I checked on my patient at lunchtime and I saw that she didn’t touch her meat. I asked, “Are you a vegetarian? She looked at me and replied, “No, I’m Presbyterian.”
***
As I placed my stethoscope on an elderly, hard of hearing lady’s chest, I instructed her, “Take big breaths.” She sighed and said, “Yeah, they used to be firm too.”
***
After all heroic measures in the ER, the doctor had to tell the wife that her husband had died of a massive myocardial infarct. She cried, and the nurse walked her out to the waiting room where her family waited anxiously. She told her family sobbing that her husband had died of a “massive internal fart.”
***
A woman came in with upper abdominal pain and nausea and I was giving her the ordered medication. “I have the medication for your stomach, it’s called Pepcid,” I said.
***
She thought for a second and asked, “You’re kidding, right? I bet the hospital will charge me hundreds for a can of Pepsi that I could get from the soda machine for a dollar!”
***
I asked an elderly man about his medical history in triage. When I asked if he has angina, he indignantly replied, “No, I’m a man! I have a penis.”
