Educating the masses

Yesterday I spent 12 hours triaging people. This is not my favorite task that I do at work. In fact, it is usually the most dreaded task. 12 hrs of hearing over 50 peoples life stories, excuses, minor problems, aches, and pains. 12 hrs of non-stop whining with the occasional non-whiny person with an actual problem. 4 hrs into it and I am groaning inside my head. 6 hrs into it and I see myself starting to roll my eyes and wanting to make faces of doubt and anger and it takes all my effort to stop myself. 8 hrs into it and I am not smiling so much anymore and my patience is worn so thin that I start blurting the questions I want to ask while they are still answering the last question so that I can control how long this will take. After that, it is with great self-control that I do not blurt out, "Oh, COME ON! You seriously drove an hour to the EMERGENCY room for THAT? If it was so EMERGENT why didn't you come first thing in the morning?"

It sucks because you are usually the one that takes the brunt of the blame if something takes too long or you send the person somewhere else when they feel they are entitled to be seen in the emergency dept. PLUS you have the added bonus of having to listen to the most ridiculous, long-winded reasons for why they think they are an emergency. AND I SWEAR if I hear one more"Well, 99.7 is a fever to me because my usual temperature is 97.6, " that person will get their lips glued with that special skin glue. YOU DO NOT HAVE A FEVER UNLESS YOUR TEMPERATURE IS OVER 100 PERIOD, no matter what your freaking normal body temperature is. I think, as a requirement to graduate from high school, people should pass a test that makes them identify what is really an emergency.

EXAMPLE:
1. Which of these people should go to the emergency room?
a) "I have nasal congestion and a cough for 2 weeks, no fever or anything else. I did not try taking Sudafed or a cough drop."
b) "My temperature is 99.8 when it is normally 97.6 so I have a fever and I have a sore throat that started this morning. I can swallow and breathe just fine. No I did not take an ibuprofen because I did not want to mask the symptoms."
c) "My blood pressure is 180/100 and I am supposed to take my medication for it but I haven't for 3 weeks even though I have plenty and know I need it. I do not have any dizziness, headaches, weakness, or anything really wrong with me other than that."
d) "Well, my wife made me come in here, it's no big deal..but I had chest pain that woke me up last night and I felt nauseated, sweaty and just plain bad. I told her it was nothing because it went away after an hour and I feel better now but she still made me come in. Oh yeah, I have a history of high blood pressure and high cholesterol which I take my medicine for."

Bet you can't guess which one was truly an emergency? If you said D, YOU WIN A PRIZE! I do not understand how some people can be so uneducated. It is not like they haven't seen a commercial on TV telling them there are medications at Walgreen's or Walmart that can fix their symptoms. Everyone knows if you have a pain/fever, try ibuprofen or Tylenol and if THAT doesn't fix it see your doctor. If a doctor prescribes you a medication for a problem you KNOW you have, and you don't take it..GASP that problem comes back. Solution? TAKE YOUR FREAKING MEDICINE! Yet I find myself telling people this stuff all the time! I am constantly educating the masses on stuff they should already know. I was complaining about this at work when one of my coworkers reminded me that the average education level of Americans is 6th grade. I said back, "Well, even my 4th grader knows if you have a fever take Tylenol! He brought me the bottle while I was sick last time without me mentioning it." Maybe it's because my kids are so smart?