40 Doctors Share Tales of Patients Who Tried to Fake It and Failed

Having a career in the medical industry is not for everyone. This type of work needs dedication, selflessness, compassion, and patience. While doctors strive to save lives, there are instances where some patients exploit this dedication for personal gain, taking advantage of the system.

In their profession, doctors come across different patients, each with needs that should be attended to. Interestingly enough, some of these patients fake their sickness.

Several doctors opened up on Reddit about encountering fake patients and their experience interacting with them. Here's what they had to say.

Comments have been edited for clarity and grammar.

1. Prisoner's Sneaky Escape during Hospital Stay

u/Wine_and_sunshine: I was taking a trauma call during surgery residency, then had a prisoner come in after a fight and claimed he couldn't move or feel his legs.

All the CT scans and MRIs were normal, but we would shield his legs so he couldn't see them and poke them with needles and other sharp objects with enough force to cause pain— he never flinched or moved his legs at all.

He was diagnosed with SCIWORA (spinal cord injury without radiographic abnormality). He stayed in the hospital for a week with no improvement and always had one guard with him. One night, they were watching television in the lobby, but the guard needed to use the restroom.

The patient said, "Where could I possibly go? I'm paralyzed!" so the guard left him alone for two minutes. The patient was last seen sprinting down the road, naked.

He made it to a city four hours away by car before he was caught again. I have never seen anyone fake it so well. He was truly playing the long con!

2. Paralyzed Patient's Miraculous Recovery after Surprise Diagnosis

u/meropenem24: I had a patient come in for a fall who couldn't move their legs. He did a bunch of tests but didn't find anything. The patient was not at all phased by suddenly being paralyzed, which was the first red flag.

I didn't believe anything was wrong, but the patient was still not moving their legs. My options are to admit them for a huge workup or get them to walk. So I update them, saying everything is fine, tests are negative, and you can go home. The patient got up, dressed, and walked out without a word.

3. Melanoma Miraculous Healing

u/Richter915: Dermatologist here! The patient was convinced she had melanoma, needed a biopsy, and would need to be on workers' compensation. I told her it looked like ink from a marker, but she demanded a biopsy.

I wiped the area off with an alcohol swab and showed her the ink and that there was no spot on her skin anymore. She stormed out, threatening to sue. I'm just glad I cured her melanoma.

4. Girl's Sneaky Eye Game Ended with a Confession Twist

u/sensitiveinfomax: My cousin got glasses. Her 7-year-old little sister also wanted glasses because she thought it was so cool to wear them. So she started telling her teachers she couldn't read what was on the chalkboard.

And she'd squint at home and go incredibly close to the TV to watch things because she said she couldn't see things clearly. Her parents got worried and took her to the doctor, and she read everything wrong on the vision test.

Everyone seemed convinced that she needed glasses. But, the doctor was a little concerned because the tests indicated she needed thick glasses, and usually, that wasn't the case unless there was a family history of vision issues.

Her parents both had 20/20 vision, and her sister only had astigmatism. So, they all realized she was faking it. So the doctor told her parents in front of her that she'd need some pretty intense eye surgery so she'd be able to see without glasses.

They even wheeled in a machine to make it convincing to say they could do the surgery right then and there. The girl freaked out, confessed to faking it all, and started to cry. She got grounded for a while.

5. Seizure Shenanigans

u/[deleted]: We had a patient faking a seizure, so my supervisor told one of us to get the "brain needle." The patient made a miraculous and swift recovery without intervention.

6. Blindside Blunder

u/SinisterlyDexterous: I had a patient when I was an intern faking blindness. She would constantly be playing on her smartphone, only furiously trying to hide it when someone from the care team entered her room.

The best was when my attending doctor strolled past her room one day and threw his hand up in a highly exaggerated "hello" wave. She started to throw her arm up but caught herself halfway through, then threw her hand back into her lap and pretended to be "staring" off into nothing.

7. I Called Out Seizure Faker, Putting an End to the Act!

u/CursesandMutterings: I'm an ICU and ER nurse. We get a lot of malingering in the ER. One day, one of our frequent fliers came in and started faking a seizure in triage.

