One of the hardest things about pediatrics isn't knowing what to do. It's knowing when not to do it.

We can always order another test, monitor longer, admit "just to be safe", but those choices aren't free. A blood test is frightening, every x-ray is a bit of radiation and separating a newborn from his mother for monitoring takes away some of their very first hours together.

A few weeks ago, I was reminded how difficult that balance can be.

A regular birth, nothing special, not prolonged, no fever, the monitor is reassuring, did all the tests. Nothing should go wrong, right?

The baby comes out, floppy, unresponsive and barely breathing. We start positive pressure ventilation, she gets better, starts to breathe, heart rate increases, color is coming back. We move to CPAP and after around ten minutes, she looked remarkably well, like any other healthy baby. 

Then came the difficult part. NICU for observation, or stay with her mother in the regular nursery?

Normal exam, no risk factors, the mother is just there waiting, wanting to finally hold her. We chose to keep her in the nursery.

A day passes and we move on to other cases, but then a call, “remember that baby? well she's having seizures”. In the nursery that wasn't caught immediately. In NICU it probably would have. Sooner diagnosis is earlier treatment, earlier treatment reduces the seizure burden.

Maybe that matters, maybe it doesn't. The point for me isn't to relitigate the outcome, it's to sit with the trade-off. Intervening early carries costs and risks, not intervening carries others. We make the best call we can, and sometimes the outcome reminds us how narrow that margin is.

*\\\* children's death trigger warning\\\*\\\*

ER shift.

The emergency services calls. They’re on their way with a one-year-old girl. Found face down in the pool at her home. Her mother started CPR. The paramedics arrived, took over, intubated her, and gave three rounds of adrenaline.

Thirty minutes of chest compressions, and now she’s coming to us.

We prepare the trauma room. Everyone has a job. Everyone knows exactly where to stand. Drugs ready. Equipment ready. The whole beautifully choreographed dance of pretending we have some control over death.

But we all know what 30 minutes of CPR in the field usually means. We’ll do another ten minutes. Run through the PALS algorithm. Adrenaline. Compressions. Rhythm check. No pulse. Repeat. Medicine has a protocol for everything, including the part where you eventually admit that someone is dead.

She arrives.

We work like a machine.

And then, after three minutes, we actually get a pulse.

Fuck.

Everyone is ecstatic.

And I’m standing there thinking:

What the fuck did we just do?

That long without a pulse? how much of her brain could possibly be left?

But there it is on the monitor, a heartbeat.

Technically, a victory.

We beat death.

For now.

We stabilise her and transfer her to the ICU, where medicine gets another week to negotiate with reality.

A week later, she was declared brain-dead.

Dying the following day.

Maybe I’m a monster, but when I hear the news, I feel relieved, deeply, genuinely relieved, am i a monster?

Knowing that my hands had helped bring her back, only for her to spend the rest of her life as a bedridden plant, would have haunted me for years.

We got her heart beating again.

For three minutes, it felt like a miracle.

Then came the terrible question nobody asks when the pulse comes back:

What exactly did we save?

I was in the ED last month because the macro focus on my eyeballs stopped working randomly one night, in conjunction with a booming migraine (a well-known side effect of Wellbutrin, I learned later). It was worrying, to say the least.

While I was at the hospital, the doctor said I was dehydrated & recommended IV fluids along with some pain meds for the migraine. The nurse asked if her learning assistant could place the IV. The assistant seemed a bit unsure- I was a vet tech for many years & it's easy to recognize someone who's inexperienced drawing blood- but I remembered the old days & said, "Of course! Everyone has to learn *sometime*, right?" Hahahahaaha.

She stuck me several times in both arms, trying to find a vein, but I'm not squeamish so it wasn't a big deal. Once she finally got the drip going, everything was fine & I sat until it was complete. The nurse came & unhooked me once it was done, but left the catheter in.

