“Had this happen to me with a moth in my ear. They thought I was methed up. The best part about it was the reaction from the ER nurse when she stuck the scope in my ear. It was something like, ’eeerrrrgghhhAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! He DOES have a bug in there and it’s alive!’ 0/10 do not recommend.” —u/Bitter_Mongoose I read in the file that the battery was removed endoscopically the same day and that there was significant inflammation of the esophagus due to leaking battery acid. Wild to think that this dad suspected something along this line and it still took half a year to finally be looked into properly." —u/max_dem1an —u/max_dem1an —u/bombas239 —u/GrandOpening I was extremely apologetic and sent her straight to the doctor for an urgent review. It taught me a valuable lesson I have never forgotten about doing a full assessment of every patient, regardless of what I think about them or their symptoms." —u/Brit_J I had two additional surgeries and was on bed rest for three months with a hole in my foot because the initial surgery destroyed the integrity of the skin. I now have two giant scars on my foot and inner thigh…so it’s a good thing I wasn’t actually just being vain." —u/celticscolie Every day, there are thousands of kids that turn up to ED with gastro. Most of them are a bit flat because they’re exhausted, hungry, and dehydrated. So are the parents. I can’t MRI and LP every kid who presents lethargic after a bout of gastro; the number needed to treat is far greater than the number needed to harm. Medicine is largely a numbers game, we go for the most likely diagnosis acknowledging that sometimes we will miss the occasional unicorn, that’s why we tell patients to come back if something changes or gets worse. No one knows everything about medicine, and often patients turn up before their symptoms get bad enough to match the descriptions in the textbook. It’s only a matter of time before you miss something bad. If it hasn’t happened to you, then you haven’t seen enough patients. When it does happen to you, it will burn itself into your brain forever. It will eat at you and keep you awake at night, but the only way to keep going is to find a way to persevere and learn so you never miss it again. Accept the fact that you are going to miss something again and change your practice to reflect this fact." —u/1834927651892 In Australia, we have a law called Ryan’s Rule which basically means if a parent has a gut feeling that they are not getting the right care, they have the right to request a second opinion. It’s a good thing, not because doctors are incompetent but because they are busy and not omniscient. It’s really important." —u/Tammytalkstoomuch By Wednesday, I was moving really slowly. On Thursday, I went in for the test and wailed in agony when they ran it. The bloodcurdling scream accomplished something that none of my other efforts at communication had: somebody realized there was an actual problem. Finally, I get a laparoscopy (my request three days earlier had been a good call; had just asked for an older version of the diagnostic). And this go-around, nobody’s wasting any time. When I woke up, there were eleven staples holding my abdomen together. My very dead ovary had been through three complete rotations and had been rotting inside my abdomen for several days. If it had gone untreated much longer it would have killed me. And if any of half a dozen physicians at either of two hospitals had taken my report of pain seriously enough to run an ultrasound without waiting nearly a week, then they might have saved it without needing surgery." —u/doublestitch —u/foureyesoffury —u/Thalkarsh
