The Nurse Practitioner’s Place

I had a patient that I was debating about sending into the Emergency room due to her symptoms. The problem was that she had two separate problems going on at the same time. I would have sent her into the ER via private vehicle but she walked to the office due to not having transportation.

I work in a rural clinic where most of the patients have no money or transportation. I had two options. I could call out EMS and transport her from the office or have her walk all the way home and call EMS herself. Well, the only right choice there was to call out for them to pick her up from the office.

You’d think that I had interrupted some very important nap or something! One of the EMS was rubbing his eyes and looked quite bleary and the other one was trying to poke on my patient’s stomach to illicit some kind of pain response. The patient asked why she was doing that since her medical provider had already examined her? She told the patient that she was trying to see if she was in enough pain to transport.

Who’s decision is that? Hmmm? I think that would be me. Do your job and take the patient to the hospital to be evaluated whether you think it’s necessary or not. Too many bad abdominal processes are being missed around here because the patient is not presenting typically.