I know this lady, and she's fake-seized a million times before. But this time, it's in the lobby in front of about 30 people who have no way of knowing that it's fake. She's rolling around on the floor, making a fool of herself, and folks look horrified.

I walked up to her and said calmly, "Karen. What are you doing?" To which this genius responds, "I'M SEIZING!" I told her to stop seizing. So she did. Her name wasn't Karen. I just did that for confidentiality.

8. Unresponsive Patient Busted for Sneaky Glances

u/footsiefried: A 4th-year medical student here! On my ER rotation, a trauma came in from a woman who had been arrested. During the drive, the patient "banged" her head four times against the window of the police car and then went unresponsive.

She came to us with a bruise on her forehead and was unresponsive. We all smelled foul play, but the patient was a great actor and didn't flinch during the digital rectal exam (which is standard for all patients who come in through the trauma bay).

However, some nurses said they caught her "peeking" at us when we left the room. We ended up getting a CT scan and even considered intubating her to secure her airway when our attending walked over to her, opened her eyelids, and held them open while telling her to wake up.

Finally, she started fighting to close her eyes, and the jig was up. The doctor called her out, and she started screaming at us. She was much more pleasant when she was pretending to have a brain injury.

9. Lupus Patient's Walk Unmasks Deception!

u/konqueror321: Years ago, I had a patient who had been rear-ended in an auto accident a few weeks before I saw her. She had a history of lupus. She was decked out in the usual "I'm crippled" paraphernalia (crutches, neck brace, elbow braces, wrist braces, knee braces) and could barely walk.

I saw her a couple of times, and she showed no improvement. One Saturday, I was on call but had to take a "back streets" route to the hospital because of an "event" on the main road.

So I drove through her neighborhood, and wonders, behold, she was wearing old-lady spandex power walking down the sidewalk (holding weights in both hands). I did not call out to her.

Next week, she was back in clinic, with her "I'm crippled" getup on again. Hmmm. A few weeks later, I got the subpoena for the deposition, and it all became clear.

10. And the Blind Shall See Again!

u/sexyfoxx85: Nurse for an ophthalmologist here. I had a 21-year-old new patient claiming to be completely blind from a sudden and severe glaucoma diagnosis from a previous unknown doctor.

He would feel around while walking and tried to keep his eyes rolling back into his head for nine yards. He said he is a famous YouTube rapper who is now unable to make videos or earn a living.

I exclaimed that I had heard of him before and very excitedly asked him to search and show me his YouTube channel on my phone so that I could subscribe.

He took my phone out of my hand, effortlessly found the YouTube app, and typed away in the search bar. Oh, and of course, his eyes were back to normal and focused.

11. She Lost Control

u/Beasti-benz: I'm not a doctor but a nurse. A geriatric patient took advantage of the call bell because she was an attention seeker.

She always needed basic things to get done for her because she thought the place was a hotel (it was a rehabilitation ward, and we should try to motivate patients to do as much for themselves as possible).

She would ring the bell for reasons like "Please lift the blanket for me, please pass me my phone, or please feed me, and claim that her hands didn't work. I caught her lifting herself off the bed several times with her hands, grabbing her phone when it rang; you get the gist.

After days of saying no and explaining that she needed to start doing things for herself, she grew more frustrated. Eventually, she snapped, grabbed me by my collar, shook me aggressively, and yelled, "What don't you understand about the fact that my hands don't work?!?!"

I didn't know what to tell her. I just looked at her and blinked as she slowly released her death grip on me. I guess I healed her hands. Praise the Lord.

12. Discharge Drama

u/[deleted]: This patient comes in for back pain with "weakness" of the legs. He gets a complete workup with an MRI, standard blood work, and some immunological things to look for, like myasthenia gravis.

There is no neurological or immunological explanation for the "weakness." A physical therapist sees the patient, and they believe that the patient is holding back intentionally. Go to see the patient at the end of the day and prepare them for discharge.

