How this emergency physician ’s shift really went

She is 61, and she can’t help but smack her lips together repetitively. She has no teeth, and the curvature of her spine makes her a miniature version of what she once was. Her frizzy hair is a purple-gray tone, and there are dark particles of something in the knots alongside her left temple. Her clothes are too loose, and there are food stains on her shirt. The ambulance arrived at her home, and there were pills strewn all over her floor and scattered pill bottles. She tells me that it wasn’t her — that someone had been in her apartment. That they were putting different pills in those bottles that weren’t hers. The pills were showing up on her floor. She was being followed when she went places. Her lips smacked harder as her anxiety mounted. She had to flush all the pills down the toilet because they weren’t her pills, and so she didn’t have her own to take. I ask if there is family I may call. She stares back at me with hollowed eyes and does not respond. She had just been released from the hospital a week ago for paranoid thoughts, but it is clear she will need to come back in. Continue reading ... Your patients are rating you online: How to respond. Manage your online reputation: A social media guide. Find out how.
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Physician Emergency Medicine Psychiatry Source Type: blogs