caused it to piss liquid. It was nasty.

Donnelly182

I saw a patient for a follow-up after three ER visits in as many days for asthma. He was from another country, so this was the first time I ever met him.

His lungs sound absolutely terrible, but he swears he is taking the inhaler every 2-4 hours with no relief. This raises suspicion to me, as the same meds are working in the ER.

I asked him to show me how he was using it. He holds it about a foot away from his mouth and does two puffs like Binaca and swallows. I felt really bad; he had never received any education about his illness or medications.

NassemSauce

We had a diabetic patient who kept coming back with extremely high sugars. We asked him if he was following the regimen we taught him, such as testing his blood sugar, using the sliding scale, measuring the correct dose of insulin in the syringe, etc.

He went through all the steps, and it sounded like he was doing everything right. We asked him to demonstrate the steps he took so we could observe and correct any mistakes he may have been making.

He did everything right until the very last step. He drew up the insulin in his syringe, pulled an orange out of his bag, injected the insulin into the orange, then ate it.

Turns out, when he was taught to practice how to give himself subcutaneous injections with oranges, he didn't realize he actually needed to inject himself for the insulin to do its job.

thegirlhasnoname971

Last year, during my M1 year, I was shadowing an Endocrinologist and saw a patient with uncontrolled Type II DM. She had bad neuropathy, nephropathy, retinopathy, and moderate heart failure.

All of these things happened because she has repeatedly and vehemently refused to take insulin. Her reasoning was that she knew someone in the past with diabetes who died who was on insulin and didn't want to take it.

When the doctor urged her for probably going on his 100th time to please take insulin, or she was going to die, her response was, "When the good lord wants to take me, he can just take me then. I'm not doing it."

I just cannot understand this type of logic. It makes no sense to me. Why even go to the doctor if you are not going to listen to what they have to say and would rather just die?

It was so sad to watch this happen to someone, knowing the treatment is so simple. My job is to help people, but when that person doesn't want help, what else are you supposed to do?

IdSuge

I was living in China and taught English on the side to a student whose mother was a physician. This was in 2012, just prior to the London Olympics.

The mother wanted to send her daughter to London with a school group to watch the Olympics but has reservations about it.

I asked why, and she said she was worried that her daughter would catch AIDS from using the public toilets. Yes, a doctor.

BeiTaiLaowai

I am a GP in a small town. An older lady came into one of the day clinics with a large shopping bag emitting a foul smell, so much so that we gave her the 'special treat' reserved for smelly patients of waiting in the doctor's corridor instead of the waiting room, having received complaints from other patients.

Said an older lady came into my office for her appointment and sat down, asking me how big the largest 'poo' I've ever seen - "as a doctor" - was. I demur and explain I don't actually see as much poo as one might imagine, and she proceeds to tell me an epic tale:

For the week before her appointment, she'd had the worst case of constipation she'd ever had. She tried and tried but could not go to the toilet, no matter how much olive oil or licorice she consumed.

Then, the day before the clinic, she felt "the urge" and found herself doing "the longest poo I've ever seen - it just kept coming, and coming, and coming."

So fascinated was she by her enormous poo that she couldn't bring herself to flush it, but picked it out of the toilet, put it in a waterproof shopping bag, and showed her friends.

She says her friends told her she must show it to a medical professional because we'd just be fascinated to see such a large, unusual stool. And then she opened the bag and showed me her poo, which filled it. It filled the entire bag.

throwawaygpdoctor

Well, here in México, we have something called social service (Our college education is free in some institutions, so we have to pay for it with one year of free work in a rural area).

So, the first month, a woman in her 30s came to consult because she had been feeling weird in the mornings forever. I was intrigued.

I asked what her symptoms were, and she told me that every day, she wakes up feeling her mouth dry, and that feeling disappears in about one or two hours.

I asked, "Well, lady, how much water do you drink?" She replied, "Hmm, one or maybe two glasses, one at breakfast, and one middle day." Then I asked, "Do you know what thirst is?" "Yeah, when you drink water, so you can piss," She answered.

So I had a conversation that took one hour long about what thirst is and how it feels, also I had to tell her that she needed to drink more water.

Cochupo

I'm a paramedic and recently transported an idiot who self-presented to the local hospital. They found he was having a heart attack (stem) and needed to be sent to a bigger hospital for treatment.

During my assessment, I asked him how long he'd been having chest pain. On and off for twelve months, he tells me. Any family history? (One of the biggest indicators).

