Doctors And Patients Share Their Most Dramatic Medical Stories
Medical dramas are full of thrilling cases that are so wild that only a writer could have come up with them. But believe it or not, there are just as many wild, heartrending, and miraculous medical stories in real life! Doubt us? In these stories, a group of doctors, nurses, patients, and veterinarians prove that some hospitals don't need script-writers and actors to be as melodramatic as Grey’s Anatomy.
1. Talk To Me
I was a speech-language pathologist when I saw a person who had fallen 30 feet through a disused factory roof. They had skull fractures, multiple strokes, multiple organ trauma, multiple spinal fractures, and had a tracheotomy.
I was there to assess speech and review eating and drinking. Reading their notes I imagined that there would be serious issues...to say the least.
They were able to eat and drink with only slight modifications. They could speak using a speaking valve and had no problems with understanding or finding words or unclear speech. They seemed slightly amused and bored by my assessment.
They even took my notebook and pen and wrote “I can write too” in flawless handwriting.
I finished placement not long afterward, but they were expected to make a full recovery!
2. Gut Feeling
My husband is a doctor. One night, he came home with a surreal look on his face. He had been seeing a patient and noticed that although he was in his mid-20s, he didn't seem to have gone through puberty. The patient didn't mind his state too much but my husband believes that medicine should improve your life, not just keep it going.
So, on a shot-in-the-dark hunch, my husband sent him for an MRI. The patient had a previously benign and now malignant brain tumor suppressing the part of the brain that controls puberty. The test led to a very early brain tumor detection.
3. A Relief
I had a patient who was recently pregnant and was experiencing some minor bleeding. I did an ultrasound and saw a normal fetus but no heartbeat. I told her that it was likely due to pregnancy just being at an early stage.
I checked her ovaries and told her that I could print a picture of the fetus. I moved the scan back to the fetus and there was a clear heartbeat.
During the minute or so that I was scanning the ovaries, the heart had started to beat.
4. Right Place, Right Time
I'm a nurse, and this happened in the car park of the hospital where I work. A staff member got out of his car only for it to start rolling back. He reached in to pull the hand-brake. From where I was sitting, everything looked fine, but a few minutes later a lady walked by and starts screaming. Turns out he had been pinned half inside his car. He was unconscious and he wasn't breathing.
A bunch of us managed to push his car back enough for people to pull him out. Luckily all this happened at a hospital so the crash team had already been called. They did CPR. He lived.