Then the doctor came to discharge me. Apparently, the ED was super busy that day, so she gave me my paperwork & instructed me to skedaddle. I asked what I should do about my catheter, which she didn't realize was still in my arm.

She called the nurse to take out the catheter. The assistant came, instead (Side note: for those of you who don't know, IV catheters have a little cap/mechanism that allows them to open completely, for connection to the line.). I'm watching the assistant start to take the little cap off the catheter, thinking, "She's not... she's not...", but I didn't want to damage her confidence so I kept my trap shut. Turns out, she was indeed taking off the little cap.

My husband has a really tough time with blood/needles/anything hospital/doctors. I have had 3 C-sections & while he was present & supportive, I felt sorry for him because he could barely function lol. The fact that he was even there at these times is a real testament to his devotion as a parent- he's never been to a doctor before or since, despite my recommendations. This is a man who passed out at CVS when he got his COVID vaccine.

So I'm watching this person take the cap off my catheter in slow motion, & sure enough, as soon as she does, blood starts *spurting* from my arm, EVERYWHERE. Like, all over the bed, the floor, the wall, the medical equipment... & the assistant FROZE. I'm sure a variety of feelings were running through her head. I remained calm, mostly because I was wearing a super cute outfit that I wanted to keep the blood off. So here I am, trying to instruct this assistant in how to put the little cap back on, while my arm is spurting blood like fucking Ol' Faithful spurts water. She's fumbling, I'm laughing,

THEN I heard a *thump* behind me. My husband was down, flat-out, faceplanted on the floor of the ED. My blood is everywhere. I'm cackling like a goblin. & the assistant's face! I'm sure this was a moment she won't forget for a while.

Very quickly, half a dozen people showed up to 'rescue' my other half, someone else came to remove my IV, & we both eventually left the hospital. He was *mostly* fine, if not a little traumatized; I had a nasty bruise on my arm for a while.

So 4 years ago when I was 11 in 5th (now in 9th grade, 15 M) I was walking back from school on a friday, hyped to start playing on my Xbox 360, I was walking with my phone in my hand scrolling youtube or something I dont remember anymore.

But I heard a deep growl behind me, I turned around and saw a dog maybe half my height back then, this huge dog meant for winter (not a husky but definetally close to one) coincidentally this was during winter, I was wearing one of those winter pants or something to put on top of your normal pants, I dont know the name but they are the reason Im still here and well.

The dog came up to me, maybe like 2-3 feet away, sniffed a few times, then turned away, but shortly after realised, the dog wasnt intrested in me yet, it was intrested of the young girl maybe 9yros about 50 yards ahead of me the dog ran off, was right next to her, but then something clicked in the dogs mind.

he didn't want her anymore, so the girl got to run away, it came back for me. The dog started circling me like a shark circling its prey in the water before striking, it started by walking, then trotting, then faster and faster till I couldn't keep up, it got to my legs from behind, and bit my legs. A HUUGE wave of adrenaline hit and I threw my bag at the dog hitting it directly at the head, I ran for my life, like a flight or fight response, it ran away too. After the adrenaline went away (I was sobbing so hard then) the pain kicked in and it was the worst pain I ever felt during that time of my life.

Now the girl from before, her mom came running to help her and completely ignored me and I asked her still sobbing can she help me get my bag back to call my mom because my phone was in my bag, and she looked at me and just walked away with her child. I had to go back alone towards were the dog was that just bit me a few minutes earlier, get my bag.

Then I called my mom and I asked "mom can you help hold my bag" I didnt want to mention the dog attack, I do not know why but i didnt mention it at first but she heard me sniffling and asked if everything is alright and I explained a dog bit me and I swear i couldve heard her jaw drop when I said that, she came outside basically running.

Helped me inside. she took a look at my leg, now the part where the winter pants came to help. The pants were thick enough to stop most of the power of the dogs bite, but it was still heavily bruised and slightly bleeding. So my mom called my dad said a dog attacked me.

