Doctors, what's the BIGGEST case of "FAKING IT" You've ever Seen? - Reddit Podcast

doctors have read it what's the biggest case of Faking it you've ever seen taking trauma call during surgery residency I had a prisoner come in after a fight and claimed he couldn't move or feel his legs all the CT scans and MRIs were normal but we would Shield his legs so he couldn't see them and poke them with needles and other sharp objects with enough Force to cause pain he never flinched or moved his legs at all he was diagnosed with cywora which stands for spinal cord injury without radiographic abnormality he stayed in the hospital for a week no improvement always had one guard with him one night they were down in the lobby watching some television but the guard needed to use the restroom the patient said where could I possibly go I'm paralyzed the guard left him alone for two minutes the patient was last seen sprinting down the road naked butt cheeks flapping in the breeze made it to a city four hours away by car before he was caught again I've never seen anyone fake it so well truly playing the long con yeah this guy had a plan and he was seeing it through to the end dermatologist here patient was convinced she had a melanoma and needed a biopsy and would need to be on workers comp I told her it looked like ink from a marker she demanded a biopsy I wiped the area off with an alcohol swab and showed her the ink and that there was no spot on her skin anymore she stormed out threatening to Sue I'm just glad I cured her melanoma you truly are a miracle worker doc had a patient come in for a fall who now couldn't move their legs at all did a bunch of tests and didn't find anything the patient was not at all phased by suddenly being paralyzed which was the first red flag didn't really believe anything was wrong but the patient was still not moving their legs my options are to admit for a huge work up or get them to walk so I update them saying everything is fine tests are negative you can go home patient gets up gets dressed and walks out without a word so we're not even going to acknowledge the fact that you just completely lied not a doctor but I worked in healthcare for nearly 20 years while taking a break from the ICU due to it being emotionally draining I worked in home health for a bit I had a patient who clearly had Munchausen Syndrome on a daily basis she would call her insurance to see what things would be covered if she was diagnosed with this or that she called her doctor's office an average of five times during my shift with her she would report all kinds of non-real symptoms she pestered the doctors into doing an exploitive laparoscopic surgery of course nothing was found one day I walked in and she was rubbing her incisions with rotten cabbage trying to get it infected she wasn't seeking pain meds except to sell really she was just as happy with antibiotics or stool softeners anything as long as they wrote her a prescription and she got to go to the pharmacy where she did a whole song and dance for them too claiming allergies and reactions she always increased the exaggeration of story too one time she fluttered her eyes after making sure I was looking and said she lost Consciousness in that half a second she called the doctor and claimed she lost Consciousness for five minutes she called the insurance and claimed it was 10 minutes she called the pharmacy and claimed it was 30 minutes then she called 9-1-1 and told them she woke up on the floor after losing Consciousness for four hours the worst thing about her was she was a mom her son was 28 at the time and by all the stories of his childhood illnesses and her saying how he's severely disabled I knew she basically screwed up his childhood with Munchausen by proxy she portrayed him as being severely disabled and that's why he would never find a wife I met him he was healthy and of average intelligence he wasn't looking for a wife he was gay but she refused to accept that working with her was so miserable that I took a couple years off from any and all health care after that no I don't blame you it sounds like you paid your dues with this woman for a while we had a patient faking a seizure so my supervisor told one of us to get the brain needle the patient made a miraculous and Swift recovery without intervention a young woman maybe around 18 to 20 years old went running into a small rural Hospital ER pretending to have abdominal pain police officer had tagged her going 40 plus kilometers over the speed limit which was stunt driving as per the new law in Ontario impound and licensed suspension automatic cop followed her into the ER and apparently said he'd be waiting for her when she left Locum staff such as myself were housed at a small BNB about 15 minutes away and the ER had pre-printed orders set to be done before we arrived when I arrived she flat out admitted that she just came in because she freaked out and didn't stop I told her we'd give her 45 minutes to call her parents or family before I booted her except bhcg came back positive and subsequent ultrasounds came back showing extremely early ectopic the officer figures out some things up when he hears an air ambulance call come