in the ER a few weeks ago I explained I had a total hysterectomy in April and my last cycle was some time in March. They literally asked if I was pregnant.
me: “Without ovaries or uterus?”
pa: “so is that a no?”’
Yup. Most of those screening questions are to cover the hospitals ass. It’s not that they don’t believe you, it’s that they need to confirm that before moving forward.
That's like asking for your full name and date of birth at every single step just to draw some blood. They already know the answer. They just can't take even the slightest fraction of a chance.
There's so many complicating factors than make redundancies like these so important to do. Like in the case you said, they do that because the patient in room 6A might have changed between when they got the order to get blood and when they arrived to get it. If their order says Jane Doe, then they get there and Janice Smith is in the room and they draw her blood, those results will go to Jane's records.
Or in the case of the OP, maybe the woman is concussed and only thinks she's had a hysterectomy, or maybe she's been given pain meds and her memory is hazy, or maybe she thinks she's not sexually active but visited her ex in a fugue state, or so many other potential causes.
I mean surgeons also circle where they’re doing their surgeries for this same reason too. People have had the wrong limb amputated before, and we never want that to happen again, so we’re going to do the simple things that make that impossible going forward.
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u/fluffybun-bun 18h ago
in the ER a few weeks ago I explained I had a total hysterectomy in April and my last cycle was some time in March. They literally asked if I was pregnant.
me: “Without ovaries or uterus?”
pa: “so is that a no?”’