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During my shift in the Emergency Room last night, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient whose smile revealed an expensive shiny gold tooth, whose body was adorned with a wide assortment of elaborate and costly tattoos, who wore a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and who chatted on a new cellular telephone equipped with a popular R&B ring tone.
While glancing over her patient chart, I happened to notice that her payer status was listed as "Medicaid"
During my examination of her, the patient informed me that she smokes more than one costly pack of cigarettes every day and somehow still has money to buy pretzels and beer.
And, you and our Congress expect me to pay for this woman's health care? I contend that our nation's "health care crisis" is not the result of a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses.
Rather, it is the result of a "crisis of culture", a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on luxuries and vices while refusing to take care of one's self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance. It is a culture based on the irresponsible credo that "I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me."
I'm 7 words in, and I call a fake. I know many doctors, and all of them get upset when laypeople refer to the emergency department (ED) as the emergency room (ER).
I am a physician. I have never, nor have any of my associates, ever called the ER the "ED". I have actually never heard a fellow physician call the ER the "ED". Likewise, the SICU, the MICU, and the OR have always been called by those names.
I second the medicaid experience. They are by far the worst patients we see and we only see medicaid that our neurosurgeons have picked up on call, otherwise we do not see them. They are refractory to nearly every medicine or treatment and cannot be helped.
They are refractory to nearly every medicine or treatment and cannot be helped.
Darn them poor people. How dare they insist upon living their own lives their way! Maybe if they would submit to the Nanny-state do-gooders, they'd be more welcome in the ER, huh?
Darn them poor people. How dare they insist upon living their own lives their way! Maybe if they would submit to the Nanny-state do-gooders, they'd be more welcome in the ER, huh?
If they want to "live their own way" they should earn their own money. If they don't want to follow medical advice they should quit clogging ER's.
A quick chat with my neighbor who is a retired trauma surgeon confirms that it was always the ER to him.
He didn't deal with stubbed toes and such so he couldn't comment on the other stuff. He dealt with major trauma and never asked about their payment status or socio-economic status and claims he didn't care.
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