Ambulance Driver’s Law of Complaint Volume: The greater the volume of patient complaints – both in sheer number and decibel level of delivery – varies inversely with patient acuity.
Example: Patient groans quietly, “It’s my chest. My arm and jaw hurt a little, but mainly it’s my chest.” = sick.
Patient moaning piteously, accompanied by shouts and prayers to various deities, wailing and gnashing of teeth, “My chest hurts and my arm and my left leg and I have this cough and I get dizzy whenever I move my head like this and I get blurred vision and my fingers are numb and I’ve been constipated since April and I have an itchy rash and I think a brown recluse spider bit me on my taint and I suffer from the heartbreak of psoriasis and ohmyGod please help me!” = likely not sick at all.
But I’ll work you up just as if I thought you were. Think of it as applause for your bravura performance.
