Audiobook4 hours
A Double Dose of Dilaudid: Real Stories from a Small-Town ER
Written by Kerry Hamm
Narrated by Donna Postel
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
About this audiobook
Welcome to a small-town Emergency Room in rural Ohio. While it's true our ER doesn't see the stabbing and gunshot action ERs see in inner cities, we have no shortage of the sad, the scary, the painful, and the just plain dumb.
With more than twenty stories, things ER workers want to say to patients, and Emergency Room bingo, A Double Dose of Dilaudid will take you on a joyride to the funnier side of the ER. See what a bored husband did to get out of a date night with his wife, find out what happens when you try to make your own meth, and hear about items men and women have inserted in their bodies.
With more than twenty stories, things ER workers want to say to patients, and Emergency Room bingo, A Double Dose of Dilaudid will take you on a joyride to the funnier side of the ER. See what a bored husband did to get out of a date night with his wife, find out what happens when you try to make your own meth, and hear about items men and women have inserted in their bodies.
Related to A Double Dose of Dilaudid
Related audiobooks
A Thousand Naked Strangers: A Paramedic's Wild Ride to the Edge and Back Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tending Lives: Nurses on the Medical Front Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Is There A Doctor Here?: An Omnibus: London Call-Out and Doctor In The House Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Holiday SOS: the Life-Saving Adventures of a Travelling Doctor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Angels in the ER: Inspiring True Stories From an Emergency Room Doctor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Treat People: A Nurse's Notes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Riding the Lightning: A Year in the Life of a New York City Paramedic Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ask Me Why I Hurt: The Kids Nobody Wants and the Doctor Who Heals Them Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5People of the ER Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hard Roll: A Paramedic's Perspective of Life and Death in New Orleans Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Trauma Room Two Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cook County ICU: 30 Years of Unforgettable Patients and Odd Cases Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hot Lights, Cold Steel: Life, Death and Sleepless Nights in a Surgeon's First Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Blood, Sweat and Tea Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Day In The Life Of An Ambulance Driver Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rescue 911: Tales from a First Responder Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lights and Sirens: The Education of a Paramedic Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Silent Siren: Memoirs of a Life Saving Mortician Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Counting Backwards: A Doctor's Notes on Anesthesia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Confessions of a Surgeon: The Good, the Bad, and the Complicated...Life Behind the O.R. Doors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Your Life In My Hands - a junior doctor's story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Oh Sh*t, I Almost Killed You!: A Little Book of Big Things Nursing School Forgot to Teach You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blue Collar, Blue Scrubs: The Making of a Surgeon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Further Confessions of a GP Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Handle With Care: True Confessions of an NHS Health Visitor Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Removalist: On the Front Line of Death Care Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales from Neurosurgery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Confessions of a Male Nurse Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Patient Care Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Are you the F**king Doctor?: Tales from the bleeding edge of medicine Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Biography & Memoir For You
A Stolen Life: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twisted Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Divine Rivals: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5If He Had Been with Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5From Blood and Ash Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nothing to See Here Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Child Called It: One Child's Courage to Survive Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House in the Cerulean Sea Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5And Then There Were None Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When No One Is Watching: A Thriller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fairy Tale Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Good Girls Don't Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dutch House: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Series of Unfortunate Events #1 Multi-Voice, A: The Bad Beginning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bell Jar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Local Woman Missing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paris Apartment: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ivy League Counterfeiter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of September 11, 2001 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Year of Magical Thinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leave the World Behind: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5In Five Years: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for A Double Dose of Dilaudid
Rating: 3.9791666666666665 out of 5 stars
4/5
96 ratings10 reviews
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I hope I've never visited the ER where the author worked. Very condescending. A (normal) person having to go to the ER is serious...maybe not to the ADMISSIONS CLERK who wrote the book. She clearly doesn't need to work with the public, especially when people aren't at thier best.
The chapter where she lectures etiquette while visiting an ER started the downward spiral for me to quit listening.
I made it to chapter 29/77.4 people found this helpful
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This book is not about the “funny” inner workings of a small town ER. Having a woman whose boyfriend severely beat her 2 year old is not a hilarious antic in emerg. It’s more a very sad commentary on The USA. I found it deeply disturbing.
3 people found this helpful
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5YOU NEED TO QUIT YOUR JOB AND LET SOMEONE SUITED DO IT. YOU ARE MISERABLE AT WORK, AND MAKE FUN OF THE HOSPITALS CUSTOMERS, SO HURRY AND MOVE ON BEFORE YOU DO REAL HARM. PERHAPS, A COLLEAGUE WILL HEAR THIS BOOK AND FIRE YOU!
