Can confirm that basic details frequently get misrecorded (here in Toronto). At a recent visit, the surgical staff received such a broken telephone version of my original reports and activity in the hospital, that when I overheard the surgeon discussing with the students prior to the procedure I literally burst out laughing (despite having an appendicitis waiting to be removed).
This is just how records like this work, frequently contextually or globally incorrect, I don't think it's really a matter of malpractice, at least not in relative terms; though I guess they could do better, like recording that staff had witnessed me collapse (!) two times (one in the waiting room, one in the halls) before they left me sitting in some random chair in a hallway for a couple hours, during which time I passed out a third time, scaring the bejesus out of the others waiting there, none of whom were patients.
Hospitals aren't really all that great at paying attention anywhere, as far as I can tell; the U.S. has the most discerning customers (and to some extent, some of the last remaining customers in the developed world). In the U.S. you might have some hope of complaining about service like I received, for example how the triage nurse spilled what looked like about 200ml of my blood all over my arm and the floor while drawing a sample at intake, or that when somebody finally called me to the the first room, she didn't even wait for me to get to the locked door (which I failed to do, because I collapsed half way there and needed to be wheeled in, mostly helped by random bystanders) before turning and walking back to sit down behind the desk (not at the desk), where I saw her playing on her phone.
I was at the hospital with a kidney infection last month. I get these regularly. I knew it was a kidney infection. I described my symptoms and the intake nurse agreed it sounded like a kidney infection. I told them my heart rate was faster than normal-- it's usually at 73, but it was now at 100. They took my vitals, which showed a fast heart rate (110) but I watched the nurse record a normal heart rate. Okay, whatever, maybe they think I'm anxious.
They take my urine, and three hours later they tell me my urine sample was "pristine". They were amazed at how clean it looked. Not even a single protein-- and as a female with a vagina that often discharges a proteinous substance, this was surprising! (And very good news! Doctor was astounded). The doctor concluded my kidney pain was "mechanical", that the muscle in that area had been bruised somehow I told her this was not the case, but she discharged me.
16 hours later (at home now) I'm running a fever of 104. My resting heart rate is an astounding 132 bpm. I'm scared of sepsis (infection of the blood) since I have experienced that before from kidney infections. I go to the hospital preparing for another 5 hour waiting time, but luckily they get me in an intake bed right away. I'm covering myself with a heavy blanket in my fever state-- something one shouldn't do, but nobody took it off me until I was about to be discharged. They come back with the results from another urine sample, and surprise, I have a kidney infection! I asked the doctor why my urine was "pristine" the day before and he said, "the lab tech probably didn't keep the dip stick in long enough" (which is why the test didn't register any protein in my urine whatsoever...) He acted like it was no big deal, like it happened all the time. They gave me 1/4 dose of morphine for the headache because I "look to be about 100 pounds" (I'm 5'10". That would put me at a BMI of 14.5-- ie. severely underweight, and cause for medical concern in and of itself! I'm 135 pounds, with a BMI of 19.4 Honestly, what the hell.) which doesn't help the pain at all, and I'm still wrapped in what amounts to a sweat lodge-- once again, nobody told me to take the blanket off. This is very common knowledge, but in my state of high fever and pain I did not think that it could be a bad idea. I would expect the doctors and nurses to be aware.
An hour later they suddenly tell me to get out of bed and they will move me to the waiting room with a chair and a goddamn television that I can already hear thumping through the walls, because this is an intake bed and "other patients need it". I'm sure they do, but I literally can't walk right now.
Long story short, the next time I get a kidney infection I'm staying home to die. The lack of care in that situation was astounding. To top it off, they treated me like a bad patient after I protested being moved to the waiting room.
edit: I also forgot to mention that they were going to give me pill antibiotics at discharge. I suggested they give me an IV instead, and set me up at an IV clinic. I'm not kidding, they said, "oh! That's actually a great idea". Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Yeah, despite this being the first serious thing requiring medical attention in my life, I knew it was appendicitis from literally the moment I felt it; it just took them seven hours to first, listen, and second, confirm the diagnosis. They spent hours sending me to tests that were ultimately pointless and inconclusive. Then when I collapsed spontaneously and went into a cold sweat for the third time since arriving, the people dealing with me seemed genuinely surprised that I had collapsed and went into a cold sweat!
