Emergency Room service

[hockechamp14 0]

It is a real shame.  Watch any emergency room, and what you see is doctors chatting with the other doctors about their golf game, stock market, etc.  Nurses chatting with their coworkers instead of preping the patients to make the doctors more efficient.  It is a situation where ANY decent motion/time study person could cut waiting time down by at least 50%, but only if the doctor's egos would let them!  Doctors think they are god, so they assume they are excellent business men too and do not seek help in streamlining operations.

had to take my wife to the ER on easter. the wait was short about 20-30 minutes to get a room. but the wait after the doctor came in for the first visit was very long about 5 1/2 hours.

what was he doing in that time? well he was doing an ER nurse in the next room over. those 2 are a perfect example of what is wrong with the ERs in america. they care more about getting "off" than they do about thier patients.

for 5 hours?!!! What do you do for that long?

[Jason16 0]

I shattered my ankle mountain biking in Courtney, BC last summer. I was riding in a pretty rural area so I spent 30 minutes yelling for help before a couple called 911 on their cell phone. 30 minutes later, Fire/Ambulance arrives and takes me back to their vehicles.

The ambulance drove me to St. Josephs in Comox but I would not be accepted. For the BCers on this board, this happened on that one day during the Hospital Employees Union strike when all of BC’s hospital workers decided to strike to show their solidarity.

What the paramedics did next really made me believe that altruistic people do genuinely exist. They hopped me up on morphine, stabilized my ankle and drove me to Comox Airport where one of the medics flew with me via a Helijet helicopter to Powell River and then caught a flight to YVR Vancouver where an ambulance was waiting for us. We then drove with police escort (my sister is a cop) from Richmond to Lions Gate Hospital in North Vancouver and went straight to surgery and subsequently surgeries as my ankle had to be reconstructed with bone grafts, plates, pins and the like . The whole ordeal took just under 8 hours from what I was told. (The morphine was really good.)

[Buzz_LightBeer 963]

... it helps if you pretent to be out cold.

for gods sake dont do that, we have ways of making sure youre not faking:

Holding someones hand over there face, and dropping it, alert people wont typically hit themselves in the face

a good ol sternum rub, knuckles to the chest.

My personal favorite: a good swift pinch to the armpit, with your index finger in the armpit, and thumb near the collarbone, thatll sober your ass up quickly.

[HockeyDude1712 0]

I hate ERs! I broke my hand because I was so pissed off with ref and punched the glass. I was in the ER for about 6 hours before I even got and X-Ray and another 2 hours for they to tell me that it was broken which I could have told them myself. So then it takes about another half hour til they put the cast on. Needless to say I was pretty pissed off!

[Knotfan1 0]

Hmm mabey if i had not punched the glass i might not be here ;)

[Hooah4 12]

Working in an emerging inner city hospital I can tell you that it's a ton of stuff. 70% of our ED patients are using it as a family doctor. We have now started requiring copays at the window for anyone listing our ER as their primary care physician. We get homeless, drug addicts, stabbings, etc.... Alot of times if it's not life threatening you have to wait.

I waited 2 hours for my son's dislocated arm to be set.

And yes sometimes the time of day is an issue. Full moons also wreak havoc on us also. <_<

[jeffw 1]

Been to the emergency room twice in the past year. Once on a Friday afternoon for 8 stitches in my hand and I was out in 45 minutes.

The second was a Monday night. My boy thought he broke his hand in practice (he's a 'tender) and he got X rays & stuff. Took about an hour.

[tokes 0]

I was in last summer, got thrown off a raptor and tore up my arm on a barbed wire fence, then slammed into the fence post and cracked a rub. I waited in the ER for for over 2 hours till I was seen, and like shorthanded mentioned a lot of the stuff was a kid crying with a sprained ankle, a kid with the flu, a kid with a black eye from getting hit with a baseball, the only other serious looking one there was a kid who broke his shin skateboarding or something like that, and you could see the bone had started to push through the skin and it was bleeding. That's pretty bad. A broken hand because you had a hissy fit isn't anything that needs immediate attention.

[sogaduch 0]

i went a few times cause i felt my shoulder pop out of place, i was in pewee and i was in pretty good pain waited 3hrs. other time took a hard check from behind into the boards was concussed could hardly stay awake took me 4hrs. got in the hospital at 9, got to see a doctor at 1 got out around 230. lets just say i didnt go to school the next day

[tokes 0]

[hockechamp14 0]

I've been to an ER when I was in fourth grade because of a concussion.

