50 Hospital Employees Share The Strangest Cases They’ve Had

They truly believe not being able to eat for 24 hours is unacceptable and will forego tests that could save their life, or at least lead to successful treatment. Connected to this is the number of patients who confide in me that they ate before an operation but, “Don’t tell the doctor”. I’m going to tell the doctor.

There is a saying that if you don’t want to explain to nurse how it happened you probably shouldn’t do it. That being said, if you do need to explain to a nurse how it happened, tell the truth, because it is much harder to help if you lie.

The ammount of people who stop taking a medicaton and are suprised when the symptoms return...especially when it's their own kid.

Thanking god/jesus for saving people and not the actual doctors or nurses.

I’m not a doc, but I just got out of the hospital after 5 days. The nurses and techs were lovely and helpful. But the rest of the patients and families on my side of the floor were atrocious.

The lady across the hall kept pushing the call button whenever she needed anything like a straw or new pair of socks because these were too slouchy or someone to figure out where the next episode of Duck Dynasty was on the TV.

The person in the room next to me literally called in his entire family to come visit him so they could try and take turns to get the food staff to bring them meals for free.

At one point on my last day, the very nice tech comes into my room and shut the door and I asked her what was up and she just said: I just need a few minutes away from those people and you’re the only nice one.

That’s awful. It’s awful that they treat these people this way. Just trying to do their jobs. I’m not sure we’ll have medical staff in 10 years if this keeps up.

Being sexually inappropriate with younger female staff. Being racist toward staff of color. Being physically violent toward staff. Nurses bear the brunt of most of this.

Hallucinating is more common than you think. Dehydration alone can cause hallucinations.

Somehow trying to threaten me by refusing treatment. You’re the sick person, not me.

That and the fact that some people don’t seem to understand that acting rude/belligerent/condescending/violent will not get you better care.

I’m an ICU/recovery room nurse but it is absolutely mind-blowing how so many people live. Cockroaches in their home cpap machines, lice so severe they have to cancel the surgery because they keep contaminating the sterile field, toe nails curled like talons and folds that are macerated/breaking down. And you talk to the patient and they’re totally kind and appropriate people with families. I think it’s a huge sign of our lack of appropriate mental health care and health education in this country. So many people live a life neglecting their physical bodies and it’s so sad.

The misconception that yelling at or being snarky with the healthcare team will improve your loved one’s care. It won’t. We’ll still take care of them but no one wants to go the extra mile if there’s a family member recording or belittling them.

ETA I have more:

Not telling the RN in triage that you have a contagious illness and only casually mentioning it later on. I cannot tell you the number of people who come to the ER for an unrelated complaint and after they’re roomed will say “I had Covid 2 days ago”, “yeah I’m being treated for shingles now” etc. If you have a contagious disease, even if unrelated to your current complaint, we NEED to know so we can protect you and others.

Being upset that we don’t have an on call dentist to remove your tooth at 3 AM. I get that infected/c*****d teeth can hurt like a b***h. But dentist don’t work in the ER. (There are oral/maxillofacial docs for facial trauma but no one is extracting your impacted wisdom teeth).

Lying that you have chest pain because you think you’ll get a room faster. You won’t. You’ll get vitals and an EKG but unless either are concerning you’ll continue to wait like everyone else.

Not using a flared base.

Hey, my _____ hurts.

"No worries, _______ is very treatable. Take _____, you'll be good in a week"

Three days pass

HEY! MY ______ STILL HURTS.

"It's only been 3 days instead of a week."

I DON'T CARE, IT HURTS.

"Have you been taking _____?"

NO. F**K YOU FOR NOT HELPING ME, YOU'RE A BAD DOCTOR.

Keeping their loved ones alive but with no quality of life because they feel guilty they didn’t spend enough time with them/don’t want to make the call to change goals of care. Worse if they refuse pain medication on the patients behalf….

ER doctor here (board certified, practicing full time in California) -- mention this on Reddit and the /r/trees enthusiasts will downvote you faster than you can blink, but marijuana actually does have a lot of side effects.

One particular marijuana complication we've begun to see way more of since legalization (which I support, for the record) is something called Cannibinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome.

