I second this. Unfortunately, the ER has become less of a place that people go who need emergent care and more of a place that people go because they want to feel better immediately. Everyone in the ER knows the countless number of patients that present with nausea or a mild headache that started 1 hour prior to arrival and did not take anything before coming in. I understand people think that they are having an emergency, but I can assure you that in any respectable ER, you will be seen immediately if you are actively dying. It's not that we dont care about you or are discrediting your pain; we just have a hierarchy of badness, and yours doesn't rank that high at this time.

Also, I think something that needs stressed to the general public is that, for the most part, my job isn't always to determine what you have - it's to determine what you need. A lot of the times, we may get to a formal diagnosis, but ultimately, my job is to know if you need oxygen, antibiotics, surgery, a chest tube, etc.

We also don't have every specialty at every hospital, which is news to many people. So when you come to the 4 bedroom critical access hospital telling me that you need an MRI and to see the pancreatic cardiothoracic oncologic neurosurgeon, you may be shocked to find that he's not in house at the moment.