Despite arriving at Urgent Care with her left arm in a canvas tote bag following a fourteenth-century jousting accident, thirty-nine-year-old Brenda Miller was informed Tuesday that her blood loss was most likely related to her weight.
“Have we tried cutting back on late-night carbs?” asked Dr. Richard Sterling, clicking three boxes without looking up.
Miller, holding her torso together with the other arm, said she had not.
“A lot of women your age think they’ve been trampled by four armored horses,” Sterling said. “Usually it’s screen time. Let’s revisit in six months.”
Miller then asked Sterling to note in her chart, in writing, that he was declining to order imaging for a patient presenting with a detached limb, and to sign it.
Sterling reportedly stopped clicking, looked up for the first time in the visit, and ordered a CT, a surgical consult and, unprompted, a fasting insulin.
At press time Miller was in surgery and her chart contained the sentence “patient advocated appropriately,” which staff described as the first time the phrase had been used in the building.