Oh, yes. Dad died of a heart attack. Brother died of a heart attack. Both of them first presentation, stone dead on the spot, no freaking about.

So... you have a 12-month history of intermittent chest pain and a family history of your closest male relatives spontaneously chucking hearties and dying, and you've never got it investigated.

Furthermore, the only reason you came to the hospital tonight is because your family badgered you into it. I told him he needed a solid kick in the back. To his credit, he agreed.

DrCrashMcVikingnaut

So, I'm an EMT, but I want to weigh in here on this conversation. I had to tell a patient with severe pneumonia (and the patient's family) that you don't get sick (i.e., catch a cold) by leaving your skin exposed.

The family was vehemently debating me on the fact, claiming that I had no idea what I was talking about because I was not a doctor.

Attempting to explain to them the necessity for a foreign body to enter your system was the most preposterous thing to them.

Ungodlydemon

My mother is a doctor. She once told me this story about a patient she had (she serves low-income people, so typically immigrants/minorities, usually without health insurance).

The man is from Central America and is there for a normal check-up. Typical of most patients, he has fairly high blood pressure. However, this man is also having bowel problems.

So my mother asks, "What color and consistency is your feces when you need to use the bathroom?" The man has no idea what she's talking about. My mom tries again: "Your poop. What color and/or consistency is it typically?"

The man still has no clue what she's saying (he understands a bit of English). She tries again. "Your doo doo." Nothing. "Your fecal matter." Nothing. "Your poo." Nothing. "Not number one, but number two."

Nothing. Finally, she asks, "It's not liquid when it comes out, but it's more solid, you know?" The man has an epiphany. "Ohh, you mean dump!" he says. "Yes, your dump."

So my highly educated, professional mother has to continue the rest of the checkup asking about his poop. "What color is your dump?" "Is it more wet?" "Does it hurt when you take a dump?"

This went on for a fair amount of time. My mom nearly burst out laughing by the end of it. Absolutely amazing what a minor language barrier can do.

kilopatricko

I think the most frustrating thing I've seen since I was a resident was a very pretty (like stunningly pretty) 17-year-old with what appeared to be normal, loving, affluent parents.

She had a tumor in her pelvis (rhabdomyosarcoma) that we could resect to potentially cure her. The parents declined, also declined chemo, and said they wanted to try holistic medicine because that made more sense to them.

I last saw her three years ago, she was getting huge lymph nodes removed from her groin because they were unsightly. Obviously, metastatic disease. The parents did not want the primary tumor removed and again declined chemo.

I see 100 patients/week, probably, and there are lots of devastatingly sad cases. But I still think about that girl, listening to her parents, costing her life. I bet she's dead now.

I can assure people doctors are not trying to swindle you, give you unnecessary care, or have some ulterior motive in this sort of setting. 99.99% of doctors are treating patients the same way they'd treat family, so try not to be dense, we want to help.

cmcewen

My dad is a pediatrician. He told me the story of a teenage boy (around 13 y/o) who was referred to him (something unrelated, can't remember what).

When he asked him if he was on medications, the boy's mom pulled out some birth control pills.

Apparently, his family physician suggested birth control as a way to treat his acne.

Yes, you read that correctly. A licensed doctor told a teenage BOY who was just going through puberty to take female hormones as acne treatment. I think he had been taking them regularly for the past year.

bennitq

A woman came to her ob-gyn for an exam as she had an infection of some sort. The doctor did the exam and asked the usual questions, "Are you active, etc." and nothing seemed to obviously be the case.

At some point, though, the woman lets slip that she's sick and tired of dealing with this infection that she's had her whole life.

That perks up the doctor's antennae, and so the doctor tentatively asked her which direction she wiped when she used the toilet.

This 30-something-year-old woman had been wiping back to front her whole life and didn't have any idea of the problems that could, and was, leading to.

Mazon_Del

Son of a physician here. I was told an interesting one a while back. Basically, there were some patients who would have rings put around the top of the stomach in an attempt to make it so they couldn't eat as much food.

They'd get sick if they had more than could pass through the ring, if I recall correctly. The idea was that this would help in reducing weight in patients who drastically needed it down so as to help with their health issues.

Well, some of them would learn that if you ate only a little over what the ring would allow at a time, you'd eventually be able to eat ridiculously large servings again.

This was because the ring would stretch out over time. You can imagine what the conversation between the doctor and patient was like when the doctor found out what the patient had been doing.

