Saturday, February 11, 2006

Overheard at the hospital II

My co-intern, Clay: Ma'am, if you'll just step out and wait a little while in the family room, we'll put in this central line so that we can give your husband the I.V. fluids he needs.
Elderly lady: Are you going to be putting in this line? How many of these have you done before???
Helpful yet dishonest nurse: Sometimes the younger doctors are better at this sort of thing, since they're more recently out of training.
Elderly lady: Young!?! Of course he's young! I have shoes older than him! Shoes!

Me, after seeing a patient who was high on cocaine which contributed in no small way to his general spirit of uncooperativity, and thus necessitating my relying on some of the other doctors' notes: Wow, my History and Physical is short! I have so little information. It's so short, it's like a surgeon's H&P!
My resident: Um, that is the surgeon's H&P. You copied it.

And, have you ever wondered what a politically-correct name would be for the nurse who spends all day reviewing medical charts with the intention of prodding doctors to boot their patients out of the hospital sooner, thus maximizing the hospital's income? Utilization Management Coordinator

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

After a rather lengthy hiatus, I'm glad to see you are back blogging.
Dad