Frustrated ED Doc ‘Goes Nuclear,’ Admits Patient to Administration

frustrated doctor

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Facing unprecedented obstruction getting his patient admitted to the hospital and decompressing his overburdened emergency department (ED), local ED physician, Dr. M. McConnell, invoked a never-before used clause, deemed the “nuclear option,” to get his patient out of the ED and into an inpatient bed.  After being repeatedly denied admission by the hospitalist, Dr. McConnell made the extraordinary decision to admit the patient directly to administration.

“My patient, Mr. Gorsuch, was waiting for hours in the ED once his diagnosis of pneumonia was made,” explained Dr. McConnell.  “I tried talking to the hospitalist, but he just kept filibustering me on the phone for as long as he could, blabbering on about how there were no beds and thus he couldn’t admit the patient.  Once he started reading Green Eggs and Ham to me, I just had to hang up.  But what am I supposed to do?  This patient needs to come in!”

“The problem is that, last year, administration decided to cut our number of inpatient beds by 25% and fire half our inpatient nursing staff so they could hire more administrators,” continued Dr. McConnell.  “If we had those beds, then patients wouldn’t be waiting for hours to days in the ED to get seen and then another several days to get admitted.  In fact, just the other day, we had a patient, Mr. M. Garland, leave without being seen after waiting in the waiting room for nearly a whole week!”

“I just hit my breaking point,” cried Dr. McConnell.  “I don’t care about ‘tradition.’  I just want my patient admitted so I can clear up beds for other patients and get my patients the care they deserve!  So I called up administration and said, ‘If you think you know so much about medicine then I’m going to make YOU care of this patient, NOW!”

After picking up the basics of medicine by watching TV shows, I moved to LA, forged a medical school diploma, and somehow found some success in the late 80’s as an event physician for major Hollywood events. However, it all came crashing down while working the 1990 Grammy awards. While “Girl You Know it’s True” was being played live, a stagehand went into cardiac arrest and I was called upon to help. Unfortunately, as I tried to lip-sync CPR instructions, the speaker on my cassette player stopped working and I was exposed for a fraud. After serving time in prison, I went to medical school and residency and I finished training to become an Emergency Medicine physician. Instead of using this training and knowledge for good, I decided to abuse it to become a professional drug seeker. Armed with advanced medical knowledge, my quest remains to go from ED to ED searching out the drug seeker’s Holy Grail: syringes filled with 1mg of hydromorphone, the so-called “Milli of Dilli.” While I am not drug seeking, I have decided to write medical satire posing as a typical First World emergency physician. My website, with my other satirical articles that did not make it into Gomerblog, can be found at http://www.firstworldem.com and my twitter handle is @firstworldem
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