They sent me home with like... "16 hours worth" of ultra-low-dose hydromorphone (I couldn't find any dosing guidelines which even reference 1mg tablets) and left me to choose which hours of pain I wanted them for; I missed my followup because the front desk folks couldn't send me where the surgeon's note said I should go.
The best part was the ambulance ride, which only cost me fifty bucks and was conducted excellently; the surgery itself also went well, as far as I can tell, though for an appendectomy that's nothing to write home about (not to downplay the work involved, but like flying in airplanes, it has become routine).
Likely not a coincidence, the ambulance ride is the one thing I had choice in as a patient, and the one thing I paid for out of pocket (although non-emergency rides somewhat subsidize emergency ones, by policy).
Do you know why she had a clean urine sample? Mistakes happen, but my experience as a whole in the hospital that night lends emphasis to the mistake. It is not just that the infection was missed accidentally, it was that the management of my diagnosis and my stay seemed so ill-informed and counter-intuitive to my needs.
She had been drinking a lot of cranberry juice -- the folk remedy for a UTI. That may have had something to do with her clean sample, though this is just speculation. Most of the times that she's had these infections, her samples have had detectable bacteria, so this was an unusual case even for her.
BTW, she had so many of these infections that her doctor eventually referred her to a urologist, who put her on a daily antibiotic (cephalexin, aka Keflex) as a preventative. She hasn't had another once since starting that, though there have been a couple of times that she felt like she might be getting one, and took an extra cephalexin, which was sufficient. I wish we had known about this option sooner.
Also: my pointing out that UTIs can sometimes fail to show up in the urine test was not intended as a defense of the way the hospital treated you. Quite the contrary: doctors should know that that can happen. My wife and I were not happy with the way she was treated on this occasion as well — it took hours to convince them to start the antibiotics, and she was in a lot of pain.
The cranberry juice thing is inconclusive, but I still drink a lot of it as well!
>Quite the contrary: doctors should know that that can happen.
Okay, thanks for clarifying. This is how I felt. It was silly to me that I could have all the symptoms of a UTI, only to have everything written off because of a clean urine sample. I think it was hopeful thinking on the doctor's part-- she just wanted me out of the bed so she could clear the waiting room.
How recurrent were your wife's UTIs, if you don't mind?
In fairness, I guess it really doesn't happen very often — the ER doc in my wife's situation commented that she had never seen it before. On the other hand, pulled muscles don't cause fever. I understand a little bit of reluctance to offer antibiotics, as they have been overused, but geez, you have a patient with a fever and in terrible pain, indeed with all the other symptoms of a kidney infection, what's really the downside to going ahead and starting the antibiotic to see what happens? That's how I see it, anyway; I'm not a doctor.
I think the best thing is to do another urine test. I'm also wary about antibiotics, but it doesn't hurt to keep the patient around for another hour or two to get a fresh sample and test it. But, the doctor assured me it was just a mechanical issue ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This is from memory, but it seemed like there was the better part of a year when it wouldn't be more than two or three weeks after she was over one that she'd get another one.
Really, she should have been referred to the urologist a lot sooner.
That must have been hard, it's good she's on regular antibiotics now. Mine seem to be occurring once a year, almost to the day.
I had issues with bedwetting as a child and into my late teens. I went to sleep specialists, urologists, and psychologists but nobody could say anything about it. I think it's somehow related to what I've been experiencing lately but I don't know what to do about it. I was always getting infections as a kid too (ears, eyes, bladder, kidney) but not really flu or colds (despite not being vaccinated). Has your wife experienced any of these things in her youth?
This is just how records like this work, frequently contextually or globally incorrect, I don't think it's really a matter of malpractice, at least not in relative terms; though I guess they could do better, like recording that staff had witnessed me collapse (!) two times (one in the waiting room, one in the halls) before they left me sitting in some random chair in a hallway for a couple hours, during which time I passed out a third time, scaring the bejesus out of the others waiting there, none of whom were patients.
Hospitals aren't really all that great at paying attention anywhere, as far as I can tell; the U.S. has the most discerning customers (and to some extent, some of the last remaining customers in the developed world). In the U.S. you might have some hope of complaining about service like I received, for example how the triage nurse spilled what looked like about 200ml of my blood all over my arm and the floor while drawing a sample at intake, or that when somebody finally called me to the the first room, she didn't even wait for me to get to the locked door (which I failed to do, because I collapsed half way there and needed to be wheeled in, mostly helped by random bystanders) before turning and walking back to sit down behind the desk (not at the desk), where I saw her playing on her phone.