The patient is infuriated that they're being discharged and yelling and screaming about how they aren't better and are disappointed in the institution.

They said one thing that still stands out 3-4 years later. "I can't believe you're sending me home already. I haven't even told my family I'm here, and now you're going to send me home before they even have the chance to see me?"

My attending and I leave the room to arrange things with the nurses. We go back in, and the patient is out of bed and standing in the middle of the room. Miraculously, the patient can walk with zero assistance when they had so much difficulty with any help over the previous two days.

At that point, they were enraged, and we went into the room without knocking. They were discharged home after a conversation regarding abuse of medical services.

13. Insurance Woes Left Angry Patient with Unplanned Exit

u/mariawest: I'm not a doctor but a nurse. We had a guy who had to come in every three months to get a medical certificate to say he couldn't work at his retail job due to severe disabling back pain.

He was receiving large amounts of insurance money for this condition. After the doctor had done his usual examination and questions and signed it off, the guy asked the doctor to check his shoulder, which the doctor did and asked how he injured it.

The guy says, "Playing rugby for a competitive team." "Really," says the doctor. How long have you been playing for them? The guy has been playing and training the whole time.

Doc puts this info on the insurance form, enters the staff room, and laughs. Next week, the patient lost it in reception because his insurance had been canceled.

14. Healthy Kid and Forgetful Dad Team Up for Popsicles

u/philosoraptor80: When I was a medical student, I worked in the pediatric side of the emergency room, and we would give popsicles to all the kids. One afternoon, an 8-year-old came in with his father, and I asked what was wrong.

The kid couldn't remember what he complained about to his dad, and the dad couldn't remember why he brought his kid in. The kid's mom was a nurse; she was working at another hospital at the time, and she was the one who would keep track of these things.

After a few minutes of trying to figure out what was happening, the kid asked, "So, can I have my popsicle now?" The kid was 100% healthy. Unfortunately, we reinforced bad behavior, and the kid and the dad subsequently left with popsicles.

15. The Mysterious 'Family Member'

u/idrawinmargins: I had a patient when I worked in an ICU that was sedated and on a vent. A "family" member showed up out of nowhere and stayed day and night. I got suspicious of them because they were lying about knowing this person.

I just talked to the fake family member about how it must have been sad since they had just celebrated their birthday a week or so before getting ill. This person said it was a fabulous party and such, to which I replied their birthday hadn't occurred yet and wouldn't for months.

It turned out that when security came, a homeless person snuck in and found a room with a sedated patient and decided to make it a place to stay. Indeed, the security measures to access the ICU could have been better.

16. Husband's Deception Unraveled

u/slejla: I worked in an ER, and one of the doctors came over to a man in one of our red rooms because his wife was crying hysterically. The man was thrashing about like a fish out of water. Through her tears, his wife screams, "He's been having seizures like this for hours!!"

The doctor tells her, "He's not having a seizure, don't worry." The doctor then taps on the man's foot and yells, "Hey, knock it off!" The man STOPS his ridiculous convulsing and sheepishly looks at his wife and the doctor. The doctor smiles at her, says, "See," and walks away.

17. The Hearing Test Didn't Scare Him

u/Earguy: I am an Audiologist (hearing specialist). I have worked in the private sector with legal claims and with the VA, handling veterans' hearing loss claims. With those two populations, having people faking hearing loss is common.

Now, as a professional for me, the hearing test starts when I call the person's name from the waiting room. In a normal voice, I call them, and if they answer, I already know that they're normal/no worse than mild loss.

This was the case with this guy. He answered and came in, and we had a normal conversation. So, with case history over time to test, I give the instructions over the headphones at a reasonable 50 decibels (dB). "Raise your hand when you hear the tone."

Fifty DB's tone should be clear, but he doesn't raise his hand. I go up. And up, and up. Finally, I'm putting a 100dB tone in his ear; he's flinching from pain; it's so loud, but he doesn't raise his hand to indicate he's heard the tone, even with re-instruction.

