The Most Common Thanksgiving ED Complaints

When I first saw this article in Live Science about the strangest holiday ED complaints, I was interested in what other doctors’ perceptions were, but I first sat back and thought about what types of complaints I usually see more often on Thanksgiving than during other times of the year. I’ve given up on trying to time “strange” complaints. They occur so often that I lose track of any temporal aspect to them. Because Thanksgiving obviously occurs on a Thursday and because many doctors offices usually aren’t open the Friday after Thanksgiving, the holiday often presents patients with difficulty in obtaining medical care. Office schedules are booked in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, few offices are open during the holiday or weekend, and the schedules are again packed the following Monday and Tuesday with patients needing care. So patient volumes in the EDs usually increase, and I typically see more patients with routine problems than I do during “normal” weeks. Thanksgiving is also one of the times where families get together – many times when they haven’t seen each other since the last holiday season. When busy adults haven’t seen the steady decline in the health of their elderly family members over the prior year, they will sometimes bring in their family members for an evaluation of what they perceive is a sudden change in their family member’s health. Then, instead of spending time enjoying the company...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: Tags: Random Thoughts Source Type: blogs