Mr. CD, 88, took a little tumble at the nursing home when he slipped on a loose rug (or something, the details are a little vague here), obtained for his trouble a scalp laceration the length of Q-tip on his temple, bled like a stuck pig, transported by EMS, triaged, assessed by both MD and RN, x-rayed, CT’d, declared medically cleared and fit to go home, deblooded, stapled, tetanus’d, acquired a head dressing worthy of a maharajah, and finally sent back to the nursing via a private ambulance and their ill-paid yet (hopefully) competent attendants.
Whereupon the RPN (i.e. LPN for you out of province types) or whoever was minding the door of the nursing home refused to take the patient back.
“Oh my God, he needs to go back the emerg,” she said, eyeing, perhaps, the overwrought head bandage. “He has a skull fracture! I can tell!” And promptly sent him back, alert, oriented x 3 — and bemused.
I have only two possible explanations for her extraordinary statement: she either is wasting her time at the nursing home and depriving humanity of a set of assessment skill so exquisite she can, using her psychic x-ray powers, detect a skull fracture under approximately twenty layers of clean, white 4 x 4 sponges and tape gauze, or else she thinks despite all the assessments and investigations, we are complete boobs. ( Admittedly, I have a sneaking sympathy at times for the second possibility.)
There is actually a third possibility, but I am far too polite to mention it.
That’s all I got. Feel free to insert your own snark.
Advertisement