I immediately know what I'm dealing with. I have taught entire classes how to spot and get estimated accurate results from people trying to fake it. Long story short, I wrote a report outlining all his inconsistencies and faking behaviors. This one was so memorable because we had such a pleasant conversation before.

He was a fire chief, and I have firefighters in my family; it was one of those where you think, "If it wasn't for professional/patient appropriate distance, we could hang out and be friends." But then, this guy was determined to get a disability rating, and it just pissed me off.

18. Teen Faked Seizure and Mom Bought It

u/selectivelydeep: I'm a medical professional who often works in the emergency room setting. I once had a teenage girl who was faking seizures. What made it worse was her mom was completely buying into it and enabling the daughter by acting extremely concerned.

How do I know the patient was faking the seizures, you ask? Well, I have never seen someone saying over and over, "Mom, I'm having a seizure!!" while having a seizure.

19. Couple's Huge Fight Healed Stroke

u/chalwanna: A 31-year-old lady came in under clinical suspicion of stroke, faking aphasia. She was making weird sounds but not speaking. Until a huge fight with her partner at the ward a couple of days later.

She suddenly was perfectly fine with speaking (as well as shouting). I almost forgot to tell her that she had been using a wheelchair for the last two years with no organic reason.

20. Homesick Kids Fake Sickness for an Early Exit!

u/TheOneWhosCensored: I'm not a doctor, but worked at a summer camp and was around the nurse's building a lot. We'd have homesick kids faking all the time to try and get sent home or a kid that didn't want to go to a session staying there just long enough to miss it.

But the best faker was one who said something was wrong and needed to stay there. The nurse follows the usual questions and then asks how he's been eating. The kid says he hasn't eaten anything from the dining hall and has only had slushies and candy all week.

The nurse makes him get one of his adults there, who doesn't allow the kid any junk food for the rest of the week and watches him like a hawk in the dining hall afterward.

21. Lame Woman Walks Tall After Workman's Compensation Falls Short

u/managed_mischief: I'm a Physical therapist. Early in my career, I was seeing a workman's compensation patient for a low back injury. She came in bent over and practically crawled into my office, crying and yelling out in pain.

She tells me she can't walk or stand up straight since her injury. I tried my best to complete an evaluation, but every time I attempted to initiate a test to pinpoint the injury, she would scream and cry.

I couldn't even lightly touch her skin without her crying out. I offered to call her an ambulance several times since she was so distressed, which she refused. She left, and I walked to my computer to write my report.

My coworker, who had witnessed the whole thing, looked at me and said, "Wait, you're about to miss the best part of the show!"

I look out the window into the parking lot and see her walking fully upright, strutting her stuff across the parking lot while slinging her purse over her shoulder with one hand and chatting on her cell phone with the other. She got in her car with no problem and drove away. I never saw such a fast cure. It was a miracle!

22. Patient's Numbness Turned Out to Be Blue Ink

u/NondenominationalLow: Had a patient in the ED with a severe complaint of a numb, cold, blue left arm. She acted unaffected by the painful stimulus.

However, I noticed on my second trip into the room that a blue substance appeared on my hand after checking the pulses. It turned out she had covered the arm in some blue dye (like the substance that comes from new blue jeans).

23. The Freeloaders Lavish Lifestyle

u/BalancedPenguin: I am not a doctor, but my friend is, and he told this story. He went to Hungary in some rural areas. His job, along with a team of other doctors, was to inspect all people on disability pension in the region and kick freeloaders out of the system.

A lot of people obtained false documents claiming they had this or that kind of disability, taking quite a toll on the welfare budget while they were obviously not disabled.

Interestingly enough, many of them were muscled young men with gold chains as thick as a finger, driving BMWs and having frequent encounters with the police.

As you guessed, many of these people were receiving a monthly pension under the most ridiculous pretexts. A couple of local physicians were later even indicted on corruption charges for certifying them as disabled.

There was a known local criminal with a meth distribution network, and he had official medical documents "proving" that he was mentally disabled and unable to sustain himself, literally needing a nurse 24/7 to change his diapers. He even used it to get away with criminal charges.

