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ER Visit Reinforced my Disdain for Doctors and Hospitals

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 11:56 pm

Topic: Events, Thoughts

I finally bit the bullet and went to the E.R. about 23 hours ago. I went because the body-wracking coughs haven’t improved, despite antibiotics that were $19 a pill and breathing treatments, as well as several OTC treatments and home remedies. The pain in my side had worsened again, so I was concerned that the Physician Assistant’s1 kidney stone hypothesis may have been correct.

I went to the OSU Medical Center2 E.R. I hadn’t been there since a few years before the name change. I had forgotten it was now associated with OSU and I was wearing one of my OU t-shirts. Oops.

I arrived around 1am and the waiting room was empty. I had a fleeting desire to turn around and leave, but I stayed because no one was waiting and I knew it wouldn’t take forever to see a real doctor3.

Within 10 minutes I was following a nurse to a room in the E.R. He asked the basic questions while building rapport and then began prepping me for vitals. While he was putting the blood pressure cuff on, three people in white lab coats barged into the room and started bombarding me with questions.

I could tell by their questions and mannerisms they were doctors. The leader was an Asian man who never introduced himself, but oozed cockiness. He wanted to know what medications I was on and why. I told him I was prescribed Levaquin4 and Tigan5. I told him the Levaquin was originally prescribed for a bad UTI and possible pneumonia. Then I told him I had returned to that clinic about a week later for the follow up urinalysis to ensure that the UTI had cleared up and the Levaquin was re-prescribed and a new script for the Tigan was given. I told him I had been diagnosed with the flu and moderately severe dehydration. I also told him that the P.A. thought I may have kidney stones. I offered him the discharge sheets from both my previous visits to the minor E.R. He scoffed, so I held on to the papers. I didn’t like him; he came off as an arrogant prick.

The nurse asked me what my blood pressure had been during my previous visits to the minor E.R. I told him it was high and he wanted to know the range. I told him, then turned around to look at the monitor and it said my BP was 183/112. He hooked me up to a monitor so they could track my bp, pulse, and O2 levels. My vitals remained bad the entire time I was there.

One of the other doctors, a 35-ish female, interrupted the nurse’s question. She was an uptight wench that was filled with questions and lectures. She seriously needs to get laid, stat. She ordered a chest x-ray. After it was done she came back in and told me that my lungs look perfect, which surprised me considering I’ve been a smoker for almost 15 years. Then she said that I have bronchitis and a cracked rib and that is what has been causing all the pain. They didn’t do any other tests or labs. The nurse was surprised they didn’t at least do a urinalysis.

The third doctor was concerned about my vitals, but the female doctor insisted I be discharged anyway and to follow up with a primary doctor in 2-3 days. She wrote a prescription for an inhaler and a NSAID for the pain. I was in and out of the ER in about two and a half hours which is a record for me.

It wasn’t a pleasant experience. The main two doctors who worked on my case were assholes and didn’t do their job very thoroughly in opinion. The third doctor was probably a resident and he seemed to agree with me about their hasty diagnosis, but he didn’t have the balls to call them out. The nurse commented about them, but just to me. He was cool and the only saving grace. In the future, I will avoid OSU medical center unless I’m left with no other option.

  1. from the minor E.R. [↩]
  2. formerly Tulsa Regional Hospital [↩]
  3. not another damn P.A’s from the urgent care clinic [↩]
  4. a very strong antibiotic [↩]
  5. for nausea and vomiting [↩]
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