Doctors and nurses of Internet what have been your “WHY DIDN’T YOU COME IN SOONER!?” Moments?

I was working as a surgical junior when my team was called down to A&E to see a patient who had come in with a complication from a recent hernia operation. When we came down, we saw that the patient was holding a plastic bag over their abdomen. When this was removed, we found that their wound had opened and their intestine was visible to the air. It transpired that this was not something that had happened over night, it had taken several days. The patient had started using plastic bags and newspaper to dress the wound when they ran out of dressings.

Not a doctor or nurse, but worked as a doctor’s office assistant. A regular patient, who was very sweet but unfortunately had an ongoing battle with alcoholism, was brought in by his roommate and I knew instantly that he would be dead soon. I’d seen some jaundiced humans in my time there but this man was a yellow I never knew was possible. His roommate said, through tears, “I’ve been telling him to come in for weeks!” and the patient kept telling roomate to relax, that he was fine. Majorly in denial. I helped him to the exam room and when the doctor entered the room, he immediately asked me to go call an ambulance.

A few weeks earlier wouldn’t have helped, but perhaps the end could have been made bit easier for him. He died 7 days later in the hospital.

Hit me very hard because I’d known the guy for a few years. Sometimes he would be sober when he called, and sometimes he would be slurring and completely incoherent, but he was ALWAYS kind.

Not a doctor or nurse but the patient.

I went into my doctor with some back pain and also brought up that my leg was swollen. The doctor I saw said it was probably just swelling due to sodium intake.

A week later, the pressure and pain in my leg was so bad that it hurt to walk. I called off of work and had my husband take me back into the doctor. The doctor took one look and told me to get to the hospital immediately, he suspected I had a blood clot.

I ended up having a massive blood clot from my hip to my knee and pulmonary emboli. I was transferred to another hospital for surgery and stayed in the ICU. Had I waited any longer, I would have died.

Not a doctor, just a student shadowing. During the pandemic, a guy with a history of heart issues had a heart attack, with classical chest pain. Then he had symptoms of heart failure, which he recognized, because it had happened to him before. But he still waited a few days because he was worried about coming to the hospital during the pandemic. Finally it got so bad (he couldn’t breathe from the fluid backed up into his lungs) that he came to the ER, when he was obviously hospitalized.

My professor also said he recently had a patient with an aortic aneurysm who was misdiagnosed because she only had a telehealth visit (no imaging) due to the pandemic. She ended up with an aortic dissection. The covid19 pandemic is hurting people who get sick, but also all the people not getting the treatment they need because they are avoiding hospitals.

Had a patient brought in by her son who “took care of her,” when she arrived to our unit I performed a skin assessment…took off her socks and found a fallen off gangrenous toe. Seems fake and I wish this was but it was by far the nastiest thing I’ve witnessed. Son said he had no idea when his mother’s foot became “that bad.” No words.