I love RBTs. They are awesome. What are RBTs, you ask? OK, OK. Explanation forthcoming.

It’s tough to stay connected with your friends from residency. These are the people with whom you’ve shared sleepless nights and adult beverages at 8 a.m. after getting off a night shift and vented about annoying residents from consulting services. I am here to tell you that there is no better bond. Especially when you can continue to bond over the seriously goofy stuff we see every day. However, I am happy to say that because of RBTs, I’m still very close to my friends from residency. You should really look into getting some yourself.

RBTs, that is – not friends from residency. RBTs are Random Betsy Texts. Betsy is one of my best friends from residency who peppers me with occasional hilarity – and stupidity – from her tenure in the ED. Now, there are some things you should know about Betsy. She is just over 5 feet tall – like me – and no-nonsense, with a dry sense of humor. I sometimes wonder if people get that she’s being sarcastic when she’s trying to determine if they’ve conjured up some disease in an effort to get narcotics out of her.

One of my first RBTs: Working in triage today.: Had a patient bring a vacuum cleaner in with him. You can’t make this stuff up.

Me: What was he planning on doing with the vacuum cleaner?

RBT: Not sure. No one ever asked him. We only made sure he had it with him when he was leaving so that he wouldn’t have to come back to retrieve it.

This made me laugh until tears streamed down my face and I would need a week’s worth of cucumbers just to get rid of the puffiness.

A couple months later, my phone pinged and I burst out laughing at the text she’d sent.

“I just had a patient tell me he was allergic to Narcan.”

My response: “Too bad he won’t be conscious enough to tell anyone when they give it to him.”

More random awesomeness appears on my phone, signaling me with a fabulous ping. I may have to get a special ping just for these. Then I could have that wonderful Pavlovian response to them.

RBT: Why aren’t people embarrassed to come to the ED for constipation?

RBT: I had two people today tell me they had cancer so they could get narcotics.