So I got a patient on my service yesterday morning who (a) should not have been admitted onto my service and (b) probably shouldn’t have been admitted to the hospital at all.
So, after working him up and determining that yes, there really WAS nothing wrong with him, I wrote a discharge summary and put in a discharge for him.
When I talked to him about it, he assured me that oh yes, doc, I’ll call my wife and she will come pick me up after work! No problem!
And I’m thinking, great! The rock-star social worker on my team will have one less transportation arrangement to make, and will have more time to concentrate on the rest of the patients on our unbelievably long census.
And then, I got a call from said rock-star social worker. Upon further questioning, my patient has no way of getting in contact with his wife, and only THINKS she’ll show up after work. Which ends at 8.
Through great, desperate effort, I left the hospital at 7 last night.
So.
Will I come back to an extra patient on my census this morning, or an empty bed?
And will it become one or the other only at the moment I observe it?
