What Things Frustrate Nursing Staff And Doctors The Most

1. Please keep a list of the medications you're taking along with the doses, and if you're unclear on your own medical history, add why you're taking them too! This is a significant issue with the older populations who are more likely to be on many different medications, but it happens with people of any age. I keep a list of all of my medications and their doses in the Medical ID app on my phone as well as on a card in my wallet. I can't tell you how many patients I talk to who say "Oh well I take a little oval white pill and a blue one too" but can't tell me what they are, what the dose is, or what medical conditions they have. Sometimes, it really matters! 

2. If ever there is a time to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you god, it's when you're in the ER (or with any doctor really). I really, genuinely do appreciate that some things are embarrassing for you to talk about, and there are some nurses out there who will feed into that by not asking you whether or not you're taking birth control pills or whether or not you're using hormone replacement therapy for your menopause symptoms. What's going on with your body is important, relevant, and completely natural and I promise you're not going to "offend my modesty." The conversations you have with your nurse are confidential, and I've seen a lot of weirdness that you're unlikely to top (and in the event you do top the weirdest thing I've ever seen, I'm sure not going to tell you so). 

Along with telling the truth, let us decide whether or not one of your symptoms is relevant. I had a patient a few weeks ago who came in for chest pain but their heart workup came back fine. After the patient's spouse showed up maybe 4 hours later, the spouse asked me if the patient had mentioned numbness and weakness in their legs over the previous 3 days. Nope. No they did not. It turns out that the patient had MASSIVE blood clots in the major arteries of their legs (pretty uncommon for the location the clots were in) which we probably wouldn't have caught if the spouse hadn't forced the patient to tell me about it. The whole truth matters.

Refer:Chelsea Meissner