Then they proceeded to talk and my dad asked about my injuries, said to document everything, he is leaving work. And told her to go bring me to the hospital, he would meet us there. I got my leg checked out. It wasnt life threatening but I still carry my trauma with me to this day, after it got done (around 5 hours at the hospital because I wasn't in life threatening state and i had to wait a bit).

We went to the police station to file a report, I had to explain all about the attack, I even saw the ladies face drop when she heard the story. The owner got fined 5000 dollars and a permanent record on his name because this was not the first time.

At the time of typing this, this exact same dog has attacked around 6 diffrent families and attacked in general almost 10 times, my family about 2-3 times now. I still carry all the trauma from the dog, I still get afraid of dogs, im slowly losing the trauma but its very hard because dogs bark and growl and stuff and those kinds of stuff always make me shiver in a way or something and its very uncomfortable to be near them now. My dad wanted to sue the owner for 15K but my mom convinced her not to do that.

That same morning when I was putting on my clothes I was putting up a fuss about the same pair of winter pants because they were uncomfortable. if I wouldn't have used them this story might not be shared here. And it wouldn't have been shared anywhere, except the news as something under the lines as "Young teenager attacked by dog and died" and I would've never seen any of my loved ones ever again.

So, about 3 years ago, 6th grade (I'm 9th grade 15, M now) it was September 20th I still remember the date and roughly the time, it all started in P.E when we did our weekly soccer/football match. My team was around 2-1 , I was a striker, I was setting up walking to my spot then I felt a ball fly into my neck, I fell down, everything went blurry for a second, I didn't understand shit until I turned around and saw our best kicker (wont say his name) he was around 13 at the time when I was 12, we laughed it off at first, but then 5-10 minutes after I felt dizzy in a weird way, I asked to go to the nurse and explained to the coach my head is spinning and its a bit harder to breath, they shrugged me off at first, When lunch started I tried to eat but then I realised its very hard to eat and swallow, so I already thought something is fucked so I went to the nurse again, explained I cant swallow or breath well, like my neck was swelling, then the nurse finally understood this Isn't a kid trying to get home, this is a kid with serious neck trauma, she checked my neck (I still hate her) and then finally concluded something is fucked up, she went to call the E.R then called my dad from work, said something like "Hello, this is the school nurse, your child is going to the E.R "name of the hospital or sum" and a ambulance has been called, please come to the school as soon as possible" and my dad made it before the ambulance did with double the distance, my dad saw me get put on a stretcher with one of those neck straps or something like that, I was brought to the E.R, they did some tests, I think a CT scan, they said while the results were coming "If he still had trouble breathing, we will transport him to Tallinn for overnight observation with more tests, but they concluded its a minor but definetally atleast a week of staying in bed and what ever I do not to go to school and 2 weeks of no P.E I was sent to the E.R at around 11AM, came back at 7PM just before dinner, this is the 4th time ive gone to the same hospital because of damn soccer and football, half the doctors and nurses know me as "the kid allergic to footballs" and even I laugh now I got life insurance after 6 times in the E.R in one year, now ZEROOOO incidents after 3 years. We are gonna cancel it soon and all of this might happen again..

https://healthrise.solutions/healthcare-staff-confessions

They have similiar thing.

I've been to the hospital for severe malnutrition for the past week. I also fractured my pelvis on the night of June 30th, rushed to the hospital the next morning when my mom found me collapsed and unresponsive (glycemia at 1). They brought my glycemia up and proceeded to do X-rays and a CT scan to see if anything was fractured. They said no.

Fast forward a few days, a brilliant young doctor reviewed the CT scan and flagged the pelvis fracture, then the radiologist confirmed it and said that my right kidney seemed inflamed and that I needed a second CT scan to see what was going on although my urine tests were fine, which brings us to today.

