11.
“A guy came in to our ICU and was very septic but still talking. He had visited his primary care doctor with complaints of a sore throat for a couple of days. Dismissed without any intervention since he didn’t appear to have strep throat or the flu.
At this point he was having pretty severe abdominal discomfort, so we sent him for a CT scan. As the scan was finishing, he coded and had to be intubated, multi-organ failure, etc. The CT scan was horrible — he had all kinds of sh-t all over his peritoneal cavity. His wife told us that he had choked on an ice cube the day before he saw his primary care doc.
Evidently, he swallowed a whole double half-moon-shaped ice cube that perforated his esophagus with a HUGE linear 4.25-inch tear, allowing a significant portion of his swallowed food and drinks to get into his peritoneal cavity instead of his stomach. To make things worse, he had some reflux that allowed stomach acid to get in there as well (likely while he was sleeping).
Once we realized what was going on, he went for extensive washout and exploratory surgeries to repair the damage to his esophagus and other organs. Thankfully, he made a full recovery, but he was very close to not making it.” –brianlpowers
12.
“When I was born, I was my dad’s third child — two from a previous marriage. He knew something was wrong with me because of the way I was breathing: very rapid, short breaths. When I was three months old, they noticed there really wasn’t a change.
The first hospital he and my mom took me to, they said that there was nothing to worry about and babies just breathe like that. He was 100% certain they were wrong. They took me to a second hospital, and they said there’s definitely something wrong. But they didn’t have the technology to help (1986). They recommended a third hospital, which was a couple hours away.
Finally, the third hospital took me right in and performed surgery that day. Turns out I had five holes in my heart. They tried to go through my rib cage, but it didn’t work. They had to crack my sternum and go directly through my chest. They took my heart out of its body and patched the holes.” –kipopadoo
13.
“AIDS, as in, the patient had no working white cells whatsoever, it all started with what appeared to be a fungal infection in the chest but after many pulses with itraconazole the plaque was still present and growing.
The physician called me to check the patient and the chest plaque was indeed very suggestive for a fungal infection, the direct examination even confirmed the existence of the fungus, but the treatments were doing nothing. I rechecked the file and lo and behold, the leukocyte count was quite low, a quick HIV test later and the patient was diagnosed with AIDS on top of its body fungus.
To the credit of the physician that called me, the patient lied on the clinical exam as he marked he had no active sex life, but when confronted with the evidence he spilled the beans, turns out he was a regular with the local hookers, but also quite active in online dating, public health wasn’t happy, to say the least.” –an_annoyed_jalapeno
14.
“I’m not a doctor, but a registered nurse. This happened to me, but isn’t nearly as bad as most of the stories on here. When I was in college, I got to where I couldn’t swallow. It started with difficulty swallowing, progressed to me having to swallow bites of food multiple times/regurgitating it, and then got to where all I could swallow was broths and mashed potatoes with no chunks.
I went to the doctor multiple times, and was told every time it was acid reflux and part of my anxiety disorder. I lost 30 pounds (was only 120 when this started) and was just generally miserable.
Finally, my grandma was tired of watching me be sick all the time, so she called the GI doctor herself. They said we needed a referral, but she explained the situation and they got me in the next day. Did an endoscopy and my esophagus was 95% occluded at the gastroesophageal sphincter.
For some reason, some of my primary doctor’s notes ended up in my discharge paperwork (I guess they had to contact her to get my information) and she had told them it was acid reflux and basically I was being overdramatic. She stated she did not recommend them to do the procedure. Needless to say, I switched doctors. F*ck that b*tch. Was not a fun year.” – ohoyminoy
15.
“Young student from, I think, Pakistan. He was complaining about his neck feeling stiff, he went to a doctor some days before and he was told he was having “joint pains” that would pass with some common anti-inflammatory drugs. When I visited him I saw many of the lymph nodes in his neck were swollen (which probably caused the stiffness) and not painful (not a good sign). Sent him right away to have a chest X-Ray that showed a huge mediastinical mass, suggestive of lymphoma. Sadly I don’t know what happened to him.” –Dalaik
16.
“Probably the worst story one can hear. My wife found a lump under her breast that was really concerning. It took her about 2 months to get a proper appointment to have it looked at. Doc diagnosed it as a cyst and fibroadenoma. She drained the lump and it was fine. Grew back a week later and was bigger. Finally, after being in pain for weeks on end, the doctor said this is clearly not working, so we will do surgery and remove it.
