Playa Haters

"Sir, do you know who shot you?"
"A playa hata...please don't let me die, I just love y'all."

An Old ER Doc's Favorite Story

So an older ER doc told me his favorite story not too long ago. It went something like this:

A woman is brought in by police at 5 am on a week day to be checked out for "being maced in the eyes." Apparently she was drinking earlier and had gotten combative with the cops, leading to her getting maced. The ER doc went into her room to check her out and noticed she wasn't looking too bothered by the whole "mace-to-the-face" thing.

Doc: "Ma'am, I understand you were maced, how are you feeling?"
Mrs. Demeanor: "Fine."
Doc, getting a little confused now: "You aren't feeling any pain?"
Mrs. Demeanor: "Naw, my eyes hurt when they firs' did it, but I took care of it."
Doc: "You took care of it? You were maced. How did you take care of it?"
Mrs. Demeanor: "I put beer in 'em."
Doc, really confused now: "You...put...beer in them? And that worked?"
Mrs. Demeanor, as if this is quite obvious: "Yeah."
Doc: "Can I ask you were you got beer at 4:30 in the morning?"
Mrs. Demeanor, giving him a look of disgust and putting as much condescension as possible into her voice: "From my purse."
She then reached into her purse to prove that she was packin'..cheap beer.

So there it is ladies and gentlemen. If you get maced and your eyes are on fire, just rub some beer in them. Even better than the good old "rub some dirt on it" solution...

Sassy's First Night in the ED

I spent a few hours last night sort of shadowing in the ED. I say sort of, because I pretty much wandered at will and followed whichever resident or attending didn't give me the stink eye into the rooms. They're pretty casual about students shadowing at Med School Hospital's ED. It was my maiden voyage in the ED (no one put big red V on my forehead with lipstick, sadly). I saw some really interesting stuff, some OKish stuff, and some "WTF are you doing in the ER for this shit?" stuff.

My favorite, though? A severely autistic patient who was sent in (and by "sent in", I really mean "dumped") by his home with some paperwork. On his chart was written:

"Chronic Illness:          Artistic         "

I'd love to see the DSM IV criteria for that.