responsible parenting, ur doin' in rong.

Oh man. I'm sure saying this will come back to bite me whenever I have kids, but damn- why can no one seem to take care of their children? Seriously. Common sense seems to be rare lately. I got a kid earlier that somehow managed to drink an entire bottle of cough syrup without his mom finding out until he brought her the empty bottle, I guess- luckily the kid turned out fine and didn't really need anything, but we just kept him in the room on a monitor for a little while- except mom didn't seem to understand he actually needed to stay on it- which I somewhat sympathize with in that kids are squirmy, but you have to make some sacrifices when you let your child out of your sight long enough to drink an entire bottle of medication that shouldn't have ever been out in the first place. On top of that crap, the med student that went to see him decided that an appropriate form of entertainment would be an inflated glove, which is subsequently had to take from the kid, explaining to his mom that it was an aspiration hazard, all the while with her staring at me like I'm stupid.
Later I ended up with a patient who was being treated for cancer who was coughing up blood and short of breath. At first we suspected pneumonia- naturally her daughter thought that this was an appropriate time for her three month old daughter to get some quality visiting time in. She was not the only family member there either, so it's not as if she would have been leaving her mom alone had she left with the damn baby. One of our more ballsy doctors was seeing her and pretty much told this woman that it was probably not a good idea to have her baby up there, to which she naturally dealt with by complaining to me about the doctor having a problem and explaining how germaphobic she was- clearly not that much- although she did get onto the registration lady for touching her kid's leg. Apparently contact with the intact skin of a woman who effectively never touches patients is an infection risk, but being around someone that may have TB or pneumonia isn't, as long as it's someone you're related to?
I would be more forgiving, I think, if it weren't always these types of parents that are constantly demanding explanations in a hostile manner for totally reasonable shit. Like the mom I got this morning who brought her daughter in herself after a seizure, apparently for the sole purpose of getting a prescription. It wasn't enough that the doctor wrote to increase her dosage, but she also wanted some valium to take home to give her daughter just in case she had another one. Nope. That's a risky drug and you're an idiot, so the doctor doesn't trust you to administer it safely. And the daughter was pissed that I wouldn't give her valium for her headache. Yeah. That's not how it works. Of course instead of listening to the reasons why they shouldn't have this at home (you don't understand the purpose?) both of them felt the need to berate me about the hospital (there are much nicer ones where they come from, this one is gross) and my care (the urine is still there on the sink, because, you know, I was just doing that so you could look at it and not because I thought the doctor might order something that might require us to have it). Just getting a last set of vitals taken was apparently a giant chore for them, and they had to bitch the entire time about how they should have just called her neurologist. Well, if you were just here for a prescription, you probably should have. If you were actually here to get your kid checked out after her seizure, that might have been difficult over the phone.
It's days like this that I thank God I don't work pedi.