Aimeé
11.
Had a patient when I was an intern feigning blindness. She would constantly be playing on her smartphone, only furiously trying to hide it when someone from the care team came into her room. The best was when my attending one day strolled pst her room and threw his hand up in a highly exaggerated ‘hello’ wave. She started to throw her arm up to but caught herself half way through, then threw her hand back into her lap and pretended to be ‘staring’ off into nothing. —SinisterlyDexterous
12.
Not a doctor, but am a UK based midwife.
Had a patient who had been in and out of hospital throughout her pregnancy with episodes of heavy bleeding. This was her 6th baby so she was a fairly well known patient in our unit. The issue was no one had ever seen her actively bleeding, she’d call saying that she had bled down the toilet but flushed it, and all the examinations we did came back completely normal with mostly no evidence of any bleed whatsoever, on occasions during speculum examinations we’d see the smallest amount of blood.
I was caring for her during a shift where she yet again called to say she was bleeding, walked into her room and found her jabbing around her vagina with a sharp object to make herself bleed. She had been doing it the entire pregnancy, the reason she gave – because she had 5 noisy children at home, needed some rest and knew we wouldn’t admit her to hospital if it wasn’t for a good reason. She would do it any time her being discharged home was mentioned. We ended up having to complete a perinatal mental health referral and consult with the safeguarding midwives as she was putting herself and baby at risk of serious harm.
EDIT: So this got a lot more attention than I ever expected. There’s a lot of questions regarding birth control and questioning her parenting so thought it best to add an edit. This patient was not by any means a benefits seeker, they were a hard working and loving family that had full time jobs. She had been booked in to have her tubes tied but found out a week before the procedure that she was pregnant with this baby. She just couldn’t cope during the pregnancy, and became very mentally unwell. She did not realise the implications or understand the face that she was causing massive harm to herself and her baby. She was referred to our perinatal mental health team and treated for psychosis. They also had a lot of input after she had her baby. She ended up having a c-section and was sterilised at the same time at her request. By all accounts she is doing very well now. —HisforHoebag
13.
Nurse for an ophthalmologist here. Had a 21 year old new patient claiming to be completely blind from a sudden and severe glaucoma diagnosis from a previous unknown doctor. Would feel around while walking, tried to keep eyes rolled back into his head. The whole 9 yards. He said he is a famous YouTube rapper that is now unable to make videos or earn a living. I exclaimed to have heard of him before and very excitedly asked him to search and show me his YouTube channel on my phone so that I could subscribe. He took my phone out of my hand and effortlessly found the YouTube app and typed away in the search bar. Oh, and of course his eyes were back to normal and focused. —exyfoxx85
14.
One time my roommate (who is an ICU nurse) came to see one of my indoor soccer games. During the game a player on the other team went down “hurt” and starting screaming in pain and swearing and rolling around while holding his ankle before he was eventually helped off the field. He then limped over to where the fans sat and watched the rest of the game brooding in silence before he left early. After the game my roommate told me he was going to go over and see if there was anything he could do to help, until he saw that the guy was limping on the wrong leg. —SloopyDoops
15.
Guy came to ER (I was a nurse at the time) for stomach ache when asking him about history he randomly mentions a fight with his girlfriend where she left in a tizzy and he fell asleep on the couch. 20 min later when we see the CT, he has a satellite cable remote wrapped in a condom lodged in his rectum. I suppose he intended to frame “her”. Didn’t get to hear the conversation he had with the doctor. I was curious how he was going to explain why she was nice enough to wrap it in the condom. —TorrenceMightingale
16.
Obligatory not a doctor …I’m a nurse. We had a guy who had to come in every 3 months to get a medical certificate to say he couldn’t work at his retail job due to severe disabling back pain. He was receiving large amounts of insurance money for this condition. After the Dr had done his usual examination and questions and signed it off the guy asks the doctor to check his shoulder which doc does and asks how he injured it? Guy says playing rugby for a competitive team. Really says doc? How long have you been playing for them ? Guy has been playing and training the whole time. Doc puts this info on insurance form . Doc loses his shit in staff room laughing. Next week the patient loses his shit in reception because his insurance has been cancelled. —mariawest
17.
