Friday, June 19, 2009

Patient Charts

Patient Chart misstatements.

  • "Patient has chest pain if she lies on her left side for over a year."

  • "On the 2nd day the knee was better and on the 3rd day it disappeared completely."

  • "The patient has been depressed ever since she began seeing me in 1993."

7 comments:

Aniko said...

Amazing !

Usually, when there is a list, some are good, some not that much.

On this list, all the statements are amazing.

The muscles I used for laughing are hurting now. :-)

Eolake S said...

I hear you.

"Occasional, constant, infrequent headaches."

I have those!

Monsieur Beep! said...

I can see something in front of me shaking violently - oh, my belly.

;-)

Anton Sherwood said...

I heard some silly things while working for a hospital:

"Infant is status post a negative rule out sepsis workup" — does that mean sepsis is negative, or that it was not ruled out?

"benign yet appropriate" — is good health inappropriate?

"At this point the etiology of the [symptom] is still unclear to me; it could possibly be idiopathic but, given that his symptoms have resolved and [test results], most likely his [symptom] has unclear etiology." So it's unclear whether the etiology is idiopathic or unclear? Thanks for unclearing that up!

Pascal [P-04referent] said...

Aniko,
your condition necessitates an immediate massage.

Beep,
your belly size necessitates an immediate massage.

Eolake,
your condition necessitates an instant message.
Have you heard of the Clouzot technique?

"does that mean sepsis is negative, or that it was not ruled out?"
Your educated guess is as good as mine, dear and esteemed colleague!

"Thanks for unclearing that up!"
Don't mention it, House. All in a day's work. :-)

Give me a little time to find my old notes, I've got a personal compilation of real-life patient chart funnies.
Like this one: "Patient arrives at the ER in a state of death."

Another top fave is one I wrote myself: "Patient mentions impotence for the last 6 months. For the last 2 years according to his wife."
Well, the (rather extraverted) wife WAS present during the questioning, and it was quite relevant to the medical problem at hand. (Atheroma of the abdominal aorta.) Every little bit of info helps.
When I mentioned it at the staff meeting, the Chief Doc gave me a thoughtful look from over his glasses, and said: "Really? 2 years according to his wife? How... interesting!"

My captcha : implys
Not that I'm suggesting anything...

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Good ones.

So the question is whether he was fooling himself or his wife!

Pascal [P-04referent] said...

...and your educated guess is as good as mine!