Friday, April 20, 2007

How Bad Do You Want It?

If you come into the ED with a complaint of dental pain, and halfway through treatment for said dental pain you realize that you're not going to get any narcotics, so you change your complaint to abdominal pain, and then proceed to insist on the entire gamut of tests up to and including pelvic exam and pelvic ultrasound, just to get some morphine, you have an illness that cannot be cured here.

(I feel sorry for the coders in medical records. I can see it now, "How do you code this gynecological workup for this dental pain patient?")

2 comments:

ERnursey said...

Isn't it pathetic that there is such a large contingent of people whose whole life revolves around obtaining narcotics? How sad to have nothing better to do. And how aggravating to have to deal with them day after day.

Anonymous said...

I love when the Dr. offers the real pain management for this. A shot of what used to be Novacaine and is now something else. I don't want a stinking pill, I want pain relief right now!

Hours pain free with no fuzzy head, what more could you ask for?