I treated a patient today who got bitten by a squirrel. X saw a squirrel outside the house looking "in distress," and decided to take some vital signs on it. How on earth you take vital signs on a squirrel I have no idea, but it obviously didn't really work so well for X because all X got for it was a good CHOMP on the hand. While I was struggling very hard not to laugh at the image of near CPR on a squirrel, X supplied that X got far enough to determine that the poor squirrel was indeed in respiratory distress. Now, how high a squirrel's blood pressure should be or how fast a squirrel breathes is beyond my depth of knowledge. But I rewarded X with a Good Samaritan award from our hospital on the discharge paper!
You definitely see some strange things in this line of work!
Oh, I also learned today that "toast" means "gun." Y was mugged and reported that there was some toast involved on the assailant's part. Here I was thinking "Oh sure, ok there was a scuffle at the shop and some food fight was involved and somehow he got some toast." My attending even asked specifically if there was a gun involved and I was like "Oh not at all, only fists." Didn't I feel like an idiot when my attending questioned Y and came back to me and was like, "Um...did you know that "toast / belt / heater" means "gun?" I mean seriously come on, like that's intuitive. How am I supposed to know that?! Everyone's laughter (including my Y's and Y's family) followed me to the phone while I called NYPD.
