088 - Are You Asking the Right Questions as a Physician? - My Shoulder Dislocation Story

Have you ever been asked if you did drugs when you’ve never touched them in your life? In this episode of The Independent Physician's Blueprint, Coach JPMD shares a personal and shocking experience that will leave you questioning how assumptions can lead to surprising moments in medicine.

Join Coach JPMD as he recounts a crazy soccer injury from his medical school days, where a dislocated shoulder, excruciating pain, and an unexpected question from an attending physician led to an unforgettable hospital experience. Whether you're familiar with orthopedic procedures or not, the twists in this story offer a lesson that goes beyond the medical field: never judge a book by its cover.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

1. Why proper patient history can prevent dangerous assumptions in treatment.
2. The rare and painful experience of a posterior shoulder dislocation.
3. How personal experiences can remind us of the importance of empathy in medicine.

Hit play now to dive into this wild medical story and gain insights that can shape your approach to patient care! Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss a crazy medical story.

Discover how medical graduates, junior doctors, and young physicians can navigate residency training programs, surgical residency, and locum tenens to increase income, enjoy independent practice, decrease stress, achieve financial freedom, and retire early, while maintaining patient satisfaction and exploring physician side gigs to tackle medical school loans.

Transcript

Coach JPMD (00:00.078)
Welcome back to another crazy medical story episode. Have you ever been asked if you did drugs, knowing that you've never done drugs in your life? Welcome back to another episode where I help younger physicians decrease stress and increase income by transitioning from corporate to independent practices, even without any business experience. This was in second or third year medical school. It had to have been second or third year because it was definitely after I had my fire.

in my apartment that burned everything I owned. And if you haven't heard that crazy medical story, definitely check out episode 77. But I was playing indoor soccer at Einstein. you know, I said it was a great school where they really, they really helped helped us decrease our stress with physical activity. And we had a gym right downstairs, had a basketball court, had weight rooms to

Racquetball courts, indoor racquetball courts. So it was, and a running track actually, above the basketball court or above and around the basketball court. So that said, I was playing soccer. We had a, I think every Wednesday we played soccer, anyone who wanted to come out and it was kind of pickup soccer. And I was playing and got pushed or got tackled and fell on my left shoulder.

and ended up dislocating my left shoulder. Never had that before. And if you've never, if you've ever, if you never dislocated your shoulder, you really don't know how much pain that is. But I was in the most pain I've ever felt in my life. And a friend of mine took me to the emergency room.

found out that after an x -ray, was an is a posterior dislocation. the humerus actually, instead of going forward, it went backwards in which was not common dislocation. So I had to get that reduced. And what they did was they injected my shoulder with a lidocaine after they got the x -rays and they put me down on the stretcher to to help

Coach JPMD (02:15.63)
reduced this through a procedure that the orthopods in the orthopods listening to would know how to do this. But basically, it was positioning your shoulder and your arm in a way where you you create a retraction, and then it pops back into place. The problem is I was in so much pain.

that they had to give me Versed, they gave me Dilaudid, they gave me all kinds of medicines. And in the middle of all this, and I remember vividly being asked, do you do any drugs? Like, what do you mean, do I do any drugs? Well, we've been giving all this medicine and you're still writhing in pain. We just need to know if you do any drugs.

And I was like, what the heck are they talking about? And so ended up calming me down with whatever they gave me. At that time, I think I even kicked the attending physician, I think that's probably why she asked me because I was just in a crazy amount of pain. And so they ended up reducing the shoulder and felt so much better after they after I heard the pop. I went to sleep. I didn't know what happened.

So a couple hours later, I woke up, tried to stand up and I heaved all over the floor. I guess they must've given me a lot of medicines to help knock me out. So that was my crazy medical story where I was asked if I did any drugs because I guess I'm a fast metabolizer. So anything that they gave me went through my system. So they really couldn't calm me down. So if you've ever dislocated your shoulder, you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you've never dislocated your shoulder,

please pray that you never do because that is very painful. So why am I sharing this story? Well, I think it's pretty obvious that we should never judge a book by its cover. We see patients and we don't know the histories and you know, I could see why an attending might think that I might be doing drugs but remember to always take a good history and talk to your patients before you assume things.

Coach JPMD (04:23.97)
That's the best way to treat patients and really keeps you out of trouble. Well, thanks for listening to this crazy medical story and we'll see you next week. Thank you for listening to these crazy medical stories and don't forget to subscribe and follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app so that you'll never miss an episode.