[deleted]

I will start off by stating I am not a doctor, but I do work at a doctor's office, so I’ve seen a lot. So, a person came in with conjunctivitis.

They proceeded to ask questions on how it was transmitted. With the most serious look on their face, they asked if it was contagious and could be passed on by glare.

While this is hilarious, take a minute to think, WHAT IF ANYTHING WAS CONTAGIOUS BY GLARE? That would be so goddamn frightening.

Kittehluh

When I worked as a nurse in urgent care, we had a guy with a bad abrasion on his leg stemming from a fall down a flight of steps.

He was prescribed a topical cream, among other things. Directions on the tube: apply to the affected area. Sounds simple enough, right?

Follow-ups, we notice the wound was gross and not healing at all. He insisted he put the cream on the affected area and it just wasn't working for him!

The doctor suspected something, so he had the patient demonstrate how he applied the cream so we could maybe offer some further help. The patient says he can't because we're not at his house.

And that's where the stairs are. This man was rubbing the cream on the stairs when he fell down because the instructions said to "rub on the affected area."

milkcustard

That a vegan diet is not a substitute for dialysis, had a patient come into the hospital, pale as a ghost, in a wheelchair, looking 40 years older than he was.

I can't remember what was wrong with his kidneys, but two years before, his nephrologist had told him that it was time to start dialysis.

He was upset about this, so he went to another nephrologist who told him the same. So, he decided to stop seeing doctors altogether and went on a vegan diet instead.

That wheelchair? Oh yeah, he bought it half a year ago when he couldn't walk anymore for some reason.

I wish I had taken a picture of his lab results. The only one I can still remember is Creatinine, which was above 5000 µmol/l. Potassium was somewhere in the "certain death" range, and hemoglobin was ridiculously low.

He was taken to the ICU and finally got his dialysis, but his body was pretty damaged at this point. Don't know what became of him (it was during my training, and I left soon after), but he didn't look like he could ever recover.

notapantsday

Dentist here. I have a couple. One lady came in with a rubber band stuck between her back teeth. She had a piece of food or something that she couldn't get out with floss, so she thought a rubber band would work better.

Another time, a kid came in with a toothache. Everything seemed ok. I couldn't find any source of pain. I asked if anything hot or cold makes it hurt, and he said, "It hurts a little if I rinse out with Coke."

I turned to his dad and said NEVER DO THAT EVER AGAIN! It's the only time I have actually shouted at someone. His dad also asked for Vicodin for his son. Who was four years old. I told him no. He's 4. Give him Advil. I'm pretty sure he wanted the pain meds for himself.

mdp300

I'm not a doctor, but I worked in customer service at a hospital and had a woman of about 23 come in with her mom for severe stomach pains.

She'd tried drinking Pepto but it just didn't help. Mom was waiting in the waiting room when a nurse came out and had this conversation.

The nurse said, “Ma'am, I don't mean to offend you but I have to ask this..Is your daughter slow...Like, in the head?” The girl’s mom replied, “No! She's real smart. She even went to college and everything.”

The nurse replied, “Well, we figured out what was wrong with her. She's having a baby.” The girl’s mother looked darned, confused, “No, she ain't pregnant.”

Then the nurse insisted, “Ma'am, I don't know what to tell you because she's having a baby. Like the baby is coming out...Now.”

We've tried to explain this to her, but she doesn't believe us. We'd like your help to convince her. The mother then asked, “You mean, like she's having a baby right now?” The nurse clarified once again, “Yes, ma'am, she is in labor. Right Now.”

creepysnowflake

My friend who works in a pharmacy told me a story about a girl buying nuvaring birth control. The pharmacist asked if the girl had any questions about the ring.

She said no and went shopping. From the pharmacy counter, she could see the girl open the box and slip the ring around her finger.

The pharmacist calls her over and asks her what she's doing. The girl is confused and thinks the NuvaRing is to be worn like a regular ring on your finger.

Then, the anti-pregnancy effects are absorbed through the skin like a smoker's patch. The pharmacist then had to explain to her how it was applied and used.

NuclearChickadee

I was consulted on a patient in the ER who had eye pain (I am an ophthalmologist, different than an optometrist). It ended up that he had worn a contact in his eye for eight months without removing it.

As if that wasn't bad enough, he had found this contact on the bathroom floor of a club. He popped it in, and it helped him see better.

I didn't ask a lot more questions about the specifics. He had a rip-roaring corneal ulcer. I gave him some antibiotic drops and set up a follow-up.

Didn't see him again until about seven months later, when he showed up in the ER again after wearing a new set of contacts for six months.