in over the radio she was completely asymptomatic and just worked out that she dodged both charges and a life-threatening issue by accident it was definitely a WTF moment she's incredibly lucky she ran away from the police you don't get to say that often pediatric neuropsychologist here got a referral for more or less consolidation care patient was 13 wheelchair-bound required therapeutic oxygen seizures arthritis musculoskeletal problems suspected autism completely non-verbal severe Behavior challenges the list goes on he was being followed by at least eight different Specialties clearly none of whom were communicating with each other and the med list was around 18 prescriptions long including some incredibly heavy duty stuff opioids antipsychotics anti-epileptics and that sort of stuff got kicked to me after his upteenth ER trip because the ER doctor felt something was off and he needed someone to look at the whole picture factitious disorder by caregiver or Munchausen by proxy all of the original symptoms were parent reported going back to about a year old it possibly started with a fever into seizure and infancy but this was never witnessed by anyone but Mom she's been telling docs different things she was convinced her son had all these disorders told him he was gonna die any day he gotta make a wish trip donations all kinds of things he was removed from her custody and taken off most of his beds within a few weeks he was out of the wheelchair playing basketball no oxygen super talkative and friendly and no behavior problems he did have a pretty significant intellectual disability but there's no way to say if that was organic or the result of the prescription cocktail he had been fed all his life hopefully with some good therapy in a stable home he can continue to make progress some parents just really know how to mess up their kids physical therapist here working mom comes into the clinic with her infant in a stroller she's limping like she's got a nail in her foot wincing in pain and Tears In Her Eyes she's crying during her visit with the PT none of us think she's faking it she limped out of the clinic I glanced out of the window and saw this woman bounding down the sidewalk hip swaying full stride going places we were all fools I guess she was just there for painkillers or something whenever we had kids usually teenagers playing up their symptoms to extend their Hospital stay we would order them into a healthy lifestyle lights out at nine no screen time for two hours before bed healthy diet chock full of fruits and vegetables screen time limits minimum number of laps around the unit per day to get in their exercise they got better so much faster with our healthy lifestyle tips my brother was an EMT for two years and he told me this people will try to use the ambulance as a means for transportation from Fulton to Oswego because the hospitals in Oswego by faking seizures sometimes when the head EMT guy was feeling fun and knew the person was faking he'd say something like man it's weird that he's having seizures but not peeing himself apparently the person would kind of snap out of it for a second way up the repercussions then either pee themselves or stop baking I thought that was hilarious sorta along the same idea working at a pharmacy we saw a guy come in to try and get a refill on some pain meds that had no refill after pleading that his ear really hurt we told him again we couldn't refill it one of the other employees saw him step into a side hallway take a pencil and jam it forcefully into his ear repeatedly drawing blood he calmly left and went to the ER he came back a few hours later with a prescription for pain meds oh this one really bothers me this isn't faking this dude has an addiction and apparently will do whatever it takes to get his pain meds comes in for back pain with weakness of the legs it's a full workup with MRI standard blood work and then some immunological things to look for stuff like myasthenia gravis no neurological or immunological explanation for the weakness patient is seen by physical therapy and they're of the opinion that the patient is holding back intentionally go to see the patient at the end of the day and prep them for discharge patient is infuriated that they're being discharged yelling and screaming about how they aren't better how they're disappointed in the institution and blah blah blah they said one particular thing that still clearly stands out three to four years later I can't be home already I haven't even told my family I'm here and now you're gonna send me home before they even have the chance to see me my attending and I leave the room to arrange things with the nurses we go back in and the patient is out of bed and standing up in the middle of the room miraculously the patient is able to walk with zero assistance when they had so much difficulty walking with assistance over the past two days at that point they were enraged we went in the room without knocking they were discharged home after having a conversation regarding abuse of Medical Services had a patient when I was an intern feigning blindness she would constantly be playing on her smartphone only furiously trying to hide