First of all, my situation with doctors isn’t as bad as some people I know, I just want to vent about what happened to my personally even if it isn’t the worst case of medical negligence because I’m really fucking tired. I (F18) really like sleeping in on Saturdays, and today was no exception. It was around 9 am that I woke up from a really bad pain in my chest. I tried to ignore it, to calm down and breathe but even then it didn’t go away so I told my parents and my dad drove me to the emergency room. I entered at 10:19 and was’t checked until an hour later. The doctor literally told me that it was anxiety and gave me painkillers and sedatives. I waited an hour more, only to be told the same thing and sent home. I’m just extremely confused and infuriated like, how would I have an anxiety attack on my fucking sleep, that lasted for hours, and my heartbeat was normal???? like how it’s that possible? I feel like no one listened to me or my concerns, I was just an anxious young woman, obviously I was having a panic attack even if I never said U was panicked. Like, the only thing frustrating me was that no one fucking listened, no one. Not even my dead listened to my concerns, he just keep telling me to relax, how do you want me to relax if I’m waiting for hours with chest pains on the emergency room? And now, I’ve been sent home with anxiety medication. Anxiety I don’t have. And I’m just fucking tired of not being listened, of my voice never being heard.
This was not the first time this happened either. I went to the emergency room last year, the same hospital, because I had spent the full night puking and shitting myself, couldn’t even drink water. I waited for 2 hours before being seated and put an iv and the nurses kept being loud and one outright told me that some people had greater emergencies than mine which I would get it there were more people in the er, which was empty, and if I wasn’t extremely dehydrated, literally by that time I had spent a day without any water.
Not to mentioned the time I had bronquitis, the doctor didn’t look at me, didn’t give me antibiotics and I had to go back, that time to a different place, and I almost had to be hospitalized.
I’m just so fucking tired of doctors, always dismissive, always gossiping with their coworkers when patients are waiting in front of them in the er, everything that happens is no big deal but still someone who had to get their stitches removed was called in before me today, when he came in I had being there for half an hour, and he was called in like in three seconds (even if they couldn’t remove the stitches because he got them done in another city and didn’t have a doctors note).
Sorry for the rant, I don’t really expect someone will actually read this but whatever.
TL;DR: next time I have a medical emergency, I’d just die at home.
Comments
Your Emergency Room impression is pretty typical. Emergency room doctors focus on stabilizing patients and ruling out life-threatening conditions as quickly as possible. For someone presenting with chest pain, they will do blood tests and an EKG to rule out heart damage and blood clots in the lungs. Once they confirm that the heart is not at risk, they typically rely on the patient following up with their primary care doctor for further diagnosis and management of non-emergency causes like heartburn, esophageal spasms, chest wall muscle spasms, pleurisy, or anxiety.
The pace and environment of the ER don’t leave much time for in-depth exploration of every possible cause of the symptoms. That’s why follow-up care is so important. A primary care doctor will take a more thorough approach, including a detailed history, physical examination, and possibly more specific tests to get to the root cause of the pain.
Unfortunately, it can be frustrating for patients who feel like they’re not getting all the answers in the ER, but the system is designed to prioritize immediate threats to life. Hopefully, that follow-up care with a primary care provider can bring more clarity and a solid treatment plan!
Feel this with every fiber of my being, you have to be in Australia I swear, had these sort of issues for years until I went to a doctor in New Zealand who actually wanted to listen and help. It’s wild and you don’t deserve any of it. No idea how to help you but just know you’re not the problem, doctors can be very demeaning and disrespectful, depends on the person. Stay strong and definately find somewhere else to go to, you might get lucky
Sounds like it wasn’t an emergency considering you’re fine
Calm down bro, you sound anxious.
I’m a 44 yr old woman & I FEEL this post. This is way too common with women that often time we do get dismissed &/or it’s blamed on “lady problems.”
I tell my family when this comes up if something happens, I’m going to die because it’s just a “headache” or “lady issues.” They are all males, the only other lady in the house is my dog.
Hi OP, I’m an ER Doc.
First, I’m sorry you felt invalidated and unheard. It’s a shitty experience. Everyone deserves to be heard and have their concerns addressed.
That said, yes, you can wake up in the middle of the night from a panic attack. Ideally, you’d have an EKG done just to screen for heart issues. That said, EKG’s are just 10 second snapshots and often primary care follow-up is best.
An otherwise healthy 17 year-old can go a day without eating and have a GI bug without inherently requiring IV fluids. The vast majority of people can eat/drink and often have had more fluids than they admit (“I haven’t eaten in 24 hrs” quickly turns into “well yes, I did have a small snack 30 minutes ago” and “I have had a few glasses of water today”). GI bugs suck, but are rarely life threatening in otherwise healthy people with a short length of illness. GI bugs kill when people are chronically malnourished or are have other serious medical problems.
As for bronchitis, the vast majority of bronchitis cases are caused by viruses, which don’t respond to antibiotics. Receiving antibiotics would mean receiving the risks associated with antibiotics and none of the benefit.
I am explaining this not to invalidate your experience, but to explain why you may have experienced what you did. I recognize that your experiences were frustrating, but I ask you take a moment and acknowledge that we often are coming to you after bringing someone back from death/near death or informing a family that their loved one just died. After enough of that, patience can run thin.
Sounds like they did their job.