Monitor weirdness: concerning, yet oddly satisfying

/ Jeffery Steele

There is nothing too deep here – and certainly nothing educational. These are just some vitals that caught my eye on the monitor. 

Palindromic blood pressure: I Love it.
Multiples of a hundred? Are you kidding me?
Perfect wave form: One percent
Why does it even let this happen?
Can you spot the exact moment that I told her she was pregnant?
I could have checked for vocal fremitus by reading off her vital signs.
This was my heart rate, according to my watch, on a 12 hour shift in a single coverage ED. It is not hard to tell when the critically ill three year old was in the department.

**As a matter of disclaimer, these are pictures of monitors taken from the desk – not from any patient’s bedside. The person taking the picture was not the provider responsible for any of the patients’ care. In other words, there was never a time when a patient’s treatment was delayed by someone taking a picture of a monitor.

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