Monday, January 12, 2009

Presumed Consent

In the ED, we can be real jerks sometimes.  I mean, we get a patient with a blueish tinge, really working hard to move air, who has a history of intubation for asthma attacks, and we have the nerve to not only refuse to let him go home, but give him neb treatments as well.  And then, just to piss him off, we started an IV to draw labs and push more medication to help him breathe.  Where do we get off?  Come on, all this guy was trying to do was get some sleep, but EMS had to show up and drag him down to the ER for no good reason.  We know those pinpoint pupils are how his eyes always look when he's sleepy, but we still gave him Narcan anyway, just because we can.

1 comment:

Evil Transport Lady said...

Maybe you should have let him TRY to walk;)

Nah, that would have been evil;)