Nurse Marge in Charge

Dear Nurse Marge,

What is wrong with people?  I work in the ER and I just don’t get it.  Why would people come to the ER:

• For a hang nail?
• At 3 am for a headache they’ve had for six weeks?
• For a microscopic laceration that can’t be seen for the naked eye
• With head lice?

I have no trouble with the patients who come in with chest pain that turns out to be heartburn: I can see where that’s an emergency.  But a hangnail? Do they really think that’s worth a midnight run to the ER?

Signed,

Troubled in Topeka

Dear Troubled,

You have hit upon one of the great medical mysteries of our time: what is an emergency?  Just as each patient is clearly the best judge of their own pain level — for how can we know if the patient contentedly snoring away in Bed 3 is experiencing excruciating pain — or if the patient wolfing down a Big Mac and large order of fries can’t ’stand the sight of food’ — each patient is clearly the best person to judge what is and is not an emergency.

Many noble researchers and medical sleuths have attempted to solve the mystery. Long hours have been devoted to discovering exactly why six weeks is the right amount of time to endure a blinding headache.  Why not five weeks? Couldn’t they hold out for seven?  Results have been slow in coming, particularly since the researchers have repeatedly abandoned their posts and have been discovered in a random hallway, banging thier heads against the wall.

What I’ve found works best is to treat the emergency with the same amount of energy and emotion as if it were a real-life emergency.  Just imagine: instead of the crash cart, every ER could have a lice cart. Call a “Code Crawly” and everyone would descend on the patient, steel combs and NIX at the ready, scrubs flying in the wind…Or for those  microscopic cuts, get out the handy-dandy #18 and say “When was your last tetanus shot? We need to know STAT! There’s no time to waste!”

I think you’ll find the number of ‘emergencies’ drop off significantly.  But don’t get all happy about this plan: the space you gain in the waiting room and triage area will be taken over by a documentary crew, wanting to film your innovative new approach for “Life in the ER!”

Hey, if you get on camera, you could be a movie star!

Good Luck!

Nurse Marge