“Lemon Is Not Acidic”: 47 Patients So Dumb It’s A Surprise They’re Still Alive

Not stupid, actually kind of sad.

My friend told me that she met a man on her Oncology rotation who had lung cancer, and who was convinced that some chlorophyll drink his wife was making him could help him photosynthesise, make oxygen and breathe better.

Whilst working as a GP (primary care physician) I had a 40ish year old man come in with his wife complaining of "electric shocks" for the past year. It quickly became apparent these were static shocks caused by his cheap work suit and rubber soled work shoes. I explained he just needed to change his shoes, and it would stop, but both him and his wife were baffled. Theyd never heard of static shocks and couldnt understand why I couldn't treat his "condition". Unfortunately I have no power the change the laws of physics.

A female patient comes to the ER, saying that she has an abscess, turns out it was just a little pimple on the nose.
Another patient comes to the ER during a very busy shift, I take her in, ask her why she is consulting. Turns out her house burned out 2 weeks ago and her prescriptions burnt with the house. She didn't thought about getting an appointment with her primary care physician, just came to the ER.
We sent both patients home explaining what an emergency is and with an appointment to a general Doctor.

Not a doctor, but once I went to the doctor because I felt a bump at the center of the back of my head. Doctor told me thats where the spine connects to the skull... Whoops.

Emergency surgeon here

Got called 2 a.m. because a patient demanded to see me because "her daughters farts smelled too bad"

Kept a straight face.

I was a volunteer first aider for 10 years. I was on duty at a local judo competition. I was on edge as there was always at least one serious spinal injury. So i was walking around the mats, waiting for the call to rush in and help save someone.... and this woman starts screaming and crying. I ran over, as fast as i could. jumping over rows of chairs and ready to help!

She was screaming because her baby's first tooth had come through and she didnt know what to do... she asked me to cut out the rest of the teeth so that she didnt have to deal with teething anymore... Nope...

Had a friend diagnosed with diabetes and advised to proceed immediately to the emergency room (not sure why, they let him drive). He stopped at McDonald's on the way.

EDIT: He went to the hospital bc another friend insisted after seeing him drink 2 gallons of water.

"I dont have diabetes, I take medicine for that." - happens so often I cant put a face to that quote.

Had a patient refuse a blood draw because he said the blood is his and we aren't allowed to experiment on him

Edit: this patient had no known diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. People can be stupid. Many are.

Edit 2: other stupid patients include: 1. had a guy come in to have his head measured for a hat he wanted to buy on Amazon. I referred him to Lids at the local mall. 2. Lady came in drunk 12 weeks pregnant. She thought that because she was young her body was able to reduce the teratogenic effects on the fetus.

Not me, but my mother. One time someone came to her worried that there was a bump on his wrist.

It was the joint.

Not a doctor but my dad is an opthamologist (eye doctor). He once told me that one of his patients came in utterly confused why the "medicine in his glasses no work anymore."

Had a obese 11 year old girl that we operated on but were having trouble extubating her because she was essentially too fat to breath while at all sedated. Her mom thought the problem was that she was hungry and wanted to come and put some fried chicken down the endotracheal tube.

This happened to a friend of mine when he was in training to become a paramedic. He was on a ride along, basically, and they had received a call where a woman fell down the stairs. They get to the address and knock on the door. The woman who called was inside folding clothes. Apparently she had been drinking on her medication. Twisted her ankle and called for an ambulance. So they asked her if she wanted to go to the hospital. She's says yes, then proceeds to the fridge to poor "one more for the road.".

My girlfriend is a nurse. She had a diabetic patient who had circulation problems and decided to cut off his own foot instead of receiving treatment. He was treating it with sterile maggots for about two years before infection took his life.

My friend is a doc ar the ER. She told me about a guy who came in and was blue all over his body. He was freaking out and trashing the place in pure panic. Turned out he had bought new, blue bed sheets and they colored him blue...

Had a patient come into the ER with "very mild" abdominal pain. I asked when it started and he said "right now." He didn't have a coherent answer when I asked how he knew to come to the ER if his pain just started now. I still don't understand what brought him in. It was an all around odd encounter and he left pretty quickly; we didn't do anything for him.

On a side note, he complained about the wait. He waited 12 minutes after he checked in before I saw him. I checked the records, I'm not exaggerating. Literally 12 minutes.

One patient came in complaining from abdominal pain. Turns out she was pregnant and she gave birth that night.

Once a patient came in to the ED because she'd tried to wax her underarms and the wax set. She couldn't get it off using hot water or soap, so thought sitting in an ED waiting room for 3 hours was a good idea.

I didn't look after her so cannot say if or how my colleague got the wax off, but everyone in the department heard about the triage note by the end of the shift.

One evening in emerg I had a woman come in because she had a low blood sugar....yesterday. And she was totally fine now.

She was having unexplained episodes of low blood sugars and was being very appropriately worked up by her family doctor as an outpatient. But she had come to the hospital for her husband's appointment and decided she would "just drop in" to emerg to see if we could do anything else for her episode that had COMPLETELY RESOLVED. Frustratingly it was a very slow evening and she was seen within an hour.

Not a doctor by a friend of mine by "mistake" took sleeping pills and pain pills instead of his blood pressure pills and kept complaining to the doctor how his blood pressure is getting worst!