18 hours, for what?

I have had some interesting cases this week in the ED. The first case was a 33 year old female who came in to the ER with complaint of a rapid onset of shortness of breath and cough. She described it as not being able to breath and that she was sure she was going to die to the triage nurse. The nurse measure her oxygen saturation and determined that the patient was not in immediate danger of expiring. In fact her oxygen levels were normal. SHe was sent to the waiting room to wait her turn with the other non-emergent emergencies.

She waited 18 hours to see me. The ER was completely out of control with multiple emergencies and non-emergent cases so the wait was extra long. I look in the computer to read about her case and then make my way to the bed 47 to she how she was breathing. The patient was in no acute distress and seemed to be fine. I asked about her shortness of breath and her cough. She said "oh doc it is really bad! I can't even breathe. I listened and fully examined her and there seemed to be nothing wrong. She asked me "hey doc did you run a pregnancy test on me?" I explained that it was common procedure to run a pregnancy test on every women of childbearing age, she was obviously aware of this procedure. I told her that her pregnancy test was negative and she immediately stood up and began removing her gown and putting her street cloths back on.

I asked her what she was doing and she said that her cough was gone and that she felt all better. She was on her way out when I said "you know that you can buy a pregnancy test for a few dollars and not have to wait 18 hours for the results." She did not reply and headed for the exit.