I had severe asthma as a kid. I was intubated for a sever attack a few times. My parents were instructed to take better precautions in our home and went through instructions, more dusting, washing bedsheets etc.. and the big one NO SMOKING inside the house. So my parents agree to all of this.

Few weeks later I'm back in the hospital. A doctor recognized me and came over to talk. Then he bent over and smelled my head (I'll never forget that. I thought it was so weird). He told a nurse to sit there and not let me leave with my parents. When my parents showed up he asked point blank:

"Did you not understand what I told you last time? Do you understand these attacks could be fatal?"

"But we open windows and have stopped smoking in her room when we put her to bed" :/.

So I'm ~~only~~ an EMT, but I want to weigh in here to this conversation.

I had to tell a patient with severe pneumonia (and the patient's family) that you don't get sick (i.e. catch a cold) by leaving your skin exposed. The family was vehemently debating me on the fact claiming that I had no idea what I was talking about because I'm not a doctor.

Attempting to explain to them the necessity for a foreign body to enter your system was the most preposterous thing to them.

Edit: I just want to say to everyone who flooded my inbox with wonderful sentiments regarding the work of EMTs and paramedics. That appreciation makes dealing with the seemingly inexorable chorus of professionals telling us (me) otherwise much easier.

There was a nursing student I had once who laughed loudly and exclaimed 'How can you possibly get an STD in your mouth?' ahh the innocence of youth.

Not a doctor (yet) but an ER tec for ~2 years. Mom comes in with her baby plus two more older kids. Complains that the baby hasn't pooped in a while and wont stop crying. As I'm settling them in with one of the nurses, the baby is bawling, like opera singer lungs bawling. Suddenly mom whips out a white plastic shopping bag and sticks an end in the kids mouth, says "this is the only way she stops crying." Nurse and I share a look and immediately order and emergency x-ray on the kids stomach. Turns out she had ingested a good amount of these bags and it was blocking up in her stomach. Big deal, potentially life threatening. When we confront the mom about her baby feeding habits her only words of defense are "Well I checked all over the bag and I couldn't find anything that said 'non edible.'"
TLDR: Mom had been letting her baby teeth on plastic bags because she didn't know they weren't edible.

Medical Assistant to a cataract surgeon here.


If you f*****g sleep in your contact lenses long enough, they will fuse to your eyes and will need surgery to have them removed. Yes, you can go blind from this. For the love of God, don't sleep in your contact lenses.

Im an ER doc and see this far too often with young and middle aged people with minor aches

Patient : I have some *insert pain in random joint/limb/back* since yesterday.

Me: Did you take any thing for the pain

Patient: no I didn't

Me: why

Heres where I get multiple equally stupid answers from people

A : I wanted to see a doctor first (why??????? These people have mild pain and are willing to wait for hours for no reason)

B: I don't know what to take (how does anyone from the age of 15 onwards not know about Tylenol/advil/generic OTC pain meds is beyond me )

C: I don't like taking pills (the f**k do you think I'm going to do, lay hands and make it better I'm not a f*****g paladin!!!

I'm a paramedic and recently transported an idiot who self presented to the local hospital, who found he was having a heart attack (stemi) and needed him sent to a bigger hospital for treatment.

During my assessment I asked him how long he'd been having chest pain. On and off for twelve months, he tells me.

Any family history? (One of the biggest indicators). Oh, yes. Dad died of a heart attack. Brother died of a heart attack. Both of them first presentation, stone dead on the spot, no f*****g about.

So... you have a 12 month history of intermittent chest pain, and a family history of your closest male relatives spontaneously chucking hearties and dying, and you've never got it investigated. Further more, the only reason you came to the hospital tonight is because your family badgered you into it.

I told him he needed a solid kick in the a**e. To his credit, he agreed.

My sister (who is a new redditor and hope sees this) is a doctor and 25 years ago when she had her very very first patient out of residency and this patient refused to allow her to see her breasts (which were sore and needed a mammogram to check out a lump). So sister asks why and this girl who is about 30 and single said matter of factly "oh. That's lesbian. We can't do that. It's against the lord's wishes." She loves telling this story at the dinner table on family gatherings. Especially to our religious side.

Step mom is an ER nurse, she used to tell stories about her fun patients she had. My favorite was always this:

Severely drunk guy came in with signs of alcohol poisoning. They put a urethral catheter in him so he didn't p**s himself. He didn't quite understand what it was and why he had it in his d**k and kept on messing with it.

At one point he tried pulling it out and my step mom (she's not the very best at subtlety mind you) leans over and said in his ear: "If you pull that out now, your d**k will never work again". Well wouldn't you know it? He stopped trying to pull it out after that.

I was a newly minted graduate with fresh and optimistic views on my life as a doctor. Second week in came this old lady and her very dysfunctional family.

They would argue and complain about everything, from the food, the nurses they didnt like and every single medical decision we made. She was very very sick so her management was just as complicated.

She had several children and they all didnt like one another and would not talk to one another. Each time we would have to explain a long update to every single one of them because they "are entitled to hear it from a doctor".

One of these stories being sitting down and explaining why you don't give gatorade as an IV drip. They did not understand why we were giving "salt water" to her.

Conversation with her son:

"Look she likes gatorade, she is drinking it so why cant you give it to her through her drip?"

We explain why.

Son frowns. "But its isotonic."

We explain again.

"Yes but gatorade has more electrolytes."

We explain again.

"Salt water just seems to be too cheap. Cant you give her something else closer to gatorade? That has electrolytes?"

Continues for two hours. Wash and repeat every day during her admission.

Afterwards I told my fiance. He opened up a scene from Idiocracy on youtube and I just sat there with my mouth open for a while.

Patient made an appointment and brought in his s**t in a box. He was concerned about the size of his turd, and if it's normal. All he got from the visit was, "Normal turd. Yes, it's pretty wide."

Turd box was set out with biohazard waste. Waste guy thought it was a misplaced package and put it on the front desk. Secretary got quite the surprise that day..