But not only major criminals were into this, but many petty ones too. One day, my friend went to a house to investigate a guy who was allegedly so sick he couldn't even drag himself to the hospital.

The guy was sitting on the porch, seemingly in fairly good condition, smoking cigarettes and yelling at his woman while a dozen kids ran around. My friend approached the guy, introduced himself, and told him he didn't look very sick. The guy immediately switched to a poor beggar's faint voice.

24. She Went Too Far

u/Drilmagnus: A woman presented to the emergency room, expressing concerns about complications in her private parts. Initially, the pelvic exam indicated a notable yeast infection, but there seemed to be a foreign object inside her genitalia.

When asked about it, she denied knowledge, only for a speculum examination to reveal a soft mandarin orange with the peel still on. Surprisingly, she explained that it was believed to enhance fertility. It was unbelievable.

25. The Kid Almost Died

u/Togarriapa: I am not a surgeon or doctor but an Anesthesia Nurse. A mom directly lied to us about her 12-year-old pre-ent surgery.

We always confirm with the patient and legal guardians all the pre-surgery check-ups: Name, age/date of birth, any past medical history, common medication, and medication taken in the last 24 hours or the last time you ate or drank anything.

The thing is, in the last item of the checklist, the mom lied. Her answer "No, he didn't eat anything since yesterday," the kid also confirmed. Note that it was 4 p.m.

The surgery went well, with no problems. When comes the time to remove the tube, the kid starts vomiting tons of rice and beans. The kid aspirates part of the food against our best efforts.

We do everything we can, including broncofibroscopy. Everything ended up ok; the kid survived, had no further complications, and recovered fully in only two days.

When confronted about the lie and explained how her son could have died, the mom said, "What could I do?! He was hungry and ate like a bull! Who am I to say he can't?" We all lost our patience and just said, "HIS MOM!!! he could and was close to dying because of this."

26. Newborn Unexpected Arrival

u/drneck: In the ER at 4 a.m., a teenage girl and her parents sought assistance for severe constipation. Busy at the time, I requested the nurse to assess the situation, considering the need for an enema.

A rectal exam was initiated, but within minutes, the nurse urgently called me. When we uncovered the girl, we saw this cute little head popping out. A baby on the way. "Why didn't you tell us that you were pregnant?" I asked, "I'm not pregnant," she kept saying while I was cutting the umbilical cord.

She lied to her parents the whole pregnancy and lived with them. I had to explain everything to the parents. They didn't have a clue, and judging by their face, I believed them.

27. Bullet Wound Mystery

u/HoopsyDaisy: Had a patient show up at the ER with a wound to the back of her head. I say, "Hey, Ms., what happened?" She responded, "I don't know, I picked up chicken from the gas station and went to bed. And this morning I noticed I was bleeding."

I start inspecting the wound. It tracks pretty far, and this strange cotton-like material sticking out is also tracking too deep to visualize. I press her more about the circumstances because my ER Doctor spider-sense starts going off.

"Were you assaulted? Did someone harm you? Were you in a car accident? Did something fall on you," I ask. She responds, "No. I just went to bed. Maybe I got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom."

Finally, I decide to send her through the Donut Of Truth (aka get a CT scan) of her head before me, and my trusty scalpel starts seeing where this trail of mystery cotton leads.

The lady had a bullet lodged up against her skull bone. I still don't have an answer to the cotton, but I'm guessing the gun fired through some cloth. When I told her she had a bullet in her head, her response was, "Oh. weird," and then she went back to playing Candy Crush on her phone.

28. The Kidney Confession

u/Karakiali: Once, I asked a patient if he had done any surgeries in the past, and he said no. When we did a CT abdomen, he had one kidney and signs of scarring, so I went back to ask what happened to the kidney.

He said he had no idea and started winking at me and sweating. I took the hint and came back later when he was alone; it turns out he sold his kidney because he lost a lot of money gambling.

29. The Daring Parents

u/NedTaggart Nurse here. This is the absolute dumbest thing patients have said, and to be fair, this was the patient's parents since I was in Pedi.

