Just had to kick a guy out of the clinic for coughing like crazy and refusing to wear a scrub mask.

[Aristus]

Sorry, Dude. I'd like to help you with that cough. But if you resolutely insist on exposing my other patients in the waiting room to whatever you've got, out you go...

[ret5hd]

1. TB?

[Aristus]

4. Probably not.

I've only seen one case of active tuberculosis in my entire time in practice. I get a lot of cases of latent tubercular infection from my patients immigrating from Africa. But we give them the appropriate treatment.

It's probably cough secondary to allergic rhinitis due to the change of season. I've had seven cases of it already this week, and it's only Wednesday.

[SWBTATTReg]

2. Thank you. If I were sitting in the waiting room, I'd move or leave (especially when they...

are not wearing protection). Kind of inconsiderate to others.

[Aristus]

5. Well, he copped an attitude with me after I asked him three times to put on a mask.

I finally just showed him the door. I've got enough work to do without my patients creating more patients.

[hlthe2b]

3. Parking lot triage... Even hospitals (who follow ID control guidelines) do it.

during major outbreaks (e.g., measles, influenza, past incident with SARS). Let him wear the mask or wait well outside.

[Ilsa]

6. Air out the room, bring out the Lysol and

UV lights.

That man was terribly unconcerned about the well-being of others. You did a good and smart and the best thing telling him to cover or leave.

BTW, hubby is getting over a virus like that. Thankfully, only one in the house.

[samnsara]

7. Good for you....why does he get to make the others as sick as him?

[hunter]

8. We've got a cold going around here that has a hellish cough that lasts weeks.

It really ought to be a felony to go to work or school while sick and contagious. The people who praise perfect attendance should be sent off to live on their own little desert island somewhere.

A couple of years ago I was sitting in a doctor's office waiting room when a mom dragged in a fussy kid with an obvious case of chicken pox. It was astonishing how fast the staff hustled them back to the van they came in... which was full of other children.

I remember how my kids got chicken pox just a few months before the vaccine was released in the U.S.A.. Damn, that was no fun.

[blueinredohio]

9. When I went to the rheumatologist I had a cough and runny nose.

I put on a mask because at the time I really didn't know what it was but there's a lot of older people there. It's harder for them to get over being sick. The lady sitting next to me thanked me for it.

[Aristus]

10. Thank you for that.

[Laffy Kat]

11. I'm old enough to remember what whooping cough sounds like.

We had a kid check-in to radiology a few months ago for a chest XR before he saw his pediatrician and it sounded exactly like pertussis to me. It has a very characteristic sound. He wasn't wearing a mask and I ask his mom place one on him. Meanwhile, he was whooping up a storm in the waiting room. I finally told a manager, although she didn't seem to think it was a big deal. I do not know what happened after he left. But...yikes.

[Aristus]

12. I hardly ever encounter that anymore, thanks to immunization.

Which is why I tell anti-vaxxer parents: "Get your kids vaccinated, or get out."

[Laffy Kat]

13. As you know, it's extremely contagious.

We are seeing more and more of it, just like all the other preventable childhood diseases. Shameful.

[Aristus]

14. That's for sure...