To all redditors in the medical field: What is one thing you wish more patients knew?

Sharkbait_ooh_ah_ah · 11 days

You need to be seen by a doctor ASAP.

Sharkbait_ooh_ah_ah · 11 days

Medicine resident here.

A drug allergy is a specific reaction. Don't tell me you are allergic to penicillin because your mom's neighbor's parakeet's former owner once sneezed when taking penicillin and you don't want to risk taking it yourself. You just excluded yourself unnecessarily from receiving some of our best antibiotics.

ImTheDoctah · 20 days

I read that earlier tonight in the print version. My roommate wondered why I was laughing so hard at a medical journal.

jewchbag · 25 days

I remember when I was at junior at Rice our best player on the women's basketball team tore her ACL. It was on the front page of the free press.

Later that summer the front page had a shot of a fisherman in Lake Champlain holding up a large fish. This article could be summarized as "man catches large fish."

implante · 29 days

I like you as a friend. None yet but that's just because the articles submitted so far were done by medicine residents. Have at it!

implante · 29 days

Absolutely!

implante · 1 month

I'm an Android user myself. Definite plans to put one together. I have one partially built with MIT's android app inventor. Had a month of ICU followed by wards which has been slowing me down. Will post it when it's done -- may take a few months. PM me if you want to help!

hotjava23 · 2 months

Was that in the old north end of Burlington?

asd4781 · 3 months

Not me, my brother. He was a year ahead of me at college and was in an all-male a cappella group (read: an unregulated fraternity that sings). He never went to class. Spent his time singing and having a great time with the guys. He got into halo 1 and stopped going to classes. He ended up failing a bunch and our folks made him take a semester off.

He started college again, spent a bunch of time singing/being a male a cappella guy and trying in school when halo 2 came out and he stopped going to classes again. He was in the top 1% of halo players but, alas, failed a bunch again. He takes a whole year off, swears he will correct his ways and comes back to finish his last year.

Halo 3 comes out.

His xbox breaks.

He graduates.

He's now a video game tester for Rock Band doing the vocals.

Edit: this is him and a bunch of his rock band buddies in their band. He's the singer.

CrimsonMed · 3 months

"RUN!" [hobbles with flashlight attached to leg]

randomguitarguy · 3 months

But if you are arguing that an internist will never look down a microscope, you are wrong. It is not only taught, it's expected. House may be showy and ridiculous but doctors are responsible and routinely inspect their own cases.

randomguitarguy · 3 months

I disagree. While it's true that lab techs run most routine tests in the lab, doctors certainly participate. There is a clinical pathologist overseeing the difficult cases or zebras. And it's more than just pathologists looking through microscopes. I am trained to look at smears, do gram stains, and interpret basic cytopathology and histopathology.

randomguitarguy · 3 months

I barely see my own apartment. I certainly don't have time to break into someone else's. Plus that would be the end of my career.

randomguitarguy · 3 months

Right! That's why they named him JD.

randomguitarguy · 3 months

Are you just saying that to try to add to the conversation? Is this based on any personal experience?

I have written well over 100 prescriptions in the last six months and have done 30 A-lines, LPs, paracenteses, central line placements, and even a few phlebotomies.

randomguitarguy · 3 months

medicine intern here.

Have never had sex in a call room. Never heard of anyone who has.
I love my program and get treated well. Other programs are known for not being so nice, they get termed "malignant." I have a bunch of classmates from med school who aren't happy.
I know nothing about the insurance for patients I see as an inpatient. I treat everyone the same. When you're outpatient it gets a little problematic. Some things (lab tests, procedures, referrals) will only get done if you have insurance. One of my patients who is really sick is waiting for their medicaid application to get approved before doing any lab tests (it'll be around $300 to get the necessary tests otherwise, which is prohibitively expensive for them). I encourage them to get the lab tests done but if they can't afford them, they don't. I treat them with the best guess that I can in terms of what medications to give. I have a low threshold to send someone in this situation to the ED for further workup.
A couple of residents have been serial nurse daters but no one (as far as I know) has been seeing anyone in our class. Most people are in long term relationships. The single people have a hard time getting out to meet new people because of the lack of free time. We'll hang out after work to get a beer but that's about it.

Scrubs is by far the most accurate medical show. I interviewed at the program for the Merriam (sp?) Hospital in RI. The roommate of the creator was a resident there before moving to California. Apparently a lot of the things in the first season were based on real life events.

*edit: I get so freaking mad at House. Unethical behavior aside, doctors don't run their own mris or clinical lab tests. And consider a freaking DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS. Send out tests for ten diseases at a time, not just one. This show would be about 10 minutes long if they just took a freaking good history to start off with.

/rant

implante · 3 months

Bah. Sorry. The US.

thebassoe · 4 months

I just graduated in May. They were still doing it then! Prices skyrocketed by 100% since the 90s apparently.

fearsofgun · 4 months

Amazon link for the lazy

rony43 · 5 months

Couldn't agree more with the last point. 3rd year med students are most useful for data collection/organizing. You're not going to be expected to synthesize the data on a level of a 4th year. If you lie about any data, people will assume all of your data is untrue.

kevinofhardy · 6 months

related to that: the plural of anecdote is not data. - Roger Brinner(?)

plasticmouse · 6 months

This made me so happy :D

Tatertits · 6 months

Yeah, behind you on this one. So much so that I'm not even gonna turn the first sentence into a reference to fornication.

Nuplex · 6 months

I depend on my life being saved daily by my superhuman ability to wash my hands in the hospital. That and I have normal GI flora to fight off the random resistant pathogens.

devilsadvocado · 6 months

oh dear god yes. I bought this for a buddy's bachelor party (he and all of the other guys went to RPI). It was great success.

Two-Year Club	Secret Santa 2010
Rally Monkey Tent number = 2	Charter Member
Verified Email	Best Link 2010-03-05

implante

TROPHY CASE

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