Anonymous Doctor

Well, that settles it.

I have no desire to work in the emergency room.

I knew it, but now I really know it.

I've also forgotten how to put in an IV, can't draw blood, and don't know the first thing about giving someone stitches. It's amazing how two weeks of vacation can wipe the slate clean.

We had a homeless guy brought in, "passed out on the street" with a bottle of rubbing alcohol. Everyone's so judgmental. "What a pathetic guy, drinking a bottle of rubbing alcohol until he passed out."

Well, it turns out he was sleeping on the street, and he used the rubbing alcohol to clean himself. And there was no reason for him to be in the emergency room.

Except that they cut his sweatshirt off of him when he got here -- more clothes are cut off people in the emergency room than I'd ever realized, and in most cases it makes no sense. You can pull someone's boxer shorts off. There is no reason to destroy them just because there's a pair of scissors you're allowed to use. I don't know why, with all of the fancy machines and tools we have access to, everyone's running for the scissors and can't wait to cut people's clothes off them.

Anyway, now he has no sweatshirt, and that sucks for him. I tried to find him a hospital sweatshirt to replace it, but I couldn't. Then I tried to get him a pair of scrubs -- just so he'd have something to go back out into the world wearing -- but the scrubs are dispensed from a machine that hates me, and I tried to trick the machine into giving me an extra pair (we're allowed two pairs -- when a pair is dirty, you put it in the machine, type in your number, and exchange it for a clean pair -- so I put the scrub top in separately from the pants, hoping the machine would think it was two different pairs -- except the machine is smarter than that, voided the whole exchange, and now they're saying I have two pairs of scrubs out when really I only have one, and I was wearing them, so I couldn't give this guy anything).

Also, don't tell a doctor someone hurt you unless someone actually hurt you. That was an hour and a half with a social worker when it turned out two kids were just pushing each other in the playground.