My patient with rabies

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Happened last Friday PM, I was paged by one of the minimum security prison centers in our system to talk to the RN.

RN: Dr, we just got a patient back from the ER. There he was diagnosed with rabies. They want him started on treatment immediately!

Me: Rabies??!!! My god, how did that happen? Rabies?

RN: Yes, rabies. We are very surprised here too, we do not know how he got it.

Me: Good lord, we’ll have to investigate this one.

RN: Yes, but I need your approval for his treatment. They have ordered 3 prescriptions.

Me: Okay, what do they want him started on?

RN: The first one is permethrin lotion…

You folks in medicine can imagine how the conversation went after that. But for completeness’ sake, here it is:

Me: SCABIES!!! He’s got scabies!! NOT RABIES!!!

RN: Oh yes, that is right. Very sorry.

:smack: :smack: :smack:

:dubious:

2

… where did that nurse get registered, WalMart’s bridal section?

3

I was thinking vecuronium, propofol, and who knows what else!

4

Lol, big difference between scabies and rabies! I would think she would have known just with the rx for permethrin.

(Thanks by the way, now I’m itching all over, just like I always do when I fill a script for permetherin.)

5

Do your nurses work twelve hour shifts and maybe she was on a twelve hour back to back? Rabies would have made for something different.

6

Darn, I was all ready for a great story about how a prison inmate contracted rabies. But I was suspicious as soon as the nurse said you got the patient back from the ER. I’ve never seen a case of actual rabies but I can’t imagine it would be appropriate to discharge them back to prison.

7

I thought for sure “He’s got a tunnel!” Whew, glad you didn’t have to go all Atticus Finch on him.

8

And I, of course, am picturing the inmate running around his cell, only to pause every so often at the latrine to scream, “Ahhhh! Water!”

9

I should note that english is not this RN’s native language.

But still…

10

Surprised and doesn’t know how he got… scabies… in prison.

11

After finding several infected animals, Taiwan has just lost its status as a rabies free island and the local press has been predictably hysterical about a couple of raccoons discovered up on some mountain. So this was very funny to me; I just wish it translated to Chinese.

12

Phrenologist, Nephrologist… same damn thing.

13

BABIES!!! He’s got babies!!!

14

Mr. Jingles went rabid.

using a spelling alphabet (International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet) is useful when communicating precise words. in medicine, pharmacy and science words there are lots of vowel sounds that even for native English speakers can sound identical. much more of a problem for nonnative speakers of English.

15

Are we absolutely sure he has scabies? Maybe it was wallabies. Krikey, once those things get a foothold, there’s no getting rid of 'em.

16

Bibliophage, coprophage, what’s the difference?

17

better read to the end of that list just to make sure he doesn’t have both. Both are contagious.

18

But Seabees are still ‘good’, right? Just checkin’.

19

That’s a big 10-4, good buddy.

20

How is rabbys made?