He found these ones in a dumpster behind a drugstore, albeit they were unopened this time. We had another conversation about sleeping in contacts indefinitely.

sbutac

​​I am a physical therapist on a clinical rotation in a hospital on the ortho floor. There was a patient who left the hospital following a total hip replacement and dislocated the hip in a fall at home.

She was brought back to the hospital, and I saw her in her room to walk her around the floor. She was convinced she was kidnapped from her home and brought to a fake hospital where she was being held hostage.

I had to sit there for a half hour and try to convince her of what actually happened and that she was in a real hospital with real people who weren't all actors. She had some really good points, though, and made me really question my reality.

alte3

Med school was full of these, especially from rotation in pediatric ER. A mother brought her 16 y/o daughter to the ER because the calluses on her feet were getting annoying.

My attending was seething as she tried to explain to the mom that the little girl dying of asthma exacerbation was an emergency. Asking for a podiatry consult was not.

Another mom brought her infant into the ER for constipation. The child had a massive bowel movement while in the waiting room.

Mom figured since she was here, she might get a checkup for the baby anyway. Then, I will present the patient during rounds later.

Imagine how much fun it is to explain to the senior resident that your emergency constipation patient hasn't had a BM in the last hour.

toolatealreadyfapped

I had a woman come in with her family for a gangrenous toe. It was dry gangrene, and the toe was basically mummified (she lost circulation to that toe).

It was cold, black, and hard, and it basically looked like a black twig. I told her that the toe was lost and we probably should amputate it to prevent the chance of an infection down the road.

She insisted that the toe looked that way because of the gentian violet (a purple antiseptic common in South America) and that the toe would heal. Needless to say, it snapped off as she put on her sock.

andygchicago

My mom is a nurse, so I asked her to weigh in. She said the number of people who deny having a medical issue because they're on medication is insane.

Nurse: OK, so you have [medical issue A], and you've been taking [medication A]? Patient: I do take [medication A], but I don't have [medical issue A].

Nurse: You don't? It says here on our chart that you do. You're definitely taking [medication A], though, right? Patient: No, I don't have that. I just have to keep taking [medication A], and I'll be fine.

Nurse: OK, so you have [medical issue A], which is being managed by [medication A]. Patient: No, that's incorrect. I just have to keep taking [medication A], and my [medical issue A] will be fine.

I guess this is a big one when it comes to people with high blood pressure or diabetes. A more specific one would be a diabetic woman who came in with blood sugar "off the charts" and had to be rushed to the ER, the whole shebang.

It turns out she was a Diabetic Educator who helped people with diabetes learn about the disease, check their blood sugar levels, and more.

MDMedical

I am not a doctor but used to transport patients to large hospitals. One time, I picked up this normal-looking African American guy from the ER who was about 60 and seemed with it.

We joked and talked about current sports the entire way up to his room, which took about 5 minutes. I get him to his semi-private room, which has a patient in the bed closest to the door, having his vitals taken by a nurse.

I asked the guy, "Can you walk?" He hops off the stretcher and says, "Yup!" He walks to his side of the partitioning curtain in his hospital gown with no trouble.

He then walks between his bed and curtain, and without warning, he casts the front of his gown to the side as if it were a superhero cape, begins humming, and proceeds to pee against the curtain in the corner like he is trying to write his name in the snow.

I didn't know what to do other than laugh and tell the nurse. As I left, she just kept repeating, "I love my job... I love my job... I love my job." That was one of the funniest things I have ever seen in person.

Diceeeeeee

Emergency nurse practitioner here. Had a patient once with a bowel obstruction, and we were placing a nasogastric tube to suction so the patient didn't have to continue puking their guts up.

The family (consisting of an adult daughter and son) wanted to know why it was necessary to put the patient through an NG tube. This is totally a reasonable question because placing an NG tube is pretty traumatic!

I explained that because the gut contents could not move forward past the obstruction, they were backing up and causing the patient to vomit.

They stared at me blankly. I asked a few questions to clarify what part they didn't understand...and it turns out they didn't have the basic fundamental understanding that the food you put in your mouth travels downward through the stomach and intestines, then exits as feces.

I tried to explain this process very quickly, very basically (think elementary school, health class). I was met with further blank stares, then "Could this be because of some cold cuts they ate this morning?"

I couldn't bring myself to just say "YES, IT WAS THE HAM." I just didn't say anything. Just told them "No, not really" and left it at that.

DrVerdandi