I have a sort of opposite angle story for this one. A friend of mine is completely blind, as in, eyes-removed-as-a-toddler blind (she had a rare cancer). She’s worn glass eyes her whole life to keep the sockets from sinking in, as well as to limit the jarring appearance.
Well, she had a new doctor she was seeing (so to speak) to get fitted for new glass eyes (I think that was why). When the tech brought her in, they told her they had to examine her eyes. Um…? And asked her to read the vision test chart. UM…? She kept trying to explain she is B L I N D blind, and they were stuck on examining her. “Whoa, your pupils aren’t responding!” No shit. She finally got so frustrated, she popped one glass eye out and said “HERE. Now you can check it out all you want.”
She apparently always would pull that gag on folks doubting her and/or teasing her. She’s awesome that way. —Ruffffian
18.
ER nurse. Bringing a patient back to a room who said he had kidney stones. I had him stop at the bathroom and get a urine sample. Dude comes out with with the specimen cup that literally has a piece of concrete in it. Looked him in the eye expecting some sort of joke. He. Was. Serious. I threw it away and walked his dumbass back to the waiting room to contemplate his stupidity. —_Stamos
19.
Years ago I had a patient who had been rear-ended in an auto accident a few weeks before I saw her. She had a history of lupus. She was decked out in the usual “I’m crippled” paraphernalia (crutches, neck brace, elbow braces, wrist braces, knee braces) and could barely walk. I saw her a couple of times and she showed no improvement. One Saturday I was on call but had to take a ‘back streets’ route to the hospital because of an ‘event’ taking place on the main thoroughfare. I apparently drove through her neighborhood, because, wonders behold, there she was wearing old-lady spandex power walking down the sidewalk (holding weights in both hands). I did not call out to her.
Next week, she was back in clinic, with her “I’m crippled” getup on again. Hmmm. A few weeks later I got the subpoena for the deposition, and it all became clear. —konqueror321
20.
4th year medical student. On my ER rotation and a trauma came in from a women that the had been arrested. During the drive the patient “banged” her head 4 times against the window of the police car and then went unresponsive.
She came to us with a bruise over her forehead and unresponsive. We all smelled bs but the patient was a great actor, didn’t even flinch during the digital rectal exam (which is standard for all patients that come in through the trauma bay). Though some of the nurses said that they caught her “peeking” at us when would leave the room.
We ended up getting a CT scan (which was normal) and was even considering intubating her to secure her airway when our attending finally walked over to her, opened her eye lids and held them open while telling her to wake up. Finally she started fighting to close her eyes and the jig was up. The doctor called her out and she proceeded to start screaming at us. She was much more pleasant when she was pretending to have a brain injury. —footsiefried
21.
My cousin got glasses. Her 7 year old little sister also wanted glasses because she thought it was so cool to wear them. So she started telling her teachers she couldn’t read what was on the chalkboard. And she’d squint at home, and go incredibly close to the tv to watch things because she said she couldn’t see things clearly. Her parents got worried and took her to the doctor.
She read everything wrong on the vision test. Everyone seemed convinced that she needed glasses. But the doctor was a little concerned because the tests indicated she needed really thick glasses, and usually that wasn’t the case unless there was a family history of vision issues. Her parents both had 20/20 vision and her sister only had astigmatism. They all realized she was faking it.
So the doctor told her parents in front of her that she’d need some pretty intense eye surgery so she’d be able to see without glasses. They even wheeled in a machine to make it convincing to say they could do the surgery right then and there. She freaked out, confessed to faking it all and started to cry. She got grounded for a while. —sensitiveinfomax
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