3 people found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nice glimpse of hospital admission life. A smooth read. Interesting
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5This book isn't good at all. There were no story endings, just beginnings, then the story was over & the author was on to the next story's beginning.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5it was ok, sounded like it was being read by a voice program in some places.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Some good stories, but rather judgemental of people and their circumstances. Couldn't stand to finish.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I understand the delicate balance between empathy and practicality. That being said, I noted a lack of compassion that deepened as the book went on. The stories were somewhat interesting but soured by the exasperation and annoyance threaded throughout. Yes, being treated like a peon sucks. That's different from a person in crisis who is acting out.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Kerry Hamm uses real-life experiences to present a different view of the medical world than that seen by sick people in A Double Dose of Dilaudid. Most of us like to believe that doctors, nurses, and administrative staff in hospitals and clinics know more than “we” (general public) know about how to treat our illnesses and wounds. Kerry Hamm shows this to be true when medical personnel have accurate information given freely by patients not trying to conceal embarrassing or illegal behavior that led to their presence in the Emergency Room (ER). Hamm writes with wry humor that can be summed up as “You are not going to believe this.” There is useful information for those who might try to conceal their actual reason for going to the ER. As Hamm and other characters will repeatedly note throughout the novel, “We have seen and heard it all.”
For this novel, Hamm uses experiences in an ER of a small Ohio hospital. The author is an administrator, not a nurse, although long service in an ER might cause patients to consider Kerry as a front-line treatment technician. The job of completing registration procedures at some point either before, during, or after treatment is illustrated more than once as Hamm tells patients, “If you get out of the ER or hospital without registering, the bill comes directly to you, not the insurance company.” It is a general given that health care will be one in the top three concerns of the US electorate in the next election. Whether Obamacare (AFCA) Medicare for all or a mashup of private and government funding, health care reform will happen. How it comes about is essential. Hamm gives examples of how ridiculous some medical care costs have become.
Hamm’s sense of humor can be seen in the titles of a few of her other published novels. You Stuck What in Where, You Were Stabbed Where? and But I came by Ambulance give readers a glimpse of humor to come. The book has serious advice, some painfully obvious (no pun intended). My references are to the audiobook narrated by Donnas Postel.
“Use of power tools while drinking alcohol is not a good thing” (chap 54).
“Take the shirt off before ironing to avoid bad burns” (chap 56).
“Erectile Dysfunction is not an emergency” (chap 60).
“If you complain about the waiting time in an ER, it is probably not an emergency” (chap 74).
The last piece of advice given in chapter 77 of the audiobook is: “Your grandmother was right. Always wear clean underwear.”
Many anecdotes Hamm presents reflect substantial social and legal concerns. When should the police be called? The correct course of action is sometimes prescribed by law, as is the case with suspected spousal abuse and child molestation. Should authorities be informed when a fourteen-year-old shows up in ER pregnant? After all, she was accompanied by her twenty-seven-year-old mother. And her forty-year-old grandmother.
How should staff deal with patients needing help from mental health workers? Who determines who should be called? The answer to these questions is addressed by Hamm. As a registration technician, she was responsible for steering the patient to the correct nurse, therapist, doctor, social service person, or law enforcement agency.
I found the accounts of how medical personnel managed to avoid getting angry in the face of rude and threatening behavior almost unbelievable. I could not do the job Hamm and colleagues did without repaying abusive behavior in kind. Similarly, when patients proved that there were stupid questions (and answers), I would have been unable to avoid laughing. When one patient was asked about recent foreign travel, the answer was that the patient had been to a wedding in New Mexico. A potential patient called the ER to ask what the operating hours were. As ridiculous as these examples are, I reflected on stupid things I may have said in my visits to clinics and hospitals. Of course, I could not match the ridiculous anecdotes I read in this novel. Of course.
This novel is available as an audiobook on Scribd. On average, chapters were less than five minutes. The longest was fifteen minutes. Because of mostly short chapters, this is an enjoyable listening experience to carry around. The collection of anecdotes is a five-star listen in its genre. I found the presentation original and will read some of Hamm’s other books. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Just okay. Nothing spectacular. No super memorable moments of the book. But at least it is a quick read.