it when someone from the care team came into her room the best was when my attending one day strolled past her room and threw his hand up in a highly exaggerated hello wave she started to throw her arm up too but caught herself halfway through then threw her hand back in her lap and pretended to be staring off into nothing nurse for an ophthalmologist here had a 21 year old new patient claiming to be completely blind from a sudden and severe glaucoma diagnosis from a previous unknown doctor would feel around while walking tried to keep his eyes rolled back into his head the whole nine yards he said he's a famous YouTube rapper that's now unable to make videos or earn a living I exclaimed to have heard him before and very excitedly asked him to search and show me his YouTube channel on my phone so that I could subscribe he took my phone out of my hand and effortlessly found the YouTube app and typed away in the search bar oh and of course his eyes were back to normal and focused man you're gonna fall for that one time my roommate who's an ICU nurse came to see one of my indoor soccer games during the game a player on the other team went down hurt and started screaming in pain and swearing and rolling around while holding his ankle before he eventually was helped off the field he then limped over to where the fans sat and watched the rest of the game brooding in silence before he left early after the game my roommate told me he was going to go over and see if there was anything he could do to help until he saw that the guy was limping on the wrong leg how did no one else notice this only the nurse caught on to the fact that the guy's limping on the foot that he hurt was told this one by a fellow nurse I used to work with when we had a psych floor it's not unusual for psych patients to stash things in various orifices this one woman was convinced she was impregnated by a ghost-like figure but no one would believe her so one day she started complaining of massive pelvic and uterine pain she called them contractions so the doctor goes to do an exam the doctor feels something larger in there so they prep a table to get the object out which was quite large so the wonderful third year helping with the procedure starts hearing this woman complain of contractions and yelling things like should I push I'm gonna start pushing the doctors trying to work forceps around This Woman's part says to not hurt her finally goes got and as he starts saying it pulls out a baby doll head only the poor med student did the wobble went all flush and had problems keeping balance and about took a dive I was told he didn't live that down the whole rotation I mean I don't blame the poor kid in his mind he just saw a baby's head get ripped off I once saw a patient who had been faking paralysis of the legs for years used a wheelchair and never walked old records showed extensive Imaging neurology consults and other tests that proved the patient had full function of all his extremities family and friends were just going along with it not sure if it was really conversion disorder or if the patient had some secondary gain issue not a doctor but am a uk-based midwife had a patient who had been in and out of Hospital throughout her pregnancy with episodes of heavy bleeding this was her sixth baby so she was a fairly well-known patient in our unit the issue was no one had ever seen her actively bleeding she'd call saying that she had bled down the toilet but flushed it all the examinations we did came back completely normal with mostly no evidence of any bleeding whatsoever on occasion during Spectrum examinations we'd see the smallest amount of blood I was caring for her during a shift where she yet again called to say she was bleeding I walked into her room and found her jabbing her private area with a sharp object to make herself bleed she'd been doing it the entire pregnancy the reason she gave because she had five noisy children at home she needed some rest and knew we wouldn't admit her to the hospital if it wasn't for a good reason she would do it anytime her being discharged home was mentioned we ended up having to complete a prenatal Mental Health referral and consult with the safeguarding midwives as she was putting herself and the baby at risk of serious harm I understand needing to get away from the kids for a little bit but this is an extreme Ophthalmology technician people pretend to be blind all the time I go to check their eye pressure with the tonopen a device you poke them directly in the eye with and they go what the heck is that thing I'm a nurse we had a guy who had to come in every three months to get a medical certificate to say he couldn't work at his retail job due to severe disabling back pain he was receiving large amounts of insurance money for this condition after the doctor had done his usual examinations and questions and signed it off the guy asks the doctor to check his shoulder which doc does and asks how he injured it the guy says playing rugby for competitive team really says the doc how long have you been playing for them guys been playing and training the whole time doc puts this info on the insurance form the doc lost it in the staff