Go back to work

This story takes place in an occupational health office of a LARGE corporation. My goal when I work in the occupation health offices is to keep employees at work and productive, this way they didn't have to send employees home all the time or have time missed related to appointments outside the office.

In this office I generally took patients/ employee's in for a number of different things, such as spot checking their blood pressure related to them taking BP medications regularly or checking a temperature or blood sugar, ect. This office also provided phlebotomy (blood draws) for patients who brought in a doctors order, and we sent the blood out to the lab for them... although strangely some people wanted to take the blood with them. Yeah... no, we'll send it out thank you. We also did a lot of patient consultations, basically doing patient education on anything they had questions about, from their new medication they started to breast feeding their new baby at home.

We also saw the mundane... "I don't feel good and think I should go home but my boss wants me to see the nurse." So here is the thing, I am NOT a school nurse, but some of these (adult) employees sure made me feel like one. Employee 1 says "I have a sore throat." I say "here are some throat drops, drink lots of water... now get back to work." Employee 2 says "I burned my finger curling my hair." I say "leave it open to air and keep it clean and dry, go back to work." Employee 3 says "I think I have a fever." I check a temperature and say "no you don't... go back to work." Employee 4 says "My stomach hurts." I say "here is some pepto bismol... now please return to work." (I was being nice that day). Employee 5 says "I'm tired and want to go home." I say... "I can't make that decision for you... go back to work and talk to YOUR boss."

Yes... they pay me to do this!!!

So you can imagine my excitement when a young employee enters the office with the sclera of both eyes beet red and complaining "my eyes... what's wrong with my eyes." Long story short, I spend over 30 minutes with this patient doing my assessment and asking questions. I asked LOTS of questions. I even asked if he had been lifting weights or coughing a lot lately, anything that would cause him to strain... I would think this would clue him in to tell me his story. But he let me go on and on for over a half hour. So finally at a loss, I pick up the phone to call the companies physician for a recommendation (something I tried to avoid if I could). While I was on hold the employee says to me, "could this happen if I was up all morning throwing up." Uh... YEAH... hence me asking you all those questions about recent activities and history. So I ask, "why were you throwing up all morning?" Employee responds, "it was my 21st birthday yesterday. I don't feel well. Can I go home?" My response, "go back to work."

Next time I see this, I'll just ask them if they are hungover. Then I'll tell them to go back to work.