A patient came to me complaining of back pain, right between the shoulder blades. He said that it radiated to the chest and that it felt like a tearing sensation. He was short of breath and said the pain worsened when he breathed. When he tried to lay down on the stretcher, he promptly sat up and yelped in pain.
I thought I had a dissecting thoracic aneurysm. Unfortunately for me and fortunately for the patient, his work up was stone-cold normal.
I didn’t have a patient with a dissecting thoracic aneurysm, I had a scammer. And I ain’t no virgin when it comes to scammers. These days, the best place for a lay person to find such an accurate description of a dissecting thoracic aneurysm is Google.
Thanks Google, you just provided the means to scam thousands of health care dollars and a little morphine.
Google Patients, a whole new category of malingerers.
From your grumpy Uncle Dave.