Mr. Grouchy Pants

I admitted a patient from the floor in "respiratory distress". I was excited to get a hit, hoping it was something juicy, something challenging.

Well, challenging it was, but not in the way I had anticipated.

First of all, the patient in respiratory distress, was brought up on room air. Room air people! No trach mask, no nothing. His sats when we plopped a pulse ox on his finger? 76%. He recovered nicely to 96 though once we got his trach mask on. On 50% trach mask he was fine. He was fine alllll night long.

So besides not being appropriately sick enough for the ICU, our biggest problem was that he kept throwing his O2 and pulse ox off. He refused to wear them, even after threatening to be restrained, explaining the grissliness of a code (including cracked ribs). He wrote on his paper "leave me alone" and "this is a 3rd rate ICU". Meanwhile, the O2 mask he kept throwing on the floor left him satting somewhere around 75%. You know, if someone really doesn't want our most basic care, let him check himself out, right? I mean, he was totally with it (arguably, I suppose), and even wrote our names down along with our positions (he's a practicing attorney), I guess so he can sue us later for trying to save his life.

At the end of the night, I was SO DONE with this man. If you want to die, fine. Make yourself a DNR/DNI, we'll make you comfortable. Don't call us names, threaten to sue us, and just basically act like a total ass. Just sign yourself out AMA and get the hell out. I'm not going to bend over backwards anymore to be nice to someone who is so obviously a jerk.