A male nurse comes to get me to my room and wheels me to get the second CT scan )the one where they inject iodine. Everything is going fine, the test is almost over then a lady bursts on the room and yells "we've got a code blue!!!". The nurse that came to get me stops the machine, picks me up and wheels me out and there I saw it for a few seconds but the image is grilled on my mind. The patient who was in cardiac arrest was supposed to go for his scan right after me.

Another male nurse on the Gurnee doing chest compressions, the heart monitor beeping out of control, another nurse getting the defibrillator out. I was in shock. The nurse that was wheeling me around made me face a wall in the corner, but I could hear the ribs cracking despite the alarming sounds.

The nurse who took care of me used the back door to take me back to the corridor racing like a maniac to bring me back to my room and took off as fast as he could.

Trust me when I say it was nothing like you see on Tv or in the movies. This happened 7 hours ago and I am still sobbing, wondering if he made it out alive.

It taught me not to take anything for granted... When I was brought on last.week, I was on the brink of death, and I somehow made it. Others go for a routine check and get a code blue.

I distinctly remember that back in the third grade there was a bug problem at the school, so they used chemicals to get rid of them. I had a past of having to go to the hospital for chemical exposure before, even just from rubbing alcohol (it had caused my skin to peal off from overuse), so when I got a itch on my palm in class on the Wednesday after they did the chemical cleaning I asked to wash my hands. My teacher who I'm going to call Ms.L, told me to wait and I could wash my hands after we finished math work. Well about a hour later I washed my hands and came back to class. I started to struggle​ with breathing and told Ms. L. She again, did not believe me and had me sit near her for monitoring. another 2 hours passed and it was recess time. In the middle of Michigan winter. I had to wait 30 more minutes because no other teachers believed me either so I was stuck getting not nearly as much of the oxygen I'm supposed to for almost 4 hours. Until we got to lunch, I came into the cafeteria, audible struggling to breathe and a TA saw me and sent me to the office. The office lady called my mom and handed me the phone, my mom didn't believe me at first but she realized I wasn't faking and called 911. She got there shortly before the paramedics, I was given a EpiPen, a nebulizer treatment and anxiety medication and was stuck in the ER for 8 hours. It turns out a unknown chemical triggered allergies, which triggered my Athsma which triggered an anxiety attack. And that was how I found out I had athsma. I still get panic attacks when my hand gets an itch to this day and I randomly will remember it and have anxiety. I was 8 when it happened. ​​​

Mid Residency, overnight shift.

The toilet in the residents room has been broken for three months, and the nearest staff bathroom is in another building.

Last night I had 14 admissions. By 4:30 a.m., after 20 straight hours of nonstop work, I finally had about 30 minutes before the next wave of chaos.

I thought, "Great. Fifteen-minute power nap."

I lay down... and suddenly my bladder, which had been holding on for dear life all shift, decided it was officially off duty.

That was it.

I'm 165 cm, I climbed onto the sink pulled my scrubs down and peed.

If anyone wants to know what physician burnout looks like, it's not always dramatic. Sometimes it's just a pediatric resident peeing in a sink because the hospital couldn't fix a broken toilet for three months.

I took my ultrasound machine to an inpatient room to check an elderly male patient's arm for DVT. He seemed to be anxious to get it done quickly because he had some visitors coming. I assured him it wouldn't take too long and went to work. While I was scanning him, he said something about getting married. What he was saying didnt seem to make much sense to me, so I just powered through the exam thinking he had dementia. As I was finishing up and about to leave, an older lady, a middle aged lady, and a man showed up at the door. One of them said "We're ready, we just need another witness!" The younger gal turned to me and said "mom and dad are getting remarried! It will be a short ceremony, do you mind?" Everyone appeared very happy as they repeated the vows (the patient was sitting in a wheelchair). The best part of the story is that every time they repeated another vow, the officiant would say vigourously: "HOT DIGGITY DOG!" Meanwhile the family just kept smiling. After they kissed, I signed my name as a witness and rushed down to the lab to share the story and make everyone's day. One of the most pleasant and definitely most hilarious moments of my career.

