In a lifetime of seeing thousands of patients, a doctor will hear all sorts of crazy stories and bizarre cases. A recent thread on reddit asked doctors from the community to share some of their wackiest stories and boy were there some. Here are just a few of them: Aaaaand some bonus stories without captioned images: “A woman came in for a baby check with her 6-month-old and she had what looked like chocolate milk in the baby’s bottle. So he started explaining to her as kindly as he could that she shouldn’t be giving her baby chocolate milk. At which point she interrupts him and says, ‘Oh that isn’t chocolate milk. It’s coffee! He just loves it!” “I had a patient come in for an STD check. She was very upset and continued to tell me that she only had one partner. Progressing through my assessment, she further divulged that even if he was sleeping with other people it shouldn’t matter ‘because he uses a condom every time and he makes sure to wash it thoroughly after every use’.” “Had a lady who measured her baby’s temperature by pre-heating the oven and putting one hand in front of it while the other hand was on the baby’s forehead. She told the nurse her baby’s fever was about 250 degrees.” “Lady has to have foot amputated and is given waiver forms to sign pre-op. Buddy asks if she needs time to think about it. She’s very nonchalant and doesn’t seem to care much what they do. He gets suspicious and probes a bit as to why she’s not more concerned. She says she gets that they have to operate and it’s OK because the foot will grow back.” “I had a couple who had been trying to conceive for over two years. I asked all the usual questions, how often do you have sex, any previous pregnancy, etc etc. Something seemed off to me during the consult, so I continued to ask questions. Finally I asked if he ejaculated while inserted into the vagina. Both parties looked confused.Turns out the couple was not having insertional sex at all. I had to awkwardly explain to them how insertional sex works. Diagrams were required.” “Patient comes in, she’s upset. She’s pregnant, and she doesn’t understand why. She’s on the pill. Upon talking to her at great length, I find out that she only takes the pills on the days that she is sexually active – no other time.” “Patient comes in with her bf. They are indignant, as if somehow I could’ve prevented [the pregnancy]. The problem? Well, the pills were bothering the girl’s stomach, so, being a gallant bf, he decided to start taking them instead.” “I was explaining the treatment to the husband of a patient about to be discharged. He kept nodding and agreeing with me, but I knew it was flying over his head. Turned out a fundamental problem was that I was describing the drugs as ‘tablets’ and he had no clue what those were.” Source
Since I wasn't trained to hand Darwin awards, a colleague of mine suggested a procedure that is normally used to treat patients with asthma. As far as I could tell, it meant inhaling water vapors to soften up the crust and then blowing/coughing it out. The vapors were supposed to cause the crust to inflate and lose the grip on the skin. This was, of course, after the poor boy had to endure a probe in his mouth to see how far the cinnamon had settled. Luckily for him, it did not get anywhere near the trachea, so there was no danger of suffocation or choking if the crust inflated or peeled off. It took 20 minutes before he blew out the first piece. Two 30-minute sessions and the problem seemed to be solved. Most of the cinnamon actually fell down his esophagus, into the stomach. I was very worried about this boy because the best alternative would've been a true near-death experience for him. We were seriously scared that the water vapor treatment wouldn't have worked, but at least it couldn't have done any damage. After he was done, he was extremely happy and hugged us tightly. Meanwhile the mum's boyfriend was arrested for trying to take morphine from the hospital's pharmacy. These are the joys of working in the clinic. I'll try to convince a colleague to join & share one of his cases. Wish me luck.
