Word: patient
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...patient look at a graphic on her clipboard as he answered. The graphic was a 10cm line with numbers like a ruler, as well as upside down smiley faces depicting progressively greater discomfort - the VAS (visual analog pain scale). Patients are supposed to tell our nurses how much pain they feel by pointing to a spot along the line...
...knew why the gusto had gone out of the nurse's voice. One of the patient's arms was horribly broken and bent at an ungodly angle. She had just started a large-bore IV in the other. And while her big fat needle pierced him three or four times before it found blood, this stolid 60-year-old Eastern European block of a man had made not a sound. His face hadn't registered a flicker of pain, his arm stayed still, even his hand remained limp. No reaction to this needle torture promised an unsatisfying...
...like Jacob. I remember him best because of the patient in the next room that night. My very next patient, right next door...
...This patient had been in an automobile accident 48 hours earlier. After the accident she had gone home. She then came in to the ER the evening I was on call because she said her pain had become "excruciating - like I'm being stabbed with a thousand knives." Charlene complained of pain in her head and neck, both shoulders, upper back, lower back and one knee. There was not a mark on her. Between her physical exam, scans and X-rays, I was unable to find any abnormality other than nonreproduceable joint stiffness (they moved well except while I examined...
...least a 10. Can I put 11? Or 12? It's way off the scale." Vicki wrote 10 in the box. This meant she was supposed to give strong pain medicine, quickly. Another quick look from Vicki; she had only been in the room for two minutes with this patient yet she already had the same feeling, one that I was quite sure about: that there wasn't really that much pain here and that the VAS protocol (a hospital policy at that point) was wrong for this patient...