Rant

This is a rant. Fair warning.

OK. Reasons NOT to bring your kid into the spanking new high-quality 20 bed pediatric only ED with 6 resuscitation rooms and triple attending coverage.

Number 1. My kid's foot jerks in his sleep sometimes. I videotaped it. It happens, like, every five minutes. He keeps sleeping but he, oh my GOD, like rolls over. I brought him in here, not so you ED docs could look at him because you don't know what seizures are, but so he could get an MRI and a STAT Neurology consult (I didn't tell her that was an oxymoron). Yes he has a fever. Yes he has a cold. Yes he's 18 months. So, A, that's not a seizure, it's sleep myoclonus, and B, even if it were a seizure and it were generalized, even up to 3 or four minutes, it would be a febrile seizure and he wouldn't need an MR. Let's say you're right and he is having focal seizures, just for the sake of argument; if that were the case, he has a fever so I have to 1, CT him, which is radiation which you don't want, and 2,tap him which you obviously won't like if it bothers you that his itty bitty widdle foot twitches in his sleep. Honestly. I'm not trying to deprive you of your God-given right to a stat MR for sleep myoclonus. I'm trying to avoid giving your kid leukemia (now thought to be perhaps as high as 1 in 1000 for early CT exposure). Sigh.

Number 2. My otherwise well kid really didn't sleep well last night and he has a runny nose. Guess what? My kid didn't sleep last night either, because despite stripping at the door and sprinting to the bathroom to wash my hands, I still am covered with stinky-germ-goo from people like you and all my kids, my wife, and I, are sick. I still came to work. My kid is at home. He woke up ten times too. My wife, who feels sick, is at home taking care of three sick kids so I can have the joy of telling you it's a virus and you should, like, suction his nose and let him rest. Christ.

Number 3. On to annoying primary docs (many are good, I'm not yelling at them). My patient is totally fine, but she has a bump on the back of her leg that doesn't hurt at all. She fell a MONTH ago on her shin and couldn't walk for a day and now is better. She has NO feverchillseasybruisinglossofappetitenauseavomitingdiarrheacoughheadachemalaise. You, smart PMD, told this poor lady and her two kids to come DIRECTLY to the ED for EMERGENCY hematology consult and EMERGENCY orthopedic consult. Apparently small, painless, barely noticeable calf bumps are outside the scope of practice for this particular generalist pediatrician.

Number 4, a special shout out to the receptionist. Thank you, oh thank you, for telling the chronic abdominal pain patient who, to their credit, is not requesting drugs or mega work-up, to come DIRECTLY to the EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT (so named because it is for emergencies, not clinic visits) so that we EM docs can arrange for your doctor to see you in the ED because he's over at the hospital today. Please, please don't tell the patient they can be seen in clinic by one of the doc's colleagues. Please, please don't tell them to make an appointment, God forbid, tomorrow when the doc is back in clinic. No, no. Send them directly here. I'll see them right after the runny nose, the calf bump, and the jerking foot kid.