r/EmergencyRoom

A Tourniquet was left on my finger until I discovered it 24 hours later at home. Severe damage to tissues and nerves ensued. It's been a very traumatic month for me. Healing well they say, doing PT but nerve recovery could take very long if at all. Patient Experience, risk management are doing an "internal investigation'" that should result in relief of financial responsibility to me... I hope and pray for subsequent hand specialist, PT sessions, etc. The bills are adding up post $10k when with my mom insurance status discount. I wonder how this will resolve. Much evidence, apologies and even verbal reassurance had occurred that it will all be comped by this very large hospital. I could show pictures but they are quite graphic. All lawyers I've spoken to tell me that a finger won't even pay for litigation. I'm retired on SS but use my hands daily restoring anything and everything. I'm so anxious and dealing with that stress.

Hey there!!

I am looking for some additional input. I’m a Midwife creating a PPH emergency box for the nurses in emergency (I work in a small town) and I’m just wanting some additional advice on what I should put in the box :)

Many thanks

Any information is appreciated

Last week, I had a regularly scheduled, laproscopic surgery. Unfortunately, I had a complication and had to return to the ER this weekend.

I was admitted for a second, emergency surgery. Before I was brought into the OR, I was introduced to my surgical team.

I was puzzled by the fact that, in my emergency surgery, there was a member of the team who introduced himself as a patient advocate.

He was scrubbed up and went into the procedure with the rest of the team. I'm pretty sure he talked me down as the anesthesia mask did its job.

I didn't have an advanced directive, or any special modesty requests for the team. I can't think of why I would be assigned someone with his job for one surgery but not for another.

I'm perplexed:

* Did I probably have one of those during my first surgery and just forget?

* Did my case get assigned to that team member because it was an emergency surgery, vs pre-scheduled?

* What might that person do in the surgical theater once I was out?

Thanks!

I was waiting at the er for 4 hours to get called back. Then I was kind of hearing what everyone's problems were as I was sitting in the chair closest to where they call then up initially. It is blocked by a clear window but you can still hear through it. So he came in and said he has alcohol withdraws and he drinks 15-20 shots of 99bananas a day. He then got called back to go back there right away and I still had to wait another hour. Is that fair?

I'm currently licensed as an emt, and where I'm at I can become an er tech with that license but I haven't had any luck getting a job, let alone an interview for one.

I recently tried to get a job at a private ems company but I had no luck doing that.

I have also been thinking about pursuing a license as a CNA but I'm still unsure about going that route as I want to train as a paramedic and adventure onto other places in ems.

Getting my nursing license is also on my bucket list as I want to get into flight or work in a specialty in the hospital.

Are there any licenses I can get or other certs to better my chances of getting an er job or any other advice pertaining to that?

genuinely curious as a person who works at a hospital.

I'm working on an AI research project studying pediatric triage and how decisions are made when text descriptions for child's condition lack full context by parents.

1. When you evaluate symptoms , what crucial "hidden state" is most frequently missed in written text by parents?
2. What are the main challenges when patients are sent to the ER when they could be managed elsewhere?
3. What specific sign makes you instantly change decision from "monitor at home" to "go to ER immediately"?

Watched the Pitt lately and have been hearing a lot about how scarily accurate it is medically speaking. Wondering if there are any doctors that could attest to that?

In California, if an under-16 minor is brought to the ER for alcohol poisoning, will the minor get in legal trouble or will cops/school be notified?

Also, will parents see an ER visit on the insurance bill? Will they also see what the reason for the visit was and what treatment was had? What if the minor pays the hospital bill themselves out of pocket without giving an insurance?

Edit: I feel like I should add this isn’t something that’s happening currently it happened in the past to someone I know and I was curious.

Has your hospital ever made a big mistake with a patient? Ours did recently, and it's bad...Wrong patient & procedure. Can't go into details, thank God had nothing to do with me or my unit! 😱

Hello,
I’m a former 68W combat medic (only 3 years) and I’ve been working as an Intermediate Care Technician (ICT) at a large city VA Emergency Department for about 1.5 months now. My ultimate goal is PA school, and I took this ICT job to get my PCE hours and because I genuinely care about fellow veterans as a whole.
But right now, I am really struggling.

Long story short, I recently had a patient completely blow up at me over a blown vein, and it tanked my mood and mental health. I am 100% P&T and suffer from bipolar disorder, and right now my brain is telling me that everyone here hates me, that I’m terrible at this, and that I should just give up on a medical career entirely.
Only six weeks in, and the ED environment feels toxic, shitty, and overwhelming. The job is incredibly simple on a surface level but the interpersonal stuff fucks with me. Doctors getting offended when I hand them their own patients EKGs (isn’t that your job lol), people trying to pull me for tasks while I’m drawing blood cultures or something else kinda important then getting angry at me for not sending labs up quick enough. There’s a constant, jarring almost violent interruption and no semblance of an actual flow.

For the veterans, former medics, or current PAs who transitioned from the military: Is this normal culture shock? How do you separate patient or staff misery from your own self-worth?
If the ED is simply too chaotic for my mental health, are there better, quieter clinical environments or other VA roles I should look into for PCE while still aiming for PA school? I’ve been admittedly internally fragile since the onset of my bipolar disorder, it’s awful because I have a mostly relaxed affect and nobody can tell. But when I’m alone in my house it’s ugly ngl. I don't want to give up on my dream, but I need to protect my peace.
Thanks for any advice. Just feeling really lost today.

So I go to urgent care yesterday evening first because I believe I have blood in my urine accompanied by lower right back pain for weeks and the doctor made me go to ER for imaging. This is like my 3rd CT I’ve ever had which scares me bc the amount of radiation for someone my age.

My mother shows up and we’re waiting for hours. I finally get a room. They do a pap smear and never has a pap hurt that bad. I’m usually good with needles but idk why I was so overstimulated by the IV and blood tests along with having my new Invisalign in, it was all just freaking me out. They give me I believe midazolam. It was horrible. I feel totally out of control and so uncomfortable and want to rip my skin off as I’m fighting staying awake. But I couldn’t fall asleep. As soon as the nurses leave I start sobbing to my mom just saying over and over how I just wanted to go home.

So I try to sleep and could not. My legs feel so restless. They finally get me to the CT. Contrast felt more intense than what I remember. Then we wait another like hour and a half for results and another half hour before being discharged.

We get home at 3 am and my heart would not stop racing I thought I was going to die. Didn’t fall asleep until 5 woke up around 9 but felt better and slept until 12. When I woke up then I had a fast heart rate again. I still have anxiety and a general pit in my stomach feeling along with restlessness and nonstop moving my limbs mostly legs. I’m just frustrated and need to vent. I’ve never been so uncomfortable during/after an ER visit before.

As the title says I'm looking to end up in er but currently have been looking into into jobs. They all say medical assistant certificate is required but I'm about to take NAC. Should I pivot and get medical assistant cert instead?

I'm looking to eventually go on to BSN and working in emergency.

Thanks in advance. Any guidance is appreciated.

I’ll take all tips, tricks, advice. I wanna hear it all.

I'm an RN that just moved to a new ED with a huge proportion of pediatric patients (my last 2 years in the ED rarely saw kids - children's hospital 15 min away). I had an experience recently where I needed to help hold a toddler very still for a procedure (it took 4 of us!) and after it was all said and done I noticed there was a small light bruise where I was holding. That shook me up when I noticed. I apologized profusely, and the parents were very understanding, but I'm wondering what could have been done to prevent this. The provider did not want to sedate any more than we already had, maybe some kind of padding under my hands? I don't know.

How can I prevent this from happening again?