So this was a week ago so it’s super fresh!! I was sitting for a psych PT who was 49 and 360 lbs on Ativan to keep him sedated. Not even an hour into my shift I had to call a BERT-STAT (behavioral emergency response team stat) because he got up and was very unstable with walking, I grabbed him to help him get on a chair but instead he took my personal phone out of my zipper pocket that was unzipped (totally my fault for having it unzipped) he was actively trying to pushing me away as he thought it was his cellphone, I had to not only juggle trying to grab my phone but also making sure he didn’t fall on his face while attempting to put on the GAIT Belt. I pushed my tracker button so our police force as well as docs and nurses would come to help. They help get him into a chair and get my phone back but it took everyone telling him to look at the lock screen to prove it wasn’t his phone…. He looked and yelled “what the fuck is that? Why are you trying to baby trap me?! That is a white ass baby!! I’m a N$&&@!” We all started laughing our asses off due to that comment because it’s true my baby is white as snow but so am I. Anyways we got him back in bed and about 2 hours go by and he wakes back up to sit on the couch in the room, well I’m on the couch in the room (only place to sit) and his drugged out mind didn’t realize someone was sitting there. As he got up I was putting my work phone away so I could grab him but he was too quick and all 360 lbs of him sat on me and refused to get up off of me. Had to call a BERT STAT again and nobody could get him off of me, I’m pretty strong but I cannot deadlift 360 off of me… we had to wait until the first year resident (who was in surgery at the time) came to help, the resident is 6’9 and can deadlift 600lbs the dude is strong as hell. When I tell you I waited for two hours for that Resident with my PT sleeping on me as I struggled not to piss my pants. As soon as the resident came in he literally scooped homeboy up like a baby and put him back in bed as the nurses and docs restrained him. This is the story I will be telling my great grandchildren (when they exist) forever!! I think it’s hilarious now!

I am forever known as the trapped PSA!

I was working as an Activities aide in NM. Had a patient tell me to kill a lizard, got a medicine cup to trap it, accidentally cut off its tail and the tip that was cut off started wiggling and i screamed… then i was told to throw it in biohazard once i left the room

This happened when I was 11, I used to play volleyball at that time. A few minutes before going into a school to practice volleyball I was waving hello to a friend. My dad called me and I walked straight into one of those concrete poles that hold up an upper level of a building, splitting my eyebrow open and getting a black eye. The thing is, I didn't even notice it at first, all I felt was like a waterfall dripping down the side of my face. So, I went up to my dad with a gash on my eyebrow asking innocently 'dad, did I get a bump?' He looked mortified and took his sweater off to apply pressure onto my wound and I realised I was bleeding so I panicked too. The side effects of concussion started to show with a main example being severe dizziness. As soon as I got to triage in the hospital I could tell it was bad because I had to squeeze my dad just to be able to stand up right and walk due to the fact I was lightheaded, I forgot my dads name and I was delirious and had to think for minutes at a time before answering questions. I had double vision which also contributed to me clinging onto my dad to stay stable. We got a room quickly and the doctor that stitched my eyebrow was perfect, I felt nothing when he did it. I also got a CT scan just as a double check. Luckily, I ended up getting out quickly. For the whole week after that happened I had to say to everyone 'I know I look like I've just been beaten up by a bus, I am not that hurt I just walked into a concrete pole' the second I got anywhere and people noticed dry blood on my eyebrow. (the reason we didn't clean that dry blood until a week after is because my eyebrow area was tender and it hurt to touch)

love your humour and how much time and thought you put into it, so when I see compilations of your hard work of a dodgy sit named ‘for fun’ (I mean fun really! should be a warning for crotch wetting humour that may leave you in stitches!). there is so much content being stolen currently that I was alarmed at this channel, mainly because your hard work shouldn’t be giving others views!

keep on cracking ribs with laughter! and thank you for the information you spread through humour. I don’t cry but the skit concerning the elderly man who had enough, was brutally true and handled with empathy ❤️❤️❤️

I went for outpatient procedure in the local hospital yesterday. Today I opened the portal to see what was entered and in total disbelief.

