Doctors on the most ridiculous presentations to the Emergency Department.

Everybody has situations at work that feel slightly ridiculous at the time.

For those of us in office jobs, these frustrations are usually pretty run of the mill. An unnecessary email here, a request to do a menial job there. For Doctors however, these ridiculous situations are much more out of the ordinary.

These are some of the most ridiculous/hilarious presentations to Emergency, courtesy of Reddit and some crowd-sourcing.

The person who came in for sunburn.

“There was a person who was admitted to hospital because of burns. Turns out it was just a mild sunburn. They took an ambulance to the hospital and everything.”

The person who came in because his throat was torn open.

“I once had a 20 year old and his girlfriend come in at 2 am freaking out because ‘something had tore his throat open’. He seemed fine. No blood. Breathing fine. I had him open his mouth, saw nothing. So didn’t want him to lose confidence in me, clearly something had happened, so I’m looking, and looking… there is nothing wrong with this kid’s throat. Finally I say look, it seems ok…what do you feel or see? ‘I don’t feel it but LOOK ITS RIGHT THERE’. WHERE??? Looking, looking. It was his uvula. Somehow this kid had gotten to the age of 20 without ever noticing his uvula. Girlfriend was also horrified… I told them it was normal.”

The girl who had some crusty contact lenses.

“I worked at the ER during my internship and met a girl who had increasingly painful and red eyes since a couple of days back. The last 24h had been horrible. I asked about all the normal stuff, and she claimed to have no idea why she had this eye problem – she had never had anything wrong with her eyes. I proceed to drop some dye in her eyes to check them in a microscope, and when I do I realise she’s wearing contacts.
She didn’t like her natural eye colour, so she had bought a set of blue coloured lenses 8 months earlier. Never removed them, not even during night time. Didn’t even think to mention this to me, claimed to have no “foreign materials” in her eyes.
Needless to say, I gave her quite the harsh lecture and a referral to an ophthalmologist.”

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The confused lactose intolerant person.

“I met one who was taking lactulose (extra strength laxative) for her lactose intolerance.”

The woman who kept bleeding each month.

“I had a patient in her 30s complain of monthly rectal bleeding that would last 4-6 days and stop on its own. It started when she was 11. She just thought she should get checked out. It did stop for a while when she was pregnant.”

The person who contracted the very contagious STD, asthma.

“I work as a scribe in the ER, and we had a guy come in asking to be tested because he may have an STD. So we start asking him if he has had unprotected sex, and multiple partners, to which he answers yes. Next we ask if he has any itching, rash, discharge, etc, to which he answers no.
Well this guy thought he caught asthma from having sex with some chick who had it…asthma…he thought it was an STD.”

The person who didn’t necessarily present to a hospital, but was still confused.

“I am a veterinarian. This sounds like bullshit, but it is true… A woman wouldn’t vaccinate her dog because she ‘had a lot of autism in her family’.”

The woman who needed a “thorough clean”.

“A woman was admitted to hospital after she forgot to take her tampon out for two days. She had managed to successfully remove it, but wanted the Doctors to give her vagina a “thorough clean”.”

The person who may or may not be pregnant.

“I still remember a guy coming to the hospital with his girlfriend and asking for the morning after pill. I ask them when did the intercourse happen and he says ‘well, I wouldn’t call it exactly intercourse but my girlfriend would feel much more relaxed if she took the pill’. ‘Could you define the nature of your sexual contact?’. ‘Well…uuh..my girlfriend is virgin so we don’t have sex. But last night we were in our underwear and we were cuddling and I kinda came a bit in my underwear..and then we kept cuddling and my wet underwear was touching with her thigh. So maybe some sperm found its way to the vagina”..”

Related links:

Would you let a male Doctor do this?

Vampires don’t tell Doctors their habits for fear of stereotyping.

The angry Doctor note you have to read.