How bad did this doctor want to avoid the emergency room?
Freakonomics’ blogger Steven Levitt recounts a story told by his physician-grandfather.
The 80-something year old started having symptoms consistent with a stroke. Instead of calling 911, or finding a way to an emergency room, he “called in a prescription to the drugstore around the corner for some clot-busting drugs and sent my grandmother to the pharmacy to pick up the drugs. He crawled upstairs and got into bed . . . he took the drugs and just waited to see whether or not he would die.”
I’m not sure how true that story is, or if the “clot busting drugs” obtained from the drug store (probably warfarin, as I can’t imagine any pharmacy dispensing true thrombolytics at any point in time – correct me if I’m wrong) really made a difference, but that’s one tough SOB.
I don’t think I’ve heard of anybody wanting to avoid the hospital more so than that.
Related posts:
- Thrombolytics and stroke
- Can aspirin with Plavix be a new option to prevent stroke in atrial fibrillation?
- "Survivor" doctor busted for drugs
- Medicare covers more cancer drugs, did they cave in to the pharmaceutical lobby?
- What’s your longest ER wait?
- The games drug seekers play
- The drama of using tPA in stroke within the three-hour window
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Maybe he’d seen enough people turned into vegetables and thought he’d rather let the big one take him right there.
this is a great idea. give everyone their own supply of tpa at home, and let them self administer as they see fit. then they can sue themselves for witholding the drug or getting a bleed from giving the drug.
I hope it wasn’t warfarin because that would make the patient’s blood hypercoagulable initially.
My mother told the story that a physician cousin, probably in his early 70s, told his wife: “I’m having a stroke, don’t call 911.” He wanted her to let him die, but she couldn’t do it. So he lived several years in poor shape.
Warfarin, heparin, Lovenox, Arixtra . . . that’s about all you’re going to find in most pharmacies.
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