Upon going in for the check-up, thinking they’d take a look at the scar and healing, it turns out that she had Stage 2A Triple-Negative Breast Cancer. The surgeon was absolutely floored. The most upsetting thing was that while her main surgeon/gyno (who was fantastic) was on holiday another male doctor told her “any surgery would be merely cosmetic and it clearly didn’t bother her because he could touch the lump.” I almost laid that doctor out in the office.
When she got the diagnosis he apologized to both of us for being an assh-le. Unfortunately, this story didn’t end well. Despite doing 8 months of therapy (chemo and radio), her cancer returned 7 months later and ultimately led to her death after it spread to her brain and spinal fluid.
So many people told me “Ah breast cancer, that’s one of the easy ones! My *insert relative nobody f-cking cares about here* had it.” She switched gynos twice because they wouldn’t take it seriously. It’s been 6 months now and not a day goes by where I wish I could have taken her cancer away. She was f-cking 27 years-old.” –kachol
17.
“One that comes to mind is when I was a resident, the ED doctor wanted to admit a mild septic patient with a UTI. I review her labs, and knowing that she is a diabetic, it was obvious florid DKA (diabetic ketoacidosis). That kind of admission typically goes straight to the ICU to get insulin via a drip and aggressive IV fluid rehydration. She was just in the ED hallway with no medications at all looking like crap.” –DikembeMutumbo
18.
“I’m not a doctor (I’m a nurse). My sister had her gallbladder out, routine surgery, and two days later woke up at 4 am in searing pain, went to the ER by ambulance. I met her there. The ER docs were all apparently convinced she was a drug-seeker and did not even conduct a physical exam beyond taking her vitals. They snowed her to shut her up because she was just yelling “Help me! Help me! I’m dying!”
They did eventually do an MRI but said it was negative and sent her home. She didn’t want to leave, insisted something was terribly wrong, but they said they would call security and have her thrown out. At this point I’d like to mention that she had no history of drug or alcohol abuse.
She continued to get worse at home and the next day went to a different hospital. They did a workup and found that the metal clip that closed off the bile duct had cut right through the tissue and she had a large bile leak that was literally burning all her abdominal organs.
She had to have three surgeries to fix it and was hospitalized for 9 days. Left with chronic pain from adhesions and chemical burns. When the new hospital finally acquired the MRI from the original ER visit, she was told that the leak was small but clearly visible in that image.” –aimeed72
19.
“I suppose I have one for this as a resident doctor. We saw a kid in the emergency for difficulty walking. He had been slowly losing the ability to walk over months, and also had random unexplained projectile vomiting episodes. Looking at his records, he saw his doctor several times who X-rayed one hip. Then the other hip. Gave some Zofran etc.
Turns out on exam he is blatantly ataxic (bad coordination) and can’t even stand. Failed all our bedside neurological examinations for cerebellum function. It was obvious to me and I’m not even good at this yet.
Did a CT scan. Big ass tumor in his cerebellum. It was obstructing fluid drainage in his brain too, raising his intracranial pressure and causing the vomiting. Had to call in the neurosurgeons overnight for emergency drain and he went to ICU. Later had more surgery for the tumor. My supervisor got pretty emotional about it actually.” –zeratmd
20.
“During my residency we had this lady in her 60s who was getting progressively more forgetful, just overall declining and getting less and less able to take care of herself. She had been seeing her primary care doc who diagnosed her with dementia. And she saw a neurologist who agreed. She was not really able to provide an accurate history. After talking to her family and friends it became apparent that her symptoms were progressing unusually quickly.
I remember seeing the point where her new hair growth met her bright red dye and also her grown out nails with hot pink polish thinking, wow, it really wasn’t too long ago that she was not only taking care of herself but like, going to get her hair and nails done. The lady in front of me was so far from that. The neurologist I was training with recognized this, had her admitted, and did every test including lumbar puncture.
Workup eventually showed Creutzfeld Jakob disease (“mad cow”) which there is, unfortunately, no treatment for. She died a few months later but at least we were able to prepare her family that she would only continue to decline so they could make arrangements. Really sad situation.” – apoptoticmeow
21.
“He put the pacemaker lead in the subclavian artery (and across the aortic valve into the left ventricle). The proper approach is: subclavian vein to right ventricle).
And then he didn’t notice it for over a year.I saw the patient (a 25-year-old woman who didn’t need the pacemaker in the first place) when she was in congestive heart failure because the pacemaker lead had destroyed the valve!
A surgeon and I had to do surgery to remove the pacemaker and lead. Then replace the aortic valve! Totally inexcusable. Well, 50% of doctors are below average, but everybody thinks theirs is in the top 10%” –dofeveg655