You Have The Flu? Please Stay At Home.

[trailerparkmedic]

So, it's flu season at Hood Hospital and I've spent the past week and a half in urgent care. I am SO freakin OVER whiny, whiny, whiny flu cases.

-You came to the hospital, presumably to receive treatment. To provide the best care for you, we need to do things like test you for the flu to see if we can give you a prescription for Tamiflu. Unfortunately for you, this involves a stick up your nose. Yes, it sucks, but we can't give you Tamiflu without it and there's not much else we can do for the flu.

-You aren't going home with antibiotics if your chest x-ray is clear because you don't have an infection, you have a virus. Antibiotics don't work on viruses. We won't write a prescription for medication unless you're homeless (and therefore get prescriptions for free) because it's cheaper for you to get some generic Tylenol & Delsym at Walmart, where you should also be picking up an ample supply of your favorite liquid to keep yourself well hydrated. I will spent lots of time educating you on this, because people don't know that you can ask the drugstore pharmacist for medication recommendations or that viruses are different than bacteria. That's cool. Screaming about how we didn't do anything for you (hey, I stuck a swab up your nose, did you already forget?) and threatening me will only get security to escort you off the property. Bonus points for doing this immediately after seeing how well it worked for the last person.

-If you are an adult and you bring your mom with you, we really don't care. We do care when you're "too sick to talk" and want your mom to answer all the questions and she doesn't know the answers. We also will get annoyed when Mom creates a fuss about how she also wants to be seen and doesn't want to wait to be triaged.

-You've been at the hospital more than me over the past week, and I've been working overtime. It appears that your chief compliant never changes from flu-like symptoms. So yes, I will ask you what you hope to accomplish with this visit that was not accomplished the 4 other times you've been here in the past 7 days. We have not been withholding magical medication to make you instantly better. The flu sucks. I'm sorry. We can't fix it.

-Wear your mask. You know we don't have many freebies here, so if you got something immediately upon entry, it's probably pretty important. I don't want to get sick, and I don't want to bring whatever you have home to my husband just to nurse his man-cold. Even my dog has her flu shot, because I do my best to only nurse on the clock.

-If someone gave you the flu in the waiting room because they weren't wearing their mask and they coughed on you, you can't sue us for that. Also, your symptoms won't appear within 30 minutes, so please quit the fake coughing.

-You want narcotics for your chest pain from coughing so much? HAHAHAHAHA.

-Crying about waiting to see the doctor when you've only been in the hospital for 1 hour will make me roll my eyes. See, I can see you're a regular user of our ER and wait times for non-urgent problems can often be 12+ hours. Oh, look, you never go to your clinic appointments, and that's where you should be now, and we're totally going to have a discussion about appropriate use of the ER. If that pisses you off and you start to talk about how you're going to kill yourself because of this wait, you're an idiot, because now you're going to a different part of the ER, you won't get to play on your cell phone anymore, and you're going to have to wait even more hours for psych.

[Amina516]

Alls I can say is, I feel your pain. hang in there.

[wolfie]

-You aren't going home with antibiotics if your chest x-ray is clear because you don't have an infection, you have a virus. Antibiotics don't work on viruses.

Some years back, I shocked the doctor at the walk-in clinic. I showed up with flu-like symptoms, and was worried that I'd caught an opportunistic bacterial infection. Doc took a look, didn't find signs of bacterial infection, and told me that. When he did, I replied that this meant an antibiotic wouldn't do any good, and that I probably just needed rest and fluids. I guess he was used to people who wanted antibiotics for ANY disease, and that someone who knew that in their case antibiotics were contra-indicated was an unusual occurrence.

[Moirae]

I'm just wondering how the person with the flu is well enough to even stand. Last time I had the flu, I was in bed for over a week. I could barely stay awake for three or four days, never mind work.

[Hanzoku]

...threatening me will only get security to escort you off the property. Bonus points for doing this immediately after seeing how well it worked for the last person...

-Crying about waiting to see the doctor when you've only been in the hospital for 1 hour will make me roll my eyes. See, I can see you're a regular user of our ER and wait times for non-urgent problems can often be 12+ hours. Oh, look, you never go to your clinic appointments, and that's where you should be now, and we're totally going to have a discussion about appropriate use of the ER. If that pisses you off and you start to talk about how you're going to kill yourself because of this wait, you're an idiot, because now you're going to a different part of the ER, you won't get to play on your cell phone anymore, and you're going to have to wait even more hours for psych.

At least you're allowed to whip out the pwn-ade with security and 'oh, you're suicidial? You'll be restrained and psych will be right with you in four or five hours...'

[sms001]

I guess he was used to people who wanted antibiotics for ANY disease,

I'm just the opposite. I don't want antibiotics unless absolutely, positively, there's-no-alternative, necessary.

And tpm, I've heard a LOT of "need pain meds..." excuses/reasons but the flu is a new one for me. Glad your work seems no nonsense about it.

[Seshat]

I guess he was used to people who wanted antibiotics for ANY disease, and that someone who knew that in their case antibiotics were contra-indicated was an unusual occurrence.

