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Netizen, thank you for sharing your experiences. I hope what follows helps. What I meant by my final statement is that the whole reason that the ER exists is to serve its community, not to shave the community serve it. I was not implying that you were somehow unimportant. If I could have been clearer with that statement, I apologize. The public pays us to apply our best efforts and skill to every patient of every level of acuity. If you feel that your ER has failed you, I encourage you to contact your hospital's administration and share your experience with them. As I said: I cannot speak for every nurse, hospital or department.

There are standards that we as professionals must meet. If we do not meet those standards, then we have failed our patients and our community. Speak up! Enough people complaining about their experiences really can bring about improvement. I will pray for your rapid and full recovery. Having had two migraines in my entire life, I can honestly say that those were two too many. And I know from personal experience how horrifically painful a migraine can be. My own experience helps me to empathize, but of course,'empathy' is not a pain medication.

Now that I've had my surgery and am recovering well I don't want to start anything. Its a new(ish) Hospital.

I will comment on a couple of things here.

It looked to me, like the waiting area covered not only emergency, but a clinic as well. Those that were there for little things ended up coming out a different set of doors. There were a bunch of people that fell into that category the last time I was in ER. Might be the way to go.

I would only add that people be persistent. You know your body better than anyone else. My first visit to ER for severe abdominal pain, vomiting, got me a total stay of 4 hours and an antibiotic for a bladder infection. I told them I was concerned about a hernia was diagnosed with back in December. They did take an xray but said everything was fine.

Two days later 9am I was right back there with the same symptoms except that the vomiting is dark green, so green it looked black. This visit lasted 8 hours. CT scan and xrays. No blockage. Prescription for pain and anti nausea.

8pm vomiting the contrast, 11pm right back to ER carrying my trusty bucket and still vomiting the dark green fluid. Total stay about 5 hours with new prescription for different anti nausea and instructions to call a particular Dr in the morning for an appt.

Vomiting in the Dr's office gets me placed in the hospital. Surgery at 8 that night. The hernia had twisted and a section of the intestines had turned purple.

I told them on each visit about the hernia. The first two visits they didn't even palpate the abdomen. What's up with that? Why do not listen to the patient? Sometimes we might actually know what is happening. ok rant over,