Stupid things Medical Patients Did That Made It Worse

Author image for Eric Lund
Eric Lund
Jul 10, 2020 4:00 PM EDT

For some reason tons of people think that the worst thing that can happen if you don't follow a doctors orders is that they'll get caught and be scolded. But no, there's an actual reason a medical professional tells you to do something. Medical professionals see through lying patients all the time, and patients still try to deny the stupid things they've done.

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  • 01
    Text - Notmiefault 3.1k points · 21 hours ago I work for a medical device company that makes bone screws. We had a patient sue us for faulty implants - apparently his screws broke less than a month after surgery. This is a big deal, and not just from a financial standpoint, so of course we launched a full investigation. Turns out the dumbass decided to play tackle football less than a month after his major back surgery. Our bone screws are strong, but not "tackle football" strong. His case was t
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  • 02
    Text - Text - Kyla_420 2.8k points · 22 hours ago I work in medical imaging where patients have to drink oral contrast for their exam. Some folks really hate the stuff and one patient after being given the oral contrast went outside and dumped it in the bushes and came back in and said that they had drank it. Our front desk lady actually saw her dump it in the bushes and told us about it but we would have seen the lack of contrast in the image even if she hadn't told us. I talked to the patient
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  • 03
    Text - Text - Kyla_420 1.6k points · 20 hours ago · edited 19 hours ago No, some patients think that parts of procedures are arbitrary and they can just decide for themselves and it won't matter. I perform another exam where the patients have to be fasting for 6 hours before their exam. The exam looks at the metabolism of sugar in the body and the patients cannot eat any sugar within the 6 hours prior or it'll ruin the test. I cannot count how many times prior to the exam, I asked the patient an
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  • 04
    Text - Text - Wildlife_King 1.9k points · 16 hours ago I feel like I am that person. When I was 15 I broke my arm. Went to the hospital got a cast went about for a few weeks and got it removed. Great! I have my arm back. Now I wasn't the brightest kid and needed everything explained to me. No one told me not to have an arm wrestle with my fresh out of cast arm. No one explained it was still healing. 4 hours after having my cast removed I was back in A&E and getting a new X- ray and then a new ca
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  • 05
    Text - CRRT93 1.2k points · 22 hours ago Somebody lit up a cigarette (in a no smoking area) with a nasal cannula on, and lit their face on fire. Had to come right back into the ER.
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  • 06
    Text - babynursebb 1.0k points · 21 hours ago · edited 19 hours ago Not after leaving but this older gentleman had his wife bring him in n out the literal day after his open heart surgery. I couldn't believe it.
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  • 07
    Text - Anokant 781 points · 21 hours ago Guy was discharged from our emergency room and wanted a cab voucher to get downtown. We wouldn't give him one because he didn't meet our requirements. He walked outside, called 911, and told the ambulance to take him to a hospital downtown.
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  • 08
    Text - trekbette 45 points · 11 hours ago When I went through bariatric class, the instructor told a story of someone who, after surgery, ate a burrito on the way home from the hospital. They had to have another emergency surgery to fix the damage.
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  • 09
    Text - Text - Beartown9000 667 points · 18 hours ago I saw someone pull his newly slung arm out of it's sling so he could put his jacket on as he was leaving the ER. He just stopped in front of my desk and started whimpering and yelling "Owwwwww! OHhh!" as he slowly worked his arm around to get it out of the sling and into the sleeve of his jacket. I'm pretty sure it wasn't very cold outside at the time. I plead for him to stop but he ignored me. It was really bizarre.
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  • 10
    Text - Text - Nagsheadlocal 590 points · 15 hours ago · edited 2 hours ago Now retired but one of the things I liked about "my" hospital was the food. We have a lot of immigrants in our area and some wise person decided to hire a pretty diverse crowd of cooks - Jamaican ladies making spicy chicken, Japanese cooks making sushi, Mexican dudes making made-to-order burritos, local barbecue, etc. And it was all very "clean" from a nutritional viewpoint - all of it was inspected by our RDs. And just a
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  • 11
    Text - Text - asdfqwertop 540 points · 21 hours ago My brother works as a volunteer for the red cross. He mostly volunteers as a medic in ambulances. He told me how they picked up a guy because he crashed his bike after he didn't pay attention and got his tyre stuck in some tram tracks. About 3 hours later he was picked up again after he tried to ride his bike with one hand in a cast. First time round he sprained his elbow, second time round he broke his shoulder on the same side.
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  • 12
    Text - Text - drbarnowl 470 points · 19 hours ago · edited 14 hours ago I don't work at a hospital but off the top of my head: 1. the patient who refused to get in an ambulance when he was having a heart attack until we let him have a cigarette 2. the patient who while having a stroke insisted he was fine and was just going to go home and nap - we got his niece to come and bring him to the ED. 3. the patient who insisted he knew his body and was able to frighten his paralyzed limbs into working
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  • 13
    Text - Text - sonia72quebec 441 points · 20 hours ago A Dentist had to put a little boy maybe 3 under general anesthesia to treat his bad teeth. Everything went fine until he was about to leave and I saw his Mom getting him Gatorade. Turns out it was his favorite drink and it was (almost) all he was drinking. The parents thought it was a "fruit" juice and that it was ok for him to drink. No wonder he had so much problems with his teeth. Poor little guy.
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  • 14
    Text - Text - VIIIIRGINIA 343 points · 18 hours ago Not a hospital worker, but my grandfather's wife tried to sneak KFC into the hospital for him IMMEDIATELY AFTER TRIPLE BYPASS SURGERY
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  • 15
    Text - Text - JunkoAdoresMonsters 222 points · 14 hours ago Not a hospital worker but I was in the emergency room due to a sports related injury. Finally got let out after hours of x rays and examinations as I was learning how to use crutches and watched someone with stitches on his arm start stretching like he was going to run all the way home. He turned around, walked towards the desk and yelled "your nurses are shit!" after the cut on his arm reopened mid stretch. The woman at the desk looked
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  • 16
    Text - Text - bitchpop88 147 points · 15 hours ago had a mom in the ER angry that we hadn't gotten to her daughter yet (minor injury, already triaged and needed to wait for others with serious issues). she got so mad that she left with her kid, stood outside our entrance and called 911. the ambulance came about 10-15 minutes after it would've been their turn on to be seen. would have been a grand total of 30 minute wait. to see our doc. had them take the kid to another hospital instead. way to g
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  • 17
    Text - Text - gouwbadgers 114 points · 11 hours ago Not a doctor but..I knew someone that is a fitness freak to an obnoxious level. She had a medical emergency (intestinal blockage) one day that involved major abdominal surgery and removal of part of her intestine. The day she was released from the hospital, she went back to her insane workout routine, trying to make up for the muscle she lost. She claims her doctor told her she could. Her intestines ripped open. She barely survived. She still c
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  • 18
    Text - paperconservation101 71 points · 14 hours ago Okay this was me. I had finished a sleep study (as to which I barely slept and had to redo it). I was 6am and I was leaving the hospital. I walked into a glass wall, which was clearly a wall, it even had the visibility stickers on it, twice. Twice I bounced off the same wall in my attempt to leave the hospital.
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