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has your pediatrician sent you to the ER needlessly? Bad experience
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Anonymous
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Recently my DS was having trouble breathing so I called the pediatrician, the receptionist told me to either bring him to the office or take him to the ER.
Obviously ER should be, in my opinion, a last resort so as to not overburden the system. So I arraived to the doctor's office and the nurse practicioner out of no where tells me why I am there, that I should have taken him directly to the ER! I can not explain the feeling I got when she told me that, at that point I thought I was the worst mother in the world and that my son would suffer from it. So she, examined him and gave him Albuterol to open his airways. She then said that if his breathing didn't go back to normal in the next 15 minutes that I should take him to the ER, which is exactly what we did. Long story short, when we got there, fortunately there was no need for another dosis of medicine, he was fine by then. After paying the $100 dollar co-pay for ER and waisting all morning at the hospital, I called a friend who had the same experience with her DD, with the difference that her ped asked her to stay until her DD got better and then followed up on her w/o going to the ER. Has anyone had any experience like mine. I am obvioulsy switching doctor ASAP. |
Anonymous
| I dunno ... if my child was having trouble breathing I would go straight to the ER. Why take the chance? |
Anonymous
| Breathing is pretty important. I would go to the ER. |
Anonymous
| Consider yourself lucky that the treatment worked and your child did not have to be admitted to the ER. Trouble breathing is nothing to mess with and if it means you had to go to the ER to ensure your child was okay -then so be it. Trips to the ER should be considered if there is a life-threatening situation. If your child can't breathe - the ER is the place to be. Think you are jumping the gun in abandoning your pediatrician's office for making sure your child's breathing stabilized. |
Anonymous
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Do you mind if I ask which pediatrician you go to? I had a similar experience but pushed back. I called one mid-afternoon to ask for an appointment because DC seemed tired, was coughing etc. The nurse did not schedule us for an appointment because they were all booked and told me DC would be fine coming in the next morning. When I brought in DC, the ped tried one albuterol treatment only holding the neb below her chin. When her ox sats didn't come back up, she said we would need to go to the ER. I was shocked and freaked out especially since the nurse refused to see us the prior day. The ped then said DC would probably be fine and just needed another treatment. This really ticked me off and I asked why on earth we couldn't do another treatment here. Her response was we don't like to keep people around in the exam room and then conceded to let us try again. This time I ignored the advice to just use it under DC's chin and I put the mask on DC. Her ox sats came back up and she was OK. I took her back a few days later after doing the albuterol treatments a few times a day as prescribed, saw a different ped and she was fine.
IMO it is very bad medicine to send someone to the ER for office management reasons and not a true emergency. I have relatives who have worked in ERs and it is a terrible drain on the system for primary care doctors to send patients to the ER who should not be there. At some ERs, they also take the stance that if you come to the ER you have declared you have an emergency and they pull out the tests. I would have hated for DC to go through unnecessary tests and treatments just because the ped sees the ER as an extension to their office environment. |
Anonymous
| For my part, I wished my ped. hadn't tried to handle an ER-worthy situation herself. We had to go to the ER anyway a few days later and DD has lingering problems months later... maybe because the ped. didn't give us good advice for follow-up care. |
Anonymous
Agree. As annoying as it can be to spend hours and dollars at the ER, try if you can to focus on the positive--that your child didn't need to be admitted in the end. Though DC doesn't have asthma, he has had anaphylactic reactions resulting in 3 visits to the ER. The first two times we ended up going home after the docs pumped him full of the same meds we had at home and observed breathing for a few hours. Both times, ER docs assured us we made the right call. Both times, I left the hospital mildly annoyed at having spent time and money there for "nothing". The most recent time the symptoms appeared, in we trudged again. This time, DC didn't respond to the meds and ended up intubated and admitted for days. I thank my lucky stars we went in...and if ever we do end up at the ER again, I will be thrilled if we can walk out of there having wasted a few hours and owing $100. Just because a patient is ultimately sent home from the ER doesn't mean that going there was a mistake. With breathing issues, better safe than sorry and IMHO your NP made the right call in directing you to the ER. That said, she didn't deliver the message well. I imagine it was very upsetting to hear that "Why are you here?!" message from her, especially since going to the ped was one of the options suggested by the front office. |
Anonymous
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ER = bleeding, broken, BREATHING
I'd have gone to the ER. |
Anonymous
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Speaking as someone who has an inhaler, you can't compare the situation of your friend to yours. Your child may have been in real trouble, and if the inhaler didn't work he could have been in real danger.
I don't think it's right to question a very reasonable medical opinion because it made you feel bad. Sometimes you have to hang up your emotions and deal with the issue, and not do any monday morning quarterbacking after it's all over. |
Anonymous
This OP, This is exactly what happened. Thank you very much for everybody's responses, I do understand that there are some instances in which ER is the best, if not, only option. I guess I was relying in my gut when we decided to go to the ped office. When we got there, the tests indicated that the oxigen level was OK and the Albuterol seemed to work within the next 30 minutes. Fortunately, as far as I am concerened my son is not asmatic or has allergies and with your comments on second thoughts it is best to be safe than sorry. However, what I am most annoyed by is a) the fact that they told me to bring him to the ped office in the first place; and b) that they told me exactly the same thing as above, that "they don't like to keep people around in the exam room"!!!!!!!!!!! If it was truly an emergency, should't they have called an ambulance? I am just trying to put this situation in perspective and will give the name of the doctor after I speak with her, because I have to add that we were only seen by the nurse practicioner. Should't she had called the doctor if it was an emeregency?? Any thoughts. |
Anonymous
| Thoughts: Be grateful your child is okay, OP. My goodness. When I read your post, I thought I bet the receptionist screwed up giving you a choice between the office and the ER. You are wasting precious time if you go to the doctor's instead of the ER. The "e" is for emergency. Does the receptionist still have her job? I bet she got a tongue-lashing! Your outcome could have been like 18:32's. |
Anonymous
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Had a similar experience. DS was 1 1/2 and was wheezing with a cold. I brought him into the office, they gave him a breathing treatment and they didn't like how he responded to it. She sent us to the ER. By the time we got there, his numbers were back up to safer levels and the ER doc questioned why we were sent.
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Anonymous
| 19:53 again. I think that a lot of these harsh responses are from people who don't have experience dealing with a child with respiratory airway disease or asthma. |
Anonymous
| I guess I must be missing something. Because when I or my child goes to the ER and the doc says that we're checked out okay and don't really need to be there, and can go back to our regular pediatrician, I'm happy and relieved and say Thank YOU! about 50,000 times. But it sounds like OP and a couple of other posters go to the ER hoping that there will be a chest-cracking and a blood transfusion and an organ transplant and a need for major trauma surgery and a long stay with tubes and beeping machines and weeping and wailing and codes and the ER docs saying "you got here just in time". I guess I'm really missing something, huh? |
Anonymous
This is OP. Yes you are missing something, you are missing the point - I am not a doctor, why did the ped asked me to come to her office when I described the problem, and THEN send me to the ER, why not calling an ambulance? What if there are complications on the way? The reason she sent me to the ER is simple Because she did not want us hanging around in her office any longer!! At that point she "hopefully" knew my son was in no danger and could have waited to see the reaction for the medicine, and in any case give him another dose. I just wanted to know if this was a normal MO for pediatricians in the area, as another person pointed out, apparently it is. |