To put it simply, chronic users (especially heavier and/or daily users) are at increased risk for developing a syndrome characterized by shockingly severe abdominal pain and vomiting that is very resistant to IV nausea and pain medications. You'll pump these people full of multiple nausea meds, numerous doses of morphine or other narcotics, and they'll still be projectile vomiting and miserable.

Over the years we've found that the best treatment for it is actually an intramuscular shot of an antipsychotic medicine called Haldol (haloperidol). Another trick is to use actual clinically formulated capsaicin cream (the active ingredient in peppers that brings the heat) all over the abdomen. Neither of these work well in any other kind of abdominal pain but it's virtually the only thing that works for CHS.

Unfortunately the only real treatment to prevent episodes is stopping the marijuana use. That, as you can imagine, is a tough pill to swallow for people who are daily users and in particular those who have projected their marijuana use as their entire personality.

Edit: also as many have said, hallucinations and paranoia. Can happen after years of well-tolerated use.

Able bodied adults of sound mind that soil themselves and then expect to be cleaned up to punish staff for not running to them in an instant when their call light goes off. I saw you walk in here, no I will not wipe the urine off of you. Do you p**s yourself at home? No? Here’s a pack of wipes, a fresh gown, and fresh sheets. If you’d like a shower I can walk you down the hall.


People (usually family members or visitors) that will stand in the door or hallway glaring at staff because they’ve been waiting a while. Yes you are waiting. Yes this is an inefficient system and there’s plenty of things I wish were different. Every year there are staff cuts, funding cuts, and we’re expected to handle more patients than ever with less. But also standing with your arms crossed pouting at staff does not make the hospital run faster.

Threatening to leave like it will get you better service. There are 20 people waiting for your bed if you don’t want it. Sign this form and there’s the door, have a good day.

Leaving against medical advice then coming back to the hospital and throwing a temper tantrum when you have to start over again in the ER. No we didn’t save your bed for you, you wanted to leave. If you’ve changed your mind please get back in line.

I went into Diabetic Ketoacidosis last year and I was so confused. I was fighting and aggressively pissing myself. I came to blind from the blood sugar and in restraints. My husband told me what I was acting like and I desperately apologized to the nurses. I was met with empathy and one said, “don’t apologize, it was exciting”.

So if I got that nice reaction from my thrashing rage, I can’t imagine how bad it can get. I spent 8 months on the transplant floor and it was very quiet compared to the ICU and ER.

Assuming that my answer to your question will change if you ask it again - usually louder and more aggressively to the point of being belligerent.

Example: "Can I feed my mom?"

"No, sorry, your mom is currently NPO for a procedure, which means nothing by mouth. She's receiving IV fluids for hydration."

"BUT SHE'LL DIE WITHOUT FOOD. So can I feed her??"

"No, not right now"

"CAN I FEED HER THOUGH??"

My sister in christ. I said no like three times. I explained myself. Please stop wasting my time and yelling at me for doing my job. Thank you.

Also - people living in hoarder homes. The amount of pts we have come in from hoarder houses is insane, and I know it's not just my area since I've worked all over the province. I didn't actually know it was that common until I started nursing.

I worked the front desk/triage at an ER and couldn’t believe half the s**t people came in there for. One woman said she was looking for a primary care doctor at midnight… I was like, this is an ER, not a primary care doctor’s office.

The amount of grown men who had a cold or the flu and acted like they were dying was always funny to me. Then they were irate at how long they would be sitting in the waiting room since it wasn’t an actual life or death emergency.

The number of people who will cough directly on you, and not even attempt to cover their mouth or even turn their head.

Asking for imaging without an evaluation because their chiropractor told them to. Dude, if you want real medicine, you need to let me do real medicine. I'm not just going to order an MRI because some crackpot suggests it.

I used to work inpatient psych, and now in the ER. I started noticing paranoid/delusional behavioral patterns that are shockingly common, but people are walking around in normal society with these sub-clinical issues undiagnosed. Most diagnosis and involuntary holds only happen if they show these behaviors in front of the right people at the right time.

Also, people who are completely ignorant of their bodies and what changes are normal vs abnormal. No, the tip of your toe turning black 1 month ago is not normal, and yes, that is why we are now consulting with surgery to see if we can save the rest of the foot.