Sunday, January 13, 2013

White Lie Pneumonia

I know that often people will tell little white lies because they want to tell you what they think you want to hear.  We see it all the time. "Sir, do you use any street drugs or pain pills?"  "Oh, heavens no!" We run the tox screen and it is pan positive.  "Do you use alcohol?" "No." DTs on the way.  I try to get people to be honest with me and try to explain that we are asking these questions so we can better help them.  It still doesn't work.  "Sir, did you have anything to eat or drink after midnight?", "No".  The bronch after the aspiration that occured during induction for the elective surgery sucked out what appeared to be bread, egg and either sausage or ham.  Talking with the family, they all hit Hardees on the way to the hospital.  The patient thought a couple of biscuits wouldn't hurt.

3 comments:

SeaSpray said...

Heh ...evidently they need to watch this past week' episodes of Grey's Anatomy. One of the surgeon's (Grey) prologue and epilogue was about the importance of answering the surgeon's questions and that she is only asking to get the complete picture to better help you.

I might avoid, I might omit, but if asked a direct question - I won't lie. Honestly, I am doing a dumb patient thing right now and I know it and I know better. Avoiding.

Or and I realized this after the fact. in my routine physical this past fall, pcp asks me if I have pain anywhere else in my body besides knees. he asked twice and both times I happily said "No."

But the next morning, I realized ...yes I do. I do get aches and pains at different times that I didn't used to get. But when I was there ...I was upbeat and I like to be perky and was feeling good and so I said no. But it wasn't lying. I just at that moment wasn't honed in on pain of any kind other than knee. So ..you may also get people that do that.

The aspirating thing - gross and I know can kill people. maybe staff should tell then what could happen if they did eat and then go into surgery without fasting?

SeaSpray said...

Hi Throckmorton -What are your thoughts on obamacare now that it really is being implemented?

I read a link in wc's blog about premiums tripling in fall for private ins. And there is this book I want to get by a woman who has been on the news show about surviving Obamacare. She has read through the entire bill. Commented on (cited the regulation) where hospitals will be REWARDED for doing LESS for elderly patients! And yesterday (I think) IRS came out with stat that by 2016 ins will cost the average family of 5 (2 parents-3 children) TWENTY thousand dollars for the Bronze plan of insurance - not even the best coverage. OMG! And what does that mean for private insurances? THEY ARE trying to make the private companies fail and force us all onto single payer! To heck with the collateral damage of medical debt that will be incurred by families who will NOT be insured as a result of this because they don't qualify for the breaks! They lied to all of us! Of course those of us informed knew it all along. And we are seeing lose their hrs and jobs because of what this is doing to companies.

Just curious on your more recent take on these things - if you have time or inclination. :)

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