Face it. You're a crappy forger.

While I try not to post too many bizarre news articles at a time, some things just demand to be shared with my readers. Especially when one involves a fake medical note.

Like this talented lady.

I bet they're taking her to Nurse K's ER, too...

Thank you, Lee, for sending this in!

Quit smoking. OR ELSE!

While I strongly discourage smoking, and try to get my patients to quit, I leave it at that.

Some doctors just take things a little too far.

Nice try

Craig: "Dad, I don't think I can go to school today."

Dr. Grumpy: "What's wrong?"

Craig: "There was this girl who fell off the swings last week, and got knocked out. They took her to the hospital, and said she had a concussion."

Dr. Grumpy: "So what's the problem?"

Craig: "She's back, and I sat next to her yesterday. Today my head hurts, so I must have caught it from her."

Mary's desk, March 28, 2011

Guy walks in, stands at front desk.

Mary: "Hi, can I help you?"

Mr. Lost: "Yes. I'm looking for Susan Stemi."

Mary: "Hmm, I don't see her on our schedule, or Dr. Pissy's... Where is her appointment at?"

Mr. Lost: "She doesn't have an appointment. She's a patient here."

Mary: "Well, she's not here, and..."

Mr. Lost: "Your phone operator said she was here, room 647, on the cardiac floor. Isn't this the 6th floor?"

Mary: "Yes, but, sir, you must be looking for a hospital room. Local Hospital is about 2 blocks down the street. You need to go east on 23rd avenue and..."

Mr. Lost: "WAIT! When did you move her to another floor?"

Mary: "We didn't. She's on the 6th floor of the hospital down the street. This is the 6th floor of an office building."

Mr. Lost: "Then why did your operators lie to me?!!! After I find her I'm going to complain to a supervisor!"

(walks out)

Devotion to duty

This weekend I got dragged kicking and screaming called in to see a hospital consult. It was a lady who'd had her appendix out, and had a bad headache afterward.

Dr. Grumpy: "Have you had headache problems in the past?"

Miss Shiny: "No... Hey! Are you Dr. Grumpy, from downtown Grumpyville?"

Dr. Grumpy: "Yes, that's me. Have you seen me before?"

Miss Shiny: "No, but I work for Big Pharma, Inc. One of my partners is a drug rep who calls on your office. My territory is over on the east side."

Dr. Grumpy: "Oh, okay. Anyway do you normally get headaches?"

Miss Shiny: "Have you considered prescribing our product, Noshakesatall, for your Parkinson's disease patients?" (reaches in purse, pulls out a sales brochure) "If you look at this graph, Noshakesatall shows superior efficacy and duration of action in treating Parkinson's, and..."

Happy whatever

I'd like to thank my reader Kelly for sending this in. She writes:

"Petersen therapy is across the street from our office. They send us faxes with seasonal trivia and asking us to refer patients. This one came on Thursday. The fax date stamp (March 24, 2011) is at the top."

click to enlarge



Thank you, Kelly!

Note- for my non-North American readers, Thanksgiving is celebrated in the Fall.

Attention patients!

If you have a wart on your leg (or anywhere) PLEASE refrain from picking it off while talking to your neurologist.

The fact that you take Coumadin doesn't help.

Normally I don't charge for the Kleenex on my desk. But at the rate you're going through them I might have to start.

On the other hand, it's cheaper than a carpet cleaning service.

The Horror!

Local Hospital has elevator doors with lights that flash green when they're opening and red when closing.

I'm done with afternoon rounds. I get in the elevator to leave.

The elevator stops on the 6th floor and a lady and her little kid get on.

Little Kid: "Mommy, why do the elevator doors have those green and red lights?"

Mom: "So blind people know which way the doors are moving, honey."

Just shoot me. She was pregnant, too.

Current 20 something

Has her name:

1. On her necklace

2. On her right hand ring

3. Tattooed on her left forearm.

4. Tattooed on her right ankle

5. And on a left toe ring

I have to wonder if this is so she doesn't forget it.

Jupiter is lovely this time of year

Dr. Grumpy: "Are you allergic to anything?"

Mrs. Flake: "Oxygen. I can't be anywhere near the stuff. I can't breathe it at all. Just being around it makes me horribly sick. I can only go places where there isn't any, so I don't accidentally inhale it."

Things that make me grumpy

All right, this just pisses me off. Here's a doctor who's been suspended for re-using prostate biopsy supplies on patients. NOT re-sterilized. Just using the damn things until they get "too bloody" to keep using. And we all know how clean that area is.

Wanna get angry, too? Here's the link. (Thank you, Andrew, for sending this in).

Stories like this aren't new. Since we invented money some people have always tried to find ways to rip others off.

But in health care it somehow seems worse. Nurses have done it, too. And pharmacists.

Why the hell would anyone do this? Especially after all the damn training we go through?

I'd like to think they're just stupid. It doesn't make it better, but it's somehow easier to accept than the more likely option: greed.

If the doctor keeps re-using the biopsy equipment, it's good for his overhead. He has to buy fewer supplies to do the same number of billable procedures. He may even be charging the insurance for a new kit each time he uses the old one.

The pharmacist knew what he was doing. Just greedy.

The nurse is a little less clear. Maybe she's just lazy. But who knows? Maybe she took the fall for a greedy hospital that secretly condoned such a practice. Maybe they were paying under-the-table bonuses to staff who found illicit ways to save money.

Regardless, ANY doctor, nurse, pharmacist, or other health care person, who does ANYTHING for personal gain at the expense of a patient, should never be allowed to do this job again. These people come to us for care, and screwing them over for your profit line is absolutely unforgivable.

To me, this is worse than fraudulant billing (example: charging for taking off a mole when you really didn't). They're both wrong, but when you intentionally put it a patient in harm's way just to make a buck, you should be banned from medicine forever (provided you haven't already been locked up).

In medicine the prime directive is "do no harm". This is a balanced statement, because obviously we DO harm: Surgeons cut people open. Chemotherapy can make you horribly ill. I do procedures with needles. The issue is that in these cases we're doing harm with the overall end result being (hopefully) for the better.

But when you cross to the dark side, and knowingly hurt a person to make some extra dollars, you should be hung out to dry.

And if you're in this field, and disagree with that, then get out of it now.

Medical students: I'm a PGY-18. And some fires never go out. And I hope they never do.

The Time-Traveler's Neurologist

This message was left on Mary's voice mail at 10:35 this morning:

"Hi! This is Mrs. Clock. I need someone to call me back at home. I'll be at the house until 10:15 this morning, and it's 10:30 now, so if you can call me back before I leave 15 minutes ago that would be great."

Ibee Idiot, M.D.

I'd finished an appointment yesterday afternoon, and was walking the patient up front.


Mrs. Crotchety: "You seem like a nice doctor, and smart too. I've seen 2 different neurologists before, both times when I was in Local Hospital. They were both incompetent idiots."

Dr. Grumpy: "Thank you. I'll get those records to review, and Mary will help set up this test."


I walked back to my office, and logged into the hospital computer system. The patient had seen neurologists there in 2005 and 2007.

And both times it was me.

Adventures with the Boy Scouts

Craig spent Saturday at a Scouts' activity, trying to earn his Craftsman badge. They were doing woodworking, clay, and other assorted stuff.

One of the projects was to make a roughly 4" tall ring-holder out of clay.

Without further comment, I'm now posting front & side views of the ring-holder my son made with the Boy Scouts.