Insert Foot In Mouth
In the category of “Things NOT to say to patients who just underwent emergency surgery the day before and are incredibly anxious people in general”:
I pull out my penlight to illuminate his temporary ileostomy, but the light is going dim. I say, “Shoot, it’s dying,” and my chief quickly corrects me, “Oh, your FLASHLIGHT is dying?” “Yes,” I say. “The flashlight.”
Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid!
yeah, well, i was doing an ultrasound and the computer part of the US system was messing up my annotation and i say, “what is WRONG with this thing?” patient says, “what? what do you see in my leg? do i have a DVT?”
derrrrrrr….
congrats, mr. DR., on all your hard work & the clerkship.
I think nearly all nurses and physicians have some similar story to tell.
I’m a NICU nurse. One of my co-workers once told a mom (on the phone) that “the baby’s belly blew up.”
Try calming someone down enough to explain that you didn’t mean that literally.