When I got to work yesterday, we had a significantly larger number of COVID positive patients in the ED than usual. Usually, we will see somewhere around 2 or 3 percent of our patients testing positive for COVID. Yesterday, it was hovering around 12 percent.
One of my patients was a 20 month old who came in because she had what her father reported as a seizure, the third one in the past three months. Apparently, no one before had tested her for drugs. I asked the Doctor for a urine drug screen because the entire family smelled like weed. Her urine came back positive for Cannabis, Fentanyl, and Methamphetamine. When we called DCF, they weren’t surprised. Apparently, this family is well known to them. Go figure. Because of having to wait around for DCF, I wound up working 14 hours yesterday.
My patients yesterday? Two homeless people demanding to be admitted (I guess looking to ride out the storm in comfort). A couple of broken feet from falls, a dude with chest pain that he got while clearing debris ahead of the storm, two drug seekers trying to score some pain meds, a 20 year old with nausea, and a woman in heart failure, you know the usual. We were 4 to 1 yesterday, which is better than my old hospital. I think I treated 15 patients overall.
24 Comments
Shelter From The Storm · August 29, 2023 at 11:53 am
It is a full moon. The local “charity” hospital once had gang shootout victims waiting in the emergency room with the police blocking all entrance/exit in case of any rival’s retaliation attempt during a full moon.
Thankful that there are serious people left to man the trenches, carry on.
AC47Spooky · August 29, 2023 at 11:59 am
Well tomorrow is a full moon and there’s a tropical storm heading our way! Hope things don’t spiral out of control for you … stay sharp.
SoCoRuss · August 29, 2023 at 2:16 pm
Did the covid folks have the new Election Variant? Is so then was it any different than any other covid case better or worse?
Divemedic · August 29, 2023 at 4:03 pm
We have no way of telling variant. None of them are critical, however.
SocoRuss · August 31, 2023 at 10:52 am
Thanks for the info. Do you think you could do a post about what you see as a medical person and covid. We hear from the govt and CDC we are all going to die and the latest variant will wipe out the world so we should hide and take the next 27 booster shots . We dont get to hear that much from someone like us who who skips the bullshit. But what are you seeing? Are you see large numbers of cases, how severe are the cases, what type of people are coming in? The healthy, the old and weak, the immune compromised? Is the large influx of illegals the cause of the number to rise? The big question would probably be who is getting covid more now, the vaxxed or unvaxxed. there seems to be more and more doctors studies saying the vaxxed are getting covid more now, whats the truth?. Whats you opinion and advice on this? I think a lots of your readers would like to hear this also.
Divemedic · August 31, 2023 at 11:43 am
Granted.
Birdog357 · August 29, 2023 at 4:36 pm
Are any of the covid postives actually sick? Or are they in for something else?
Divemedic · August 30, 2023 at 11:18 am
We only test for COVID if they have symptoms of a respiratory illness. The test is one test that looks for Flu A,B, and COVID.
Birdog357 · August 30, 2023 at 2:43 pm
Admittable sick or send em home?
Divemedic · August 30, 2023 at 3:01 pm
Depends on the entire picture. If they are in Septic shock, or have some complication like coagulopathy, they get admitted. If they just have the sniffles or flu like symptoms and are COVID+, they usually go home.
Birdog357 · August 30, 2023 at 9:14 pm
I guess what I’m asking is, are they really hospital level sick and thus actually needing medium to advanced care, or just using the ER as urgent care? What’s your feel for this vs the original variant? I had it in Feb of 20 and it sucked ass, got it again last year, didn’t feel as bad, but felt bad for far longer.
Divemedic · August 31, 2023 at 9:41 am
Our hospital admission rate is somewhere around 45%. I don’t have specific numbers. Still, more than half of the people who come to the emergency room for any reason (not just COVID) could easily go to the doctor or to urgent care. They just don’t.
The ED is viewed as the McDonald’s drivethru of health care.
Dan D. · August 29, 2023 at 4:52 pm
You may have saved that little girl’s life, dude. Well done.
Bad Dancer · August 29, 2023 at 5:22 pm
Wishing ya a safe and uneventful ride. There’s an uptick here too but I’m unsure how many are actual covid patients and the docs and nurses who apparently learned to diagnose covid by eye last time continuing to do so as they are very very happy to set up an isolation ward again.
Matthew W · August 30, 2023 at 9:42 am
What test is being done for the Wuhan and how many cycles?
oldvet50 · August 30, 2023 at 10:51 am
That is the suckiest acronym ever! Bring back the ER or think of another one because I was thinking you were gonna tell us about erectile dysfunction.
Divemedic · August 30, 2023 at 11:17 am
LOL. It’s not a room any more. It’s an entire department.
Birdog357 · August 30, 2023 at 2:45 pm
And? A CAG commands an airwing now, still called Commander, Air Group….
Divemedic · August 30, 2023 at 3:02 pm
and? The military also calls this a woman. Like I take my cues from the gang of fuckups in today’s military.
birdog357 · August 30, 2023 at 9:17 pm
Yeah, that’s just full on mental disorder… CAGs have commanded airwings since mid WW2. They stopped being Air Groups in 1942. Just because the underlying organization is changed, doesn’t mean we need to change a well known name.
Divemedic · August 31, 2023 at 9:42 am
I didn’t name it. That’s what the emergency department is called.
Milton · September 1, 2023 at 8:53 am
Lol, man calling it the EmDep would leave me with less nausea. Appreciate you sharing your EmDep stories. Rock on!
Milton
Joe Blow · August 31, 2023 at 5:56 am
… as we enter this next phase of the operation, I appreciate you sharing un-edited factual info. Your field of employ and location are very useful to filling in the blanks the media leaves out.
.. which had me thinking: whats the PCR cycle count up to on those tests? What is your opinion on the false-positive issue? Can the test REALLY differentiate from flu a/b/chinkypox? My understanding was you could make the test say pudding was positive for covid if you ran it long enough.
Aesop · September 1, 2023 at 12:57 am
DM can tell you what they’re using at his shop.
We’ve used the same bedside swab test we’ve had since 2021.
It tests only for COVID.
(Flu a/b is a different swab and test, and gets run by the lab.)
Swab snot, mix in wet medium. Drip 3 drops on a reactant cassette, wait 10 minutes.
(Exactly like a home pregnancy test).
Test gets run one time.
If you have COVID, it makes a blue line that looks like the Control line, and you’re positive for COVID.
That’s it.
Everyone who’s tested positive has generally correlated clinically (bilateral pneumonia on chest x-ray, dyspnea, etc.), even when they report no serious signs or symptoms.
And although it’s supposed to be observed for 10 minutes, it generally pops positive or not in 1-2 minutes. (Personally, I’ve never seen, nor even heard of, any patient showing negative at 2 minutes becoming positive over the next 8 minutes, not once in 3 years.)
The only way to get a positive result is for the patient nasally swabbed to have COVID.
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