Monday, July 27, 2009

Crazy Scale

I generally try not to steal from other bloggers, but this time I'm gonna have to.

ER's Mom wrote this excellent post a few weeks ago, and I just have to reprint it here. But I take no credit for it. It will, however, be remarkably useful in my practice (and likely most others).


Levels of Crazy

Been thinking about this for awhile. I now have the "ER's Mom Official Guidelines for Assigning Levels of Crazy".

1. Normal. They exist, even constitute the majority of patients. They make poor blog fodder however, so you wouldn't know that that they even exist from reading any medical blog.

2. Crazy. These are the "fun crazy" folks. A little off, but you don't cringe when you see them on the schedule.

3. Bat-shit crazy. Your stomach drops a little when you see the name on the schedule.

4. Fucking Nuts. These folks seem intent on driving YOU nuts too.

5. Mouth agape and head shaking. You are lost for words upon meeting these folks. Fortunately, they are rare.

ER's mom: Please don't be offended I used this. It was just too good not to share.
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11 comments:

  1. AnonymousJuly 27, 2009 at 10:53 AM

    Oh this is good! I think it applies for my day to day life, not just office time.

    You know, like when you get to a wedding are looking for your name card to know what table to go to and you see THEIR NAME(S) on the list?

    Maybe it's just me.

    ReplyDelete
  2. mommanatorJuly 27, 2009 at 12:39 PM

    SO TRUE!

    ReplyDelete
  3. ChrisJuly 27, 2009 at 1:03 PM

    Yep. We run across these folks in the education field as well.

    ReplyDelete
  4. John WoolmanJuly 27, 2009 at 1:39 PM

    And Dr Harold Shipman had a very special way of dealing with at least 218 patients in levels 3 through 5.

    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Shipman)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Nurse KJuly 27, 2009 at 5:10 PM

    I read somewhere that it's a good rule of thumb that if you dislike a patient w/in the first 10 seconds of meeting them, they probably have a personality disorder. Some folks will just randomly start antagonizing right off the bat..."I put my light on and it took you a minute to get here...what were you doing, thinking about whether or not I was important enough for your precious time? This hospital is so awful, now gimme a blanket, I'm cold." Hi, my name is K, I'll be your nurse today...

    ReplyDelete
  6. ER's MomJuly 27, 2009 at 5:37 PM

    Hey, thanks!

    :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Grumpy, M.D.July 27, 2009 at 10:18 PM

    Nurse K- it's actually 3 rules for talking to patients.

    1. If you feel depressed, the patient is depressed.

    2. If you are having fun, the patient is manic.

    3. If you want to hit them, the patient has a personality disorder.

    ReplyDelete
  8. pharmacy chickJuly 28, 2009 at 7:25 PM

    Call it a gift, but I can usually file every patient I have into one of these categories by the 2nd visit,,,sometimes the first visit. I'll either like or dislike them within the first 10 minutes or so, and my gut feeling has never let me astray.

    ReplyDelete
  9. MahaJuly 29, 2009 at 10:52 PM

    It's frightening how well each and everyone of my patients fit into these categories. The insight is remarkable!

    ReplyDelete
  10. KymmareeJanuary 19, 2010 at 7:18 AM

    I prefer 'Nucking Futs' to 'Fucking Nuts'....it sounds quirkier!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Mike LooneyAugust 29, 2011 at 4:55 PM

    This list also applies to computer/network users if you work as either tech support or as a sysadmin.

    ReplyDelete

So wadda you think?