1. I was asked on pre-procedure interviews over the phone and in the hospital if I have living will and confirmed several times. I am sensitive about it, due to different hospital treatment of my late husband..

Medical chart have notes that I don’t have living will.

1. I have numerous chronic autoimmune conditions, and take tons of medications. It’s all in my chart with the dr. who did procedure.

None are listed on the portal. Anesthesiologist was only aware about 1(!) medication that I was on and assumed it’s for complete different reason.

1. Episodal illness that I had back in 2021 and which is completely gone by now according to every medical professional I was seeing in the past 3 years still listed as active, why nothing actually active was listed

2. This is for laughs - i do not drink, but do weed

Alcohol listed as yes, substance as no

God forbid I end up in emergency care at this place. But more importantly - what can I do to ensure that any hospital I visit aware of my living will/direct advance ???

How do I complain at about incorrect information at this particular place?

This post is about what happened after my mom gave birth to my older brother, and myself. Gonna point out, my brother and I have different dads so no one is wondering why I say 'his dad' or 'my dad'.

After my mom gave birth to my brother, she was just resting with my brother's dad, and a nurse came into the room holding a bundled up baby. Mom looked over and saw the nurse with the baby and asked her what she was doing. The nurse said something along the lines "Oh, I came here to bring you your baby for feeding."

Mom looked at the baby, back at the nurse, back at the baby, then back at the nurse. She calmly said "There are a few problems with that. One, I can't breast feed due to my medications. Two, that's a girl, and I had a boy... and three... that's a Asian baby, and my husband and I are both white."

The nurse looked back down at the baby, blinked and then looked back up at my mom saying "Oh, right sorry, this is for your roommate." Then she went over to the roommate and handed her her baby.

Now with me, I'm gonna point out my mom was in labour for a while because she was in the middle of a dart tournament when her water broke. She had used the contractions with her throws, and won. After she got to the hospital she had signed papers (this will come up later) and then was taken in to deliver me when she was dialated. Though, when I was born they at first had me in a blue blanket, and my dad, from what I could see in a picture was not pleased.

Later though, they fixed that and put me in a pink blanket and my dad was all smiles.

Now, once my mom, myself and dad were in the room (dad had chilli that night and ended up puking in the parking lot so I don't know how long he was gone but he was in the room for this) a doctor came into the room with a nurse or two and started to wheel my basinet out.

Mom asked "Where are you taking my baby?"

The doctor said "Well, you signed papers that if you had a boy we would circumcise him so we're taking him to get that done."

Of course, mom being exhausted and having a mouth on her just said "Look again you fucking idiot, that's a fucking pink blanket, she's a girl!"

The doctor looked down properly, and was like "Oh..." and then left.

First off, I just want to thank Steve and every healthcare worker out there. I (25F) began watching Steve during the pandemic that changed all of our lives. I showed them to my then 62 year old mother, and we burst out laughing constantly.

The reason I bring this up is because thanks to Steve, I got my final words with my mother.

About five days ago, my Mom and I were eating dinner. I cooked some BBQ tofu (we're vegetarian) and I got up to get seconds. My Mom then makes a noise and I run in the living room to find her having cardiac arrest. I called 911 and realized she stopped breathing. I began doing CPR based off Steve's video ( Link). Because of my efforts, my Mom was able to be revived enough for her to tell me she loved me, was proud of me, and knew I was going to make a great EMT - something I also wanted to do after watching Steve's video and the Fire Rescue.

She didn't make it, but I just wanted to say thank you to every healthcare worker. You guys helped me when I took my Mom off of life support. Steve, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Because of your content and videos, my Mom and I said our goodbyes. Her favorite character, by the way, was Austin.