This past year I took a shot to my foot, and the thing swelled up like crazy. I went to get it x-rayed on a late weds afternoon. I probally got there at 7:45 and left around 9 I think. I had to go to like 8 different places as I'm crutching around with my swollen foot.

[masterpirate13 0]

I got blindsided skating through center...i was looking for my center so i could drop it to them...plus it was a non check mens league (go figure). The guy put his hand on the side of my head and drove it into the ice. Well needless to say i was out cold. I was only out for about 10 minutes...enough time to have someone call the ambulance. So the ambulance got there and i was awake. So i let them take me to the emergency room. They just escorted me in and told the nurse what happened. She sat me down in the waiting room...from what my girlfriend told me after. It took two hours before I went in and the doctor saw me. he then took two hours to send me to get x-rays. then it took him another hour and a half to tell me i had a grade 3 concussion and whiplash. and the whole time they made my girlfriend stand in the examination room...there were no chairs in there and they didn't bring one in. the only thing that really pisses me off is that they didn't bring my girlfriend a chair...i didn't remember the rest really...haha. other than that the visit didn't bother me. i think i slept...

the other time i was in for about 4 hours and they told me i broke my ankle...puck to the ankle. Well the next day i was walking on it and i knew it wasn't broken...idiots...if it takes 4 hours you'd think they'd get it right.

[hockechamp14 0]

They let you sleep after getting a grade 3 concussion?!!!

[Jason Allison 0]

call 911 and don't drive or get someone to drive you there... it's free and plus you get treated right away... it helps if you pretent to be out cold.

Yikes! I cannot believe someone would even suggest that. Do you have any idea how much stuff like this ties up our system, not to mention the legal ramifications you can face. Abuses like this have lead agencies all over the United States to resort to charging for EMS.

Sorry for the high horse moment, I recently became a firefighter and this stuff pisses me off...

[asdfa 0]

call 911 and don't drive or get someone to drive you there... it's free and plus you get treated right away... it helps if you pretent to be out cold. 

Yikes! I cannot believe someone would even suggest that. Do you have any idea how much stuff like this ties up our system, not to mention the legal ramifications you can face. Abuses like this have lead agencies all over the United States to resort to charging for EMS.

Sorry for the high horse moment, I recently became a firefighter and this stuff pisses me off...

i think it's right that people working in emerg/fields related should be angry at the people who abuse their privileges to the ER

the only time i've been to the emerg is the day after i got blindsided and hit my tailbone hard on the ice. even then, i went home first (even though it hurt too much to walk, i was half carried) and iced it out to see if it could help). when i went the next day, there were only about 2 other people there, one of them had a baby who had a fever, and the other one was fine as far as i could tell. i had to wait about 2 hours, for reasons that i completely don't understand, there was basically 3 people in the entire emergency room for about 4 hours. i don't understand why the mum with the baby couldn't have gone to any walk in clinic, i remember when i had pneumonia, i didn't even think about emergency room :P

[MissConduct 1]

urgh.. just went to the hospital actually Thursday night... went in at 6:20pm, got out at 1:20AM.. in which 5-10min was actually with a doctor/nurse. They said they were short staffed

[hockeypunk3 0]

well, one time back when i was a little fella. i was playing on the jungle gym at school and i fell off but my arm was wedged inbetween two bars and all my weight was going down and my arm was stuck between the bars and i heard 2 snaps then i hit the ground, i blacked out and when i came to i went into the school (i was somewhat dazed i didnt bother to look at my arm) and the secretary just absolutely freaked out and got me to sit down and put something over my arm, at that point i looked at my arm and it was broken in 2 places one about 3 inches from my wrist and another break about 3 from my elbow. I passed out after that and i woke up in a hospital chair with a magazine wrapped around my arm, and my mom was talking very fast with a nurse and it seems like we had been there for about 4 hours, and now we were told to wait another 3 or 4 till we could be seen. They said that only if i was bleeding or having trouble breathing they would make an acception. so we were there for roughly 7 hours. from about 10 am to 5 pm. and it took the doctors about 45 minutes to straighten and cast my arm.

[mack 44]

I think I set a personal best with a sub-5 minute wait on Friday night. I guess that deserves an asterisk because it was for an appendectomy.

[blackhawks4ever 0]

OK guys I feel compelled to chime in on this one. I AM AN EMERGENCY ROOM DOCTOR. I am residency trained in emergency medicine at Michigan State University, and board certified in Emergency Medicine. Yes we sometime have egos and no we don't "bang" the nurses!!

