I see a patient at 3:17 am. She's been sitting in the waiting room less than 23 minutes, which is the equivalent of a minor miracle in an urban emergency department on a Saturday night.
"Wow. Took you long enough. I got a situation here."
I ignore this.
"An urgent situation. My boyfriend's wife (managing to make this word sound like a weird necrotizing fungal infection) is claiming that I gave him trichomonomas (I'm guessing she means trichomonas?). I need you to test me for it. But I can't wait for the results, I got to get to work, so when you get them just call her and him and tell them that I'm clean. And hurry up please."
Sometimes the trouble with the emergency department is that the patients are allowed to come up with their own definition of emergency.
(She was clean, surprisingly. No I did not call the boyfriend. Or his wife. Patient confidentiality, I respect it.)
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