Rule One: Laugh. Or you'll die much faster.

I went to a facility today to do an admission on a patient. I spoke with the nurse who didn't know the patient well and could not give me much information. I spoke with the patient who was very tired from their day and could not give me much information. I went to the desk and found the chart of the patient so I could wrangle some information from it ... then realized we were talking about reading doctor's handwriting and could not get much information beyond a squiggly line. Patient's doctor walks up to me, asks what I think the diagnosis should be for the admission and I say, with confidence, "I think [the patient] qualifies for CHF." Doctor pauses for a second before looking at me strangely and says, "They have pulmonary fibrosis." He flips open the chart to a random piece of paper stuffed somewhere in the beginning of the binder and points to past medical history. My response: "I'll be damned, they DO have pulmonary fibrosis!" At this point, the doctor laughs.

And to everyone’s surprise, so did I.