The national (US) increase in ER length of stays is due to the incresed volume of patients, most of which are abusing the system. Here is a relevate statistic: At a tertiary ER (ie trauma center) the doc can treat 3.5 patients per hour. I know what your saying WTF?? But the 5 minutes we spend with you are followed up by 10 minutes of charting (if you don't write it down you won't get paid for it......I hate insurance companies!!) and 5-10 minutes calling your regular doc or the surgeon, and then there is the unavoidable wait for xrays or lab tests.

I work in a 19 bed ER. If I spend 5 minutes with each patient how long does it take for me to get back to the first room?? That right over 1 1/2 hours!!! But the patint will complain about how the doctor was only there for 5-10 minutes, or they complain about how long the ER visit was. We as ER physicans are very reliant on the help of EMS personel and the ER nurses to expedite your stay.

If there was a way to refuse to treat the drug seekers, well baby checks, drunks, and the STDs It would definitely shorten your ER stay. But all the preceeding people would scream about how they have rights!!!......We'll with privledges comes responsability. If a person is not paying for it I truely believe they will do whats easiest for them. Once you remove accountability, people usually do whats easiest for them.......which screws the rest of us.

Sorry this is such a rant. I do get paid well for what I do....but I also get cussed at, punched, spit at and thrown up on regularly. I work harder than 70% of you (nights and weekend withstanding). I am sorry your er visit was unpleasant but believe me when I say most of us are working hard to help you.

Ken Colaric MD FACEP

President, Nebraska College of Emergency Medicine

[blackhawks4ever 0]

Sorry but I have more to say.....

For my fellow MSHers heres a few tips:

1) if you want to be seen fast take an ambulance. 98% of patients brought to the ER by ambulance go directly to a room.

2)If you have an emergency got to the ER immediately.....don't come 2 days later. Most injuries are easy to treat on day on than on day 3!!!

3)If you are injured and still hurt after a couple of days and you call your doctors office and the nurse/receptionist syay"go to the ER", you should press the issue asking why?? Some times it is because the office cannot do the xrays, etc. But most of the time the are not willing to fit you into the schedule. It is easier for them to "dump" you on the ER, even though you r copay/charges will be higher.

there....I think I 'm done...... :(

[Shorthanded67 0]

Excellent! I was looking for a response like this from someone who is "in the know" who could just explain the situation.

In my two experiences there were plenty of obvious "low-income folk" in th ER waiting room (and I tried to word that nicely.) Most of which had no obvious injury or illness. Abuse of system...yeah it sucks, but it's an unfortunate fact of life.

[sherwood21 0]

Only time I have/hopefully have to go to the ER was this year, I had no wait at all. We drove up to the gate, grabbed a wheelchair, convinced the nurse to put me in a room and I was operated on right then and there. Pretty sweet deal considering there were people in the lobby for 5 hours..:)

[cbettner66 0]

I agree that most hospitals are understaffed when it comes to doctors. I have had to get stiches 3 different times in the past 2 months.

The first time i sat there for 5 hours waiting and bleeding. By the time they actually tried to stitch me up i wasn't bleeding anymore. It was fairly busy, which might have been part of the reason why it was soo long, but at the same time there were about 5 nurses sitting there twiddling their thumbs because they arent allowed to do stitches and stuff.

The second time i was in and out of the hospital in about an 1 1/2 hours. It was later on at night so it was empty and much quicker.

The last time (i currently have a broken nose) it took about 2hrs 30min. It wasn't so bad - the only problem I had was that they never bothered to take x-rays or even tell me i needed to get them later. So now im going to be paying alot more because i had to go to a different hospital and got x-rays and now i have to go to a ear nose and throat doctor to make sure im ok.

By the way i now am the proud owner of a face shield because of the idiots that i play with...

[awall 0]

OK guys I feel compelled to chime in on this one. I AM AN EMERGENCY ROOM DOCTOR. I am residency trained in emergency medicine at Michigan State University, and board certified in Emergency Medicine.

Thanks for posting. I was hoping somone who was "in the know" would add their 2 cents. I know that this was already said, but I really wanted it seconded.

I know Doctors get paid really well, but I have also heard rumors about how much medical school costs. That gave me nightmares. Shudder!

[Buzz_LightBeer 963]

Sorry this is such a rant. I do get paid well for what I do....but I also get cussed at, punched, spit at and thrown up on regularly. I work harder than 70% of you (nights and weekend withstanding).

Sounds just like my job (minus the "well paid" part :lol: )

How often do you treat people with their finger glued into their nose?

And how many times have you head this story: "I was climbing a ladder, naked naturally, when i slipped and fell, and THATS how (foreign oject, lightbulb, baseball bat, cucumber) ended up in my rear end! HONEST!

(just a few anecdotes, all in a days work)