Saturday, January 24, 2009

Today's "Reason For Your Visit"

When a patient checks in at our ER, they are asked to fill out a half-sheet of paper with name, phone, SSN, birth date, and "reason for your visit".

Whenever I work triage, I write down the interesting ones and have been building up a list.  Some are funny, some embarrassing, and some just tickle my warped sense of humor.  I try to give the benefit of the doubt.  I know that these people are hurting and just want to be seen, but it still makes me shake my head to see some of the things that patients can come up with.

Thus, my regular (as in whenever I feel like it) series, "Reason For Your Visit."  Please keep in mind that spelling, punctuation, and capitalization are copied directly from the original paper.

So let's start off with today's Reason For Your Visit:

sick

That's right - this patient wanted me to be aware of the extent of her problems, so she took great pains to delineate each and every complaint in painstaking detail.  Sure, it may just look like four letters to you, but to an experienced triage nurse it is so much more.  To a triage nurse in a busy ER, these four letters are explicit permission to skip over this patient and take care of the one with right lower quadrant pain.  She may complain, but I have four letters that might help explain the Reason For Your Delay:

busy