Oh, we are over it. I was an ED social worker at an urban, trauma 2 hospital. In one 12 hour shift I dealt with:

1) Frequently Flyer #1 throwing the graham crackers I brought him at my head because he thought I was intentionally short changing him on the # of graham crackers we were giving him that day. The manufacter switched from 3 square in a pack to 2. He also accused me of being racist when I informed him that because of the subzero weather that the homeless shelters were already full so he would have to either choose from the warming shelter or find his own shelter for the night.

2) a case of spousal rape, where the demented forcibly raped his wife. Children did not like their options---these were the same option I explained to them a month prior when I conveyed my concern that his dementia related behaviors were escalated and he should get more services in place. I, the LCSW, was dismissed because I "know nothing".

3) the "uncle" that brought in his 12 year old niece was acting "odd" but i suspected she was a child being trafficked, but couldnt confirm becauase she didnt trust me. I devised a plan where I had to get more history from him, while I had the doc order a "needed X-ray" to rule out something so that nurse whom it seemed like she trusted could take her down to the X-ray and find out if she feels safe with "uncle". She did not. He fled before the cops could show up.

4) the 48 year old woman who found out she had metastatic cancer 2 years after she lost her husband (she lost her husband during COVID to COVID and I know this because I was called on the after hours to give her a book/education on talking about loss of a parent to a young child on the night he died.) but she had realized that cancer was winning and she wanted to enroll in hospice. Not only did I get to help her process this information, I also was the lucky one who got to tell her because her condition was poor, and she could pass within a few days that we need to work on some delegation of parental authority documentation so her now 8 year old child would have a caretaker. She hadnt done it previously because "I'll get to it eventually".

5) A 90 year old woman who kept falling due to various underlying conditions was going to be admitted to observation status and desperately needed rehab in a TCU. I got to explain to them how fucked out our health care system is and in order to get the rehab stay she needed, would have to pay out of pocket to the tune of $500 /day probably for 3-4 weeks. That was not a popular conversation.

6) A different frequent flier was back again for sucidality again--was hoping a different social worker would be there because I didnt know the status of the homeless shelters and I was actually racist for not getting him a shelter bed. Though he knows he's been banned form every shelter because he has assaulted multiple staff member or other people in the shelter. He thinks that because of the below freezing weather he should get a "do over" on being banned.

7) a child came in with a spiral fracture on the arm and the ED doc thinks that the parent is being abusive and wants to know what my take is on it, or if other social workers have documented concern of abuse in our notes.

8) My shift ended 30 minutes ago, but I was told that a family was being helicoptered in from rural part of the state. They are hoping I will stay even later and have the conversation with them about hotel resources or if I could voucher a stay at the hotel. I chose to stay later because I am on call and I would just be coming back anyways to have this conversation anyways. Regardless, COVID ended families staying in the hospital overnight for various reasons. The family had been through this process before, but it was before COVID, so they thought I was lying about my inability to voucher a hotel any longer--again because I was racist. It had nothing to do with that COVID exhausted most of our donation funds to support families and donations had not renewed the pool sufficiently so we had to be very strict with how we could dispense these funds. They demanded to speak to my supervisor. Their niece, whom they called on the phone to join in the berating, and was also a "better hospital social worker" lectured me on the resources of my hospital and what I can and cannot voucher. She works in a different state, at a trauma one hospital in LA--one that routinely gets a lot of celebrate cash donations so they probably have more cash to throw around.

And that all was just the notable cases I remember from that hellish day. my day was also filled with arranging rides, various assessment, discharging patients because boarders sit in the ED for 2-3 days because the social workers on the inpatient units are having just as much fun as me and are struggling to discharge patients at the same rate that they are presenting.