room laughing next week the patient loses his mind in reception because his insurance has been canceled you kind of brought this one on yourself my friend back when I was a nurse a guy came into the ER for a stomachache when asking him about history he randomly mentions a fight with his girlfriend where she left in a tizzy and he fell asleep on the couch 20 minutes later when we see the CT he is a satellite cable remote wrapped in a condom lodged in his rectum I'm guessing he was intending to frame her I didn't get to hear the conversation he had with the doctor I was curious how he was going to explain why she was nice enough to wrap it in the condom this has got to be one of the stupidest plans I've ever heard I'm a nurse not a doctor I had a patient who worked in a hospital as a janitor so he knew enough to fake a bit he was seeking pain meds complaining of chest pain and wanting morphine he was worked up for everything cardiac and was fine then he tried to claim GI discomfort when he was being discharged cleared again for everything so he faked chest pain again cleared again now he's my patient I'm a new face he tells me he's having abdominal pain I ain't called the doctor knowing this guy's history he says he'll be up to see him soon this patient wants a ginger ale some stomach ache I decided to go to lunch my co-worker comes into the lunchroom disgusted this guy had taken a dump in a basin and then dumped the ginger ale over it and tried to tell her he had fecal vomiting he obviously needed meds right now for the pain I walk into his room and sure enough a pile of poop in a puddle of ginger ale I told him I'd have to take away his food and drinks and we'd have to put an NG down suddenly he changed his tune he admitted to faking it why do these people do what they do ER nurse here I was bringing a patient back to a room who said he had kidney stones I had him stop at the bathroom and get a urine sample dude comes out with the specimen cup that literally has a piece of concrete in it looked him in the eye expecting some sort of joke he was serious I threw it away and walked this foolish man back to the waiting room to contemplate his stupidity when I was a medical student I worked in the Pediatric side of the emergency room and we would give popsicles to all the kids one afternoon an eight-year-old came in with his father and I asked what was wrong the kid couldn't remember what he had complained about to his dad and the dad couldn't remember why he brought his kid in the kid's mom was a nurse and she worked at another hospital at the time but she was the one that would keep track of all these things anyway after a few minutes trying to figure out what was going on the kid asked so can I have my popsicle now the kid was 100 healthy unfortunately we reinforced bad behavior in both the kid and the dad subsequently left with popsicles years ago I had a patient who had been rear-ended in an auto accident a few weeks before I saw her she had a history of Lupus she was decked out in the usual I'm crippled paraphernalia crutches neck brace elbow braces wrist braces knee braces all of it and she could barely walk I saw her a couple of times and she showed no improvement one Saturday I was on call but had to take a Backstreet's route to the hospital because of an event taking place on the main thoroughfare I apparently drove around her neighborhood because wonders behold she was wearing old lady spandex power walking down the sidewalk holding weights in both hands I didn't call her out next week she was back at the clinic with her I'm crippled Get Up On Again hmm a few weeks later I got a subpoena for the deposition and it all became clear I'm a surgery resident when I was on my trauma rotation we had a patient come in after MVC with question that maybe the patient had seized and that had caused the accident so he's in the trauma Bay and starts shaking the trauma nurse goes oh this isn't a real seizure and the patient stops shaking sits up turns to the nurse and yells you don't know a thing about me prisoner came in with signs and symptoms of a big stroke at that time the protocol was to get a non-contrast head CT to rule out a bleed and then give TPA a powerful clot busting drug that's only worth the risk if the benefit is to mitigate a major stroke so that's what happened later in the course he got a little carried away and started embellishing his story with symptoms that didn't make sense with his stroke diagnosis and that's how we figured out he was faking it just to get some time away from jail can't say I blame him at least he wasn't trying to escape he just wanted to get out for a day it sounds like when you subscribe make sure to hit the Bell to turn on notifications put the playlist on in the background to finish listening to all the stories linked at the top of the description and if you like am I the genius give am I the jerk a shot Linked In the description as well either way thanks a lot for watching and we'll see you guys next time

Channel: Am I the Genius?

Views: 52,168

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Id: FOPtiXqbX1g

Length: 21min 16sec (1276 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 04 2023