Difficulties of Screening a patient

The emergency department called and wanted to know when I could get to a patient they had. At that time I wasn't busy so I said bring them down, just make sure they didn't have a pacemaker and never welded. I also asked if she could answer surgery history questions and if she could sign consent. They called me back and told me she was a nursing home patient and could not give me history and that there was no family member there to help me. They didn't have a record of any surgery history so I told them I couldn't perform the MRI until I got some history. They said her guardian was the state and gave me the nursing home number she was staying at. The emergency room doctor didn't like that I wouldn't do the MRI, so he called the radiologist and the radiologist told him the same thing that I told them. They don't realize the dangers of the unknown, they just want the test done. After spending 2 hours calling the guardian to give me consent and the nursing home to get surgical history, we finally got in touch with a family member who could give me the information I needed. Luckily during that 2 hours, I didn't have another patient to do on my screen or it would have put me way behind. It is very frustrating when something like this happens and then the emergency department doesn't understand why we do the things we do.