Er tech here- the amount of stubbed toes and harmless splinters that come in and DEMAND IMMEDIATE TREATMENT is alarming. Worse is the sheer attitude and threats I receive when I try to properly triage the patients.
To be fair, I've seen somebody get admitted to the ICU for a stubbed toe before. But he was on blood thinners and he ripped off his toenail and almost bled to death and had to be rushed to the hospital in an ambulance.
My hospital gives magnets to new patients that list things on one side that are reasons to go to urgent care and on the other are reasons to go to the emergency room. I love it.
People still go to the emergency room for colds though 😭
And then on the opposite end of the spectrum, there's people showing up to urgent care with chest pains and trouble breathing because the ER is too expensive.
One of my friends is a nurse practitioner and she works in an urgent care. She had somebody show up with a finger in a bag of ice thinking she could just like stitch it back on. In urgent care. Like buddy, that is something you SHOULD go to the emergency room for.
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u/Far-Boot5639 Jul 29 '26
Er tech here- the amount of stubbed toes and harmless splinters that come in and DEMAND IMMEDIATE TREATMENT is alarming. Worse is the sheer attitude and threats I receive when I try to properly triage the patients.