We have to be able to laugh at the stupidity, because otherwise we'd just get angry and frustrated (and eventually burn out and quit). Everybody I work with thinks this is some funny ****, including the African-Americans. If you're going into EM thinking that nobody is going to be finding the stupidity of our patients funny, then maybe you should reconsider specialties. I'll be damned if I have to put up with holier-than-thou-types when I get off work who tell me that I can't find something humorous somewhere in that morass of human stupidity. I have to do so with a smile and a compassionate attitude. I have to put up with impoliteness, angry patients who scream obscenities, patients threatening to sue me, unbelievable stupidity, various version of English I can't comprehend on a daily basis, and patients who spit at or try to hit me. We're just like ER docs and nurses all around the country (and guessing by an international emergency medicine list I'm on, all around the world). But don't try to pretend we're some horrible and out-of-the-ordinary people for finding it funny. If you don't find it humorous then don't read it. If anybody here thinks that in the pristine world out there, that ED workers don't laugh about these kind of things every day, then you haven't worked in many (or any) busy urban EDs. Look, if it offends you go somewhere else. Medicine without soul (which is humor, pathos, pain, anger, and fulfillment) is dead, and the ED is the forefront of this. However, in the ED, when someone says something as above, sometimes, it's just funny, if not just uncommon or an idea said in a manner unknown or uncommon to the doctor. If your sensibilities are disaffected, you haven't been in a busy urban ED recently indelicacies are prevalent, when patients are in extremis, and niceties are bumped to the side for the expediency of "I need THIS now!", or a patient is saying, "you only treat your own kind" (my answer being, "males?"), and, were we in the quiet confines of a clinic or office, your points might hold more sway. And, if I don't know what "tired blood" or "falling out" is, I can't render complete care, because that is a germane element of history that is not available. So, we must know, or are at risk for ignoring or minimizing the African-American group, but cannot comment on it, at risk of being supremacist and racist? ![]() As such, that jargon is not generally taught in medical school, but must either be "on the job", or not learned. Now, the urban black and Southern black subcultures are indeed intact (as evidenced by radio, television, newspaper, magazine, and music & theatre), and, with the subculture comes a jargon. The definition is first to ensure that the word "subculture" will not be construed as being lesser. ![]() A cultural subgroup differentiated by status, ethnic background, residence, religion, or other factors that functionally unify the group and act collectively on each member. She acknowledged getting it from her husband, but he didn't cheat on her - he just got it "like the flu!" Denial ain't just a river in Eygpt. last night was a white woman (since we need to be PC around here now) who we could not convince that STDs were only sexually transmitted. Lay off those trying to decompress a bit.īTW - my funniest pt. At the bedside we are calm, caring professionals trying to help our patients despite vast differences in communication, and at times, cultures. Face facts - our patients are not likely surfing this site. ![]() If you don't think that the abuse, communication difficulties, and lack of basic education on simple self care is fusterating enough to warrant some humor relief, well then I want to know where you are going to practice - 'cuz you will eventually climb into a clock tower with a high powered rifle - and I want to be wearin' a vest. I just came off my fifth day working 10 hour shifts at a major metro county ER.
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