Nausea and abdominal pain generally isn't a life threatening emergency. It sucks but an ER is supposed to treat those first. She might have been better served going to her family doctor, esp at 9AM.Quote:
Originally Posted by starkvegasdawg34
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Nausea and abdominal pain generally isn't a life threatening emergency. It sucks but an ER is supposed to treat those first. She might have been better served going to her family doctor, esp at 9AM.Quote:
Originally Posted by starkvegasdawg34
There are even issues with that. Because of some insurances, if you want to get a scan, it is to be authorized by the insurance company. So, if a patient goes to a primary care clinic with severe abdominal pain, more often than not, you should order a CT scan, whether that is without contrast to identify if a kidney stone is present or with contrast to evaluate whether there is appendicitis or some other organ involvement. With some insurances, you order the test and have to wait 2-3 days to see if it is authorized before you schedule it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Liverpooldawg
I've had patients see me in my clinic before with right lower quadrant abdominal pain and a white count of 21 thousand. That's appendicitis till proven otherwise, and you have to get a CT scan with contrast to evaluate this properly. I've had to tell some of these patients to go to the ER because in the ER, you don't have to get authorization to get the scan. If I attempt it, it might be 2 days before the patient gets the scan. By then, that appendix may have ruptured, and you have all sorts of problems on your hands.
When my son was 3, he got a gastro bug and essentially had intractable vomiting. I took him to my local ER, which is in the system I am an employee of. We went there at around 9 PM. My son couldn't keep anything down. He was getting deydrated. Finally, at about midnight while we were still in the waiting room, he started drinking some tea and keeping it down. I took the buzzer back to the desk and told the receptionist that "I can call him in some phenergan gel now that he is drinking fluids." So, I left the ER and went to the 24 hour walgreen's, told them that I was a doctor and needed some phenergan gel for my son.
I've been on both ends, as I have worked some as an ER physician in small towns. Some of the crap that people come to the ER for just infuriates me.
I was working a shift at LeBonheur during my third year of residency at night, and we were getting slammed. It was one after another, and there were probably 4-5 of us physicians working that night. I was intubating kids and doing lumbar punctures on neonates. At 3AM, I see a kid with the complaint of ear pain. So, you go from respiratory distress or a fever of unknown origin in a neonate to ear pain in a 13 year old. That gets frustrating.
Turns out she's the proud owner of two 7mm kidney stones. Admitting her tonight and crushing them in the morning.
I spent 3 days in the hospital once with the same symptoms and diagnosis of appendicitis (started with my GP and my white count was through the roof). I still own my appendix. It was probably stress in all honesty. At the time they eventually diagnosed it as a food allergy. (nuts) I didn't eat nuts for 20 years. I was never sold on that. I eventually tried nuts again. I eat a handful every night now so that was obviously NOT what was going on. The moral of the story: Those docs did EVERYTHING right and still missed it. That's the way medicine is. It used to be more of an art than a science. In some respects it still is. I have Dr. in front of my name now by the way (NOT a physician but in a healthcare field).Quote:
Originally Posted by KB21
NOW, in order to determine if she was ill treated we need to know what was ahead of her. Kidney stones HURT, but there are worse things to have.Quote:
Originally Posted by starkvegasdawg34
That is true. But my issue is it took them almost 10 hours to figure that out. In the meantime they had a 73 year old woman with complaints of severe nausea, abdominal pain, and blood in her urine that started 8 hours before she got there and then they made her wait another 5+ before even so much as taking her blood pressure. In hindsight it turned out not to be life threatening but they had no way of knowing. Or this could be the ramblings of a son who's already lost his dad and was scared shitless something was seriously wrong with his mom and pissed beyond measure they weren't right on top of it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Liverpooldawg
Greenwood? When visiting my family in the Delta, I have standing orders to drive me to St D or Baptist unless I'm bleeding out. My son sustained a fairly serious, non life threatening, injury near Greenwood, I set a record getting him to St. D, no way would i have taken him to Greenwood or Grenada. I refer to Greenwood Leflore Hospital as the roach motel (young pups google it), you check in, but you don't check out.
Prayers for your mom. Hope everything turns out well. Sorry she went through that.Quote:
Originally Posted by starkvegasdawg34
Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. We have a winner. I cal it the Greenwood vet clinic.Quote:
Originally Posted by viverlibre
I've heard good things about Ruleville, however.Quote:
Originally Posted by starkvegasdawg34
I worked in Hazlehurst and the nurse at our plant formerly worked at the Hazlehurst ER. He always said he would rather die in an ambulance going to Jackson than die in the waiting room at Hazlehurst. My wife when we were at MSU went to the Oktibbeha ER for a kidney stone (we didn't know it at the time). After sitting in the ER with her almost passing out, we finally were seen. They said it is probably a kidney stone and sent her home with a pain killer. We get the painkiller and it is extra strength Tylenol. We then drove to Tupelo where they actually gave her something for the pain and some stuff to help her pass the stone. Starkville ER literally did less than I had done for her at home.Quote:
Originally Posted by viverlibre
Thank you. It's been 3 years but it's still not easy. Hope your mom gets the care she needs.Quote:
Originally Posted by starkvegasdawg34
No, not from the coast and it happened almost 3 years ago. Kind of disheartening to hear someone had a similar experience.Quote:
Originally Posted by dparker
The Greenwood hospital is being horribly mismanaged by the city. They go out of their way to find the worst administrators possible. When given good advice by competant doctors on how to correct the downward spiral, they scoff and go the opposite direction. They are running off the good MDs that are still there. Sheer and utter incompetance by the administrators and governing board. That hospital will not be in existance for long.