Health care professionals are in the business of reviving and healing people. Other than medical knowledge, probably the most important aspect of their line of work is inhabiting a gentle, empathetic personality with patients.
However, based on these stories shared by burned patients on Reddit, it appears that they are some doctors who simply do not give a
“I Know He Was Trying To Make A Joke, But…”
“My firstborn kid was born early and we had to spend some time in the NICU. The first day, a pediatric geneticist came over to our bed and said that he suspected that she had Trisomy-21 (Down’s Syndrome). He ordered up a full panel to be done.
Two days later, the results come back and it was verified that she didn’t have Down’s. My wife and I, who were terrified of everything at this point, stared at him, and my wife asked, ‘Why did you think she had Down’s Syndrome?’
He looked at her and said, ‘Well, I looked at your husband, and it seemed obvious.’
I know he was trying to make a joke, but Jesus Christ, man.”
George Costanza Could Relate
“Before surgery on my knee, the nurse was telling me how her daughter and I went to the same high school. It went like this:
NURSE: ‘So, are you from around here?’
ME: ‘Yeah, I went to this high school, but graduated a few years ago.’
NURSE: ‘OH, I live right next to it in that neighborhood!’
ME: ‘You must know Kelly’s family, then?’
NURSE: ‘Yeap! My daughter is a senior and we know everyone in the neighborhood.’
ME: ‘That’s cool.’
Then, she peeked under the gown and ‘snickered’. It was like a quick giggle-laugh. We were just chatting while she was doing the shave, then BAM – at the end, quick-peeked my member and left. It wasn’t like she up-skirted me and laughed. She sought out the peek.
I kept thinking, Do I say something? She knows who I am and her daughter might tell people about my junk if I try to report her or something, so I never did anything or really even told anyone. Can’t be lighting myself up to my friends about the nurse lady who laughed at my unit.
George Costanza covered shrinkage at pools, but didn’t mention a 62-degree hospital room in nothing but a gown, lying down, while nervous about surgery, and the effect that has. It is not a flattering effect.
It was hurtful because of her giggle and it stuck with me because she could have known me by proxy of her daughter or the family I knew in her neighborhood. I am insecure about how others think about me, so the fact she could have told her daughter is why it felt extra and comes up in those lovely anxiety plays my brain likes to put on while I try to sleep. It would have been a bit different if she was some random nurse with no connection to me, a friend’s family, my old school, or her daughter being in my sister’s grade
Most importantly, I am REALLY surprised at how many other guys have had the same thing happen.”
“I Had To Remind Him That I Was Assaulted”
“I saw my local doctor about my mental health, which took a turn for the worse after I was assaulted in the street. He then went into a lecture about how I perceived things, to the point at which I had to remind him that I was assaulted, and for no reason other than because the other guy was bored and showing off to his friend.
The doctor then berated me because I was ‘thinking of [the assault] in a negative way.’
I didn’t realize there was a positive to having a visible wound on my face.
To clarify, the doctor was a general practitioner, not a psychologist, and had a student doctor in the room so, god knows what impression that left on him. The wound healed and the scar is barely visible anymore anyway, so nothing left for chicks to dig.”
“Move Your Toes!”
“I woke up in the hospital and heard a nurse running out saying, ‘He’s awake.’
The doctor came into the room and told me to move my toes. I asked them where I was and what was going on. He just gets more insistent that I move my toes. I asked, again, where I was and what was going on
‘Move your toes,’ he almost yelled at me.
‘I am moving my toes,’ I replied.
Immediately, he said, ‘You will never walk again.’
That’s how I found out I was a paraplegic at 21 years old. I had been in a single car wreck. I had a seatbelt on but went off a small hill next to the interstate after clipping an end of the guardrail. Flipped the car down the hill and seat and seatbelt gave way under the pressure and I went out the driver door window. I was thrown 70-80 feet from the car. My back collapsed around the door sill and dislocated one vertebra next to the one below it. I was a big guy – 6’4″ and 235 at the time – and the force was too much for the seat structure. I found out all these details over the next few weeks while I was in rehab.
I don’t remember the car wreck, but that exchange with the doctor is burned into my brain. It was crazy to wake up like that to strange setting and having a concussion made things surreal to hear those words directed at you. That was 31 years ago.
I’m great now. It’s not what happens to you, but how you respond. I’ve had a great life, a great wife of 25-plus years, and worked in financial services industry in IT for 24 years before retiring a few years ago. I’ve traveled all over and raced cars (amateur) and generally had many adventures. I believe if you want to do something you find a way, except walking that is.”
“‘What The Heck Is Wrong With This Doctor?'”
“The suggestion that I had confused a panic attack for a seizure.
To clarify, this was my first grand mal seizure. My father had them prior, and my mother witnessed both him having one and myself having mine. According to her, it was identical. I even hit all the textbook marks of having had an epileptic seizure, from the memory loss to the postictal fatigue.
The emergency room doctor didn’t run any tests or examine my family history of epilepsy. He simply noticed the anxiety disorder in my medical history, assumed that I was just having a panic attack, and wrote it off as my only issue being that I’d hit my head.
Talking to my psychiatrist later about the incident, he confirmed based only on my account (corroborated with mom’s details where I couldn’t fill in) that I had definitely had a seizure, and he sent the orders for further testing himself. He also couldn’t refrain from saying, ‘What the heck is wrong with this doctor?’
I’m glad that at least one of my doctors took my seriously.”
This Nurse Made Nurse Ratched Seem Pleasant
“I was about three months pregnant and started spotting. I spent about 10 hours at the hospital – ultrasounds, lots of diagnostic testing. There was nothing they could do. They told me to go home and wait to miscarry.
I was a wreck. It was late, dark and rainy outside, but I didn’t have a way to get home because hubby was at work with our only car. We were very young and poor. The doctor said the nurses had taxi vouchers they could give me to get home.
I went to the nurses station and asked for a taxi voucher. The nurse said, ‘We only give taxi vouchers to women who have living babies.'”
“The Witch Was Trying To Make Me Flinch”
“I had a gynecologist visit at a very nice hospital in Mumbai. The crabby old witch questioned why should I possibly want STD testing unless I had been with dirty men. She actually asked me, ‘Or is it that there were so many men that now you don’t remember?’
She was like, ‘Well, if you are a good girl [I was 30. I’m a woman, dammit], then it is an unnecessary test, and if you are promiscuous, then what’s the point?’
What the heck?
I told her straight up that my personal life was none of her business, and since I was paying out of pocket, I could request any darn test I wanted. So, she stopped arguing with me and ordered the test. Her head snapped back like no one had ever barked back at her, and said something very bad about me in her dialect to her assistant.
After our little ‘chat,’ we moved to the exam part and she was rough