r/emergencymedicine • u/Princessgargoyle ED Attending • 13d ago

Advice Patients interpreting their own portal results

Attending physician new to practicing in a more affluent area. How are you all dealing with patients asking for explanations for each out-of-range lab result that popped up in their patient portal?

I’m finding this aspect of my new site to be very frustrating and time consuming to have to convince the patient why the google interpretation of their isolated eosinophilia or glucose of 100 does not align with my “Great news! Everything looks good!”

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u/DocBanner21 12d ago

"There's outside the normal limits and there is BAD outside the normal limits. In this case, it's like the state trooper saw you doing 58 in a 55. Even they don't care about that. It doesn't normally matter."

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u/Princessgargoyle ED Attending 12d ago

I like your style!