You're absolutely right, unfortunately. And these people and the doctors who give in to them are the reason ... meh, every regular reader of this forum has heard the rant. And you're one of the people who knows it backwards, forwards and sideways anyway.

sms,

I'm not as tough as you re 'not getting antibiotics', but it's because my immune system, she no work so good. If my family doctor (who knows me and my immune system) suggests antibiotics, I go for it.
But she knows that I know about the potential end of the 'age of antibiotics', and we specifically chose a doctor who doesn't prescribe them casually.

[raudf]

I'm one of those that if I know it's a virus, I won't bother going to the doc unless it hasn't run it's course in two weeks, unless it's the flu.. because I have two kids and can't afford to be down and out with that. If I do go to the doc, my GP's nurse practitioner won't prescribe antibiotics unless there is sign of a secondary infection. If I can't get in with my GP and the doc I do go to says it's a virus and tries to give me antibiotics, I refuse 'em unless they can prove there's a secondary infection.

*sigh* Plus, I'm pretty much limited in my antibiotics anyways. I'm allergic to the erythromycin derivatives. Lets out Z-packs completely.

[trailerparkmedic]

At least you're allowed to whip out the pwn-ade with security and 'oh, you're suicidial? You'll be restrained and psych will be right with you in four or five hours...'

We don't restrain people just because they're a psych patient. If they're suicidal, we do remove all their personal belongings so they can't harm themselves. If they are suicidal, homicidal or there under an emergency court order, they will be restrained if they attempt to run away multiple times. If anyone is super aggressive and trying to hurt staff, themselves, or other patients, we restrain them at that point as well. We use both chemical and physical restraints. We're very familiar with what works and what doesn't with our frequent fliers. We medicate with small amounts of medication to keep the edge off. We talk to patients. We distract them with food and magazines. I don't mean to stand on a soap box but I take pride in a non-restrained psych pod. Sometimes, restraints are unavoidable (especially with bath salts), but we really try our hardest to make the hospital nontraumatizing.

[Metody]

Sometimes I think about jamming that swab up really high. Like....really high.

[Hanzoku]

Sorry if it came across that I was suggesting that all psych patients were or should be restrained. Even in this case, I wouldn't say that they should be restrained since they were clearly being dramatic, however I was (jokingly) suggesting using the threat of restraints to make them settle down.

Out of curiosity, do you get a lot of bath salt users? I would have thought that well-publicized incident with the naked guy on a bath salt trip biting another guy's face off would have put other users onto a different drug of choice. x_X

[Sapphire Silk]

At least you're allowed to whip out the pwn-ade with security and 'oh, you're suicidial? You'll be restrained and psych will be right with you in four or five hours...'

Try four or five days. Pysch patients are waiting that long for beds these days.

[Seshat]

I'm one of those that if I know it's a virus, I won't bother going to the doc unless it hasn't run it's course in two weeks, unless it's the flu..

If you're like that, keep track of what antivirals are available.

Almost all the herpes strains (shingles and cold sores as well as the STI) can be treated; but only if you take the antiviral within 72 hours of the blisters showing. The sooner you take it, the more effective it is.

AFAIK, there's only the influenza and herpes antivirals (as opposed to vaccinations) available at the moment - but others are being worked on.

(Edit to add): I'm not disagreeing with you. It's a good plan, and staying away from people helps keep the virus contained, and various etcs of praise. Just that when an antiviral becomes available, I don't want you missing out because you're doing the right thing!

[trailerparkmedic]

Sorry if it came across that I was suggesting that all psych patients were or should be restrained. Even in this case, I wouldn't say that they should be restrained since they were clearly being dramatic, however I was (jokingly) suggesting using the threat of restraints to make them settle down.

Out of curiosity, do you get a lot of bath salt users? I would have thought that well-publicized incident with the naked guy on a bath salt trip biting another guy's face off would have put other users onto a different drug of choice. x_X

For drama queens, ignoring their hysterics usually works better than any threats. Negative attention is still attention.

We get a fair amount of bath salt people. The problem is that synthetic drugs don't show up in a urine screen so we aren't always sure what the patient is on. I think bath salts are appealing because they're fairly cheap and easily available.

When I first started my job, one of the biggest psych hospitals in the area, who also took lots of unfunded patients, had just been closed for restraint issues. While most of our chronic psych patients have Medicare/caid, we still have a sizeable chunk who have no insurance. Usually patients are placed within 48 hours; while the hospital was closed, unfunded patients were waiting a week in the ER. It was horrible. I live in a very large city with lots of hospitals and the lack of pediatric beds is shocking.

[dragon_wings]

I'm another that doesn't take antibiotics unless necessary. Last time I was on then was November of 2010 for the worst case of strep I've had in my life. In October or November of this year I got s bad sinus infection, took the generic of mucinex, and I was better within a week and a half (if I hadn't gotten better or had gotten worse I would have gone to urgent care. My store has one attached that I've been to several times since I've transferred to this store.).