“I just ate the toothpaste, will I be okay?” When it comes to asking doctors questions, most of us don’t shy away from asking even the tiniest things. After all, when you’re worried about your health, there’s really no such thing as a question that’s too small. But every now and then, people manage to come up with questions or situations that leave even experienced doctors wondering how they got there in the first place.
That’s exactly what happened in a Reddit thread where doctors were asked to share some of the dumbest patients they had ever encountered. From hilariously obvious questions to decisions that probably should have involved a little more common sense, the stories had plenty of people laughing—and occasionally shaking their heads in disbelief. Keep reading, Pandas, to find out what doctors had to say about some of their most unforgettable patients.
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#41
Not a doctor, but work at a pharmacy. Once heard the story of a woman who came in ask the pharmacist what she should ask the doctor to prescribe for a different kind of birth control as she was having a hard time swallowing the one that she was on. So the pharmacist looks up what she was taking, only to find out that this woman had been swallowing her Nuvaring.
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7points
#42
I'm not a physician, but I am a healthcare professional. I once had a chest-pain patient who came into the Nuclear Medicine department for a typical MPI and he had a very pungent, disgusting smell to him. I work/go to school at a university medical center so we serve the locals and indigent patients mostly. Finally I get him to acknowledge the small and he says his toe has been "feeling funny". Turns out he cut it or something and an infection engulfed that toe and began eating part of his foot. It seriously might have been gangrene. I immediately called our nurse who notified about 3 different physicians who took samples and immediately rushed him out of our department.
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7points
#43
We had a patient once on a PCA (a kind of pain medicine pump with a button that the patient pushes to dispense more medicine). She thought she had to physically lick the button in order to get the medicine. It was weird.
6points
#44
Maybe not the dumbest patient I've ever treated, but certainly a memorable one.
While working a nightshift in the ED, I grabbed a chart for a P&B (our shorthand for pregnant and bleeding). I walked into the room and came across a young woman who was laying on the stretcher with her legs open in a pool of blood and … tissue. She was about 20 weeks pregnant and had been bleeding for almost 3 days before she decided that it was time to go to the hospital.
When I asked why she didn't come in sooner, she replied that she thought it was just her period, since she had heard that "you can still be pregnant even if you get your period". For medical clarity, yes, having a menstrual cycle shortly after unprotected intimate relations does not mean you are in the clear and definitely not pregnant. … Once you have a confirmed bun in the oven, it don't work that way.
After having to explain to the poor daft girl that she was, indeed, pregnant, I then had to spend the next 10 minutes pulling from her vaginal canal the remaining products of conception from her miscarriage.
While working a nightshift in the ED, I grabbed a chart for a P&B (our shorthand for pregnant and bleeding). I walked into the room and came across a young woman who was laying on the stretcher with her legs open in a pool of blood and … tissue. She was about 20 weeks pregnant and had been bleeding for almost 3 days before she decided that it was time to go to the hospital.
When I asked why she didn't come in sooner, she replied that she thought it was just her period, since she had heard that "you can still be pregnant even if you get your period". For medical clarity, yes, having a menstrual cycle shortly after unprotected intimate relations does not mean you are in the clear and definitely not pregnant. … Once you have a confirmed bun in the oven, it don't work that way.
After having to explain to the poor daft girl that she was, indeed, pregnant, I then had to spend the next 10 minutes pulling from her vaginal canal the remaining products of conception from her miscarriage.
6points
#45
Once a boy had a cut on his skull due to head injury, and his parents applied tea powder to stop the blood flow!
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5points
#46
The lady who thought she had "a pa-na-men-own-ya" She didn't end up having pneumonia.
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2points
#47
So; guy comes in with lumbar compression fractues after being pushed off a 2nd story balcony by his girl. Hes told by more than one person to leave her, including doctors and cops, he doesnt press charges. Comes in a year later stabbed in the back with a kitchen knife that went all the way through his chest and was sticking out the other side. who was he srabbed by? The same girl. He lived was lucky the knife missed his vital organs.
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0points