I was rooming patients, and I went to the full lobby and called the next one in by last name. They stand up, and mom and dad bring the little girl back.

I'm rooming them, taking the vitals, reviewing the purpose of the visit, making some adjustments to the chart, updating their pharmacy and allergies, and once done, I go out to let the pediatrician know they are ready.

The pediatrician enters the room, comes out about three minutes later, and says, "That's not my patient; where is my patient?" So, I went in and asked the parents, and no, they were not the patient.

I'm like, "Why did you say you were someone you were not?" They simply said they didn't want to wait, so they just came back. We had to completely unspin all the changes to the chart and get legal involved to ensure there were no HIPAA violations, which, fortunately, there weren't.

I'm fascinated that people can collectively think, let's do this; no one will know. Like, how does that even play out in their minds?

30. The Miraculous Recovery after Denied Narcotics

u/materiamasta: One guy lied about being paralyzed after a lumbar puncture. I got a call from a nurse-patient who said he couldn't move his legs following a lumbar puncture (spinal tap).

I called the team that did the procedure, and they assured me there was no indication of this sort of injury happening during the process but agreed with my plan to get an urgent MRI.

I examine him, and the nurse says he moved one of his feet. The next thing I know, he says he can move his legs again, but they feel weird.

Then, this weird feeling turns into intense pain, and he asks for intravenous narcotics. I tell him no because this story makes no sense. By god, it was a miracle, I tell you when this man walked himself right out of the hospital after I refused the IV narcotics. Also, the MRI was normal.

31. Cheap Is Expensive: Circumcision Gone Wrong

u/southernmayd: Dad is a physician and has a million funny stories. He told me this one from a few decades ago. He had a patient come into the ER with a towel over his groin, covered in blood.

The patient claimed he was cutting vegetables in his kitchen, and the knife slipped. My dad took a look, and the guy was butchered down there, so he had to call a urologist in the middle of the night to consult.

The guy eventually confesses to trying to give himself a circumcision because he didn't want to pay the $200 it would have cost. The urologist was able to help save "him," but it cost a lot more than $200 for emergency penis surgery.

32. Hilarious Encounter with a Time-Defying Patient

u/doctorbanns: I'm a medical student, but a doctor shared this with us. She's a gynecologist, and this woman came to her complaining that she hadn't gotten her periods in a few months.

She was showing menopausal symptoms, and in fact, she looked almost 50, but she kept saying she was only 30 and she couldn't have menopause.

It has a funny ending when the doctor asks if the woman has a kid, and she says, "Yes, he's 27 y/o." 😂😂😂 Idk why people lie about their age, but this was a funny story for the whole class.

33. This Wouldn't Have Happened If Only He Listened

u/desperatevintage: A 60-year-old male was hospitalized for an infection following a spinal fusion. He had surgery to remove the infected hardware and had a cervical collar (neck brace) to stabilize his spine and a treatment plan that said to keep it on 24/7 for four weeks.

After 16 days, he removed it. When confronted, he told me that he had cleared it with his surgeon and told them he had removed it. He had not.

I explained that he had an extremely unstable spine and the wrong move could result in irreversible quadriplegia, to which he responded, "I don't think that's going to happen. Even if there's an explosion, I'll hold real still."

On the phone with his sister, shouting into the speaker, he said, "Well, I took it off because it was so uncomfortable; at first, my neck was really stiff, but I shook my head a few times, and something in there broke loose. It feels much better now." In contrast, his nurse and I stared at each other in silent horror.

34. The Golf Shoe Saga!

u/Jasole37: My little brother worked as a nurse for approximately ten years. He shared numerous stories about people inserting various objects into their behinds. Initially, it was amusing, but over time, the humor faded as he encountered several cases.

However, after a decade, the amusement resurfaced when he thought he had seen it all, only to have a 45-year-old man brought to the hospital with a golf shoe lodged in his buttocks.

The man insisted he slipped in the locker room while golfing with his friends, conveniently ignoring the fact that the part of the shoe inside him was coated in Vaseline.

35. The One Who Never Follows Instructions

u/YourStolenCharizard: Part of my job is dealing with medical records. My favorite part is when you are reading the doctor's notes, and you can tell they are fed up with the patient's behavior or excuses.

The patient was in for a routine colonoscopy and asked if solids had been consumed 24 hours prior, and the patient confirmed no.

In the procedure, several dozen kernels of corn were discovered in the colon, so they had to stop. The patient was instructed not to consume corn beforehand, as this happened before the visit.

36. Encounter with a Drug Dealer Gone Wrong

u/victorwillian: A patient arrived with a bandage on his head and claimed he had fallen from his bed and injured it. After one hour in the waiting room and after removing the bandage, I could see part of his brain. The guy was in debt with drug dealers and was dragged through a highway tied to a car.

The second story is about a middle-aged man who lied about not taking Viagra while experiencing a heart attack. This is a big problem because the medication we use may interact with the blue pill and worsen the condition—a high price to pay to defend some idea of masculinity.

37. Bike Accident Unravels into a Self-Inflicted Wound

u/Cybariss: A guy came in for a wound on his lower leg that he said came from a biking accident. An X-ray revealed a bullet inside his ankle joint. The wound was from shooting himself by accident while holding a gun. I still don't know how the guy didn't fracture anything.

38. Nicotine Test Exposes Patient's Secret Smoking

u/Anthrotekkk: A common one is about their smoking. Smoking is an enormous risk factor for fracture nonunion, meaning a fracture that doesn't heal.

When I walk into a nonunion patient's exam room, and it smells like a cigar den, I know they smoke. But they'll tell me they don't right to my face.

Before signing them up for revision surgery, I'll commonly order a urine test for nicotine metabolites. Often, it'll turn out positive and suddenly surprise Pikachu's face.

39. Medical Test Unmasks Drug Addiction

u/emmettifitz: Not me, but an Anesthetist buddy screening a patient before getting anesthesia. "We see that your drug screen came positive for cocaine." Then suddenly, the patient says, "I don't know how I don't do drugs."

Then the Anesthetist says, "We can't go forward with anesthesia; we won't know how the anesthetic will react with the "coke." The patient replies, "Oh! I know! My BOYFRIEND does coke! I kissed him before I came in this morning; that must be how I tested positive.

40. The Puzzling Patient

u/ Fit_MedManiac: A patient lied about having a job. I asked because he had hepatitis A, and I wanted to know if he needed a medical leave. He denied it even though I asked twice.

The next day, he returned because he would get fired if he didn't provide a doctor's note. I'm in Venezuela, so he wouldn't have had to pay anything for that visit, regardless of his employment status.

He isn't an undocumented immigrant. It's a small community where everyone knows each other, and he has lived there his whole life; many of his relatives have also been my patients.

Also, undocumented immigrants aren't a thing here; some tourists may come without having the proper paperwork, but this isn't a desirable place for immigrants looking for work.

The patient said he didn't have a job and didn't say he didn't need a medical. I asked what he did for work on his second visit, but I can't remember what he told me. There isn't a whole lot of stigma around Hepatitis A around here, even if you work handling food. People feel sorry for the person and tell them not to eat yellow things.

So, I don't think it was because he was afraid of being shamed/reprimanded because of it, but I could be wrong. I'm obligated to report viral hepatitis cases to the health ministry so they make sure there isn't an outbreak, and I told him this. So, he knew that I would report it either way.

In the complex medical industry, many doctors have attested to encountering individuals faking illnesses and presenting a puzzling scenario. The frustration intensifies when sincere efforts are invested in diagnosing non-existent conditions.

Such deceitful acts not only waste valuable time but also undermine the trust for effective healthcare. Many doctors, driven by a commitment to genuine patient care, find these instances disheartening and frustrating. Therefore, it's crucial to recognize the profound impact these deceptive acts can have on the medical profession.

A collaborative approach, rooted in honesty and trust, ensures that genuine medical needs receive the attention they deserve. It's important for patients and medical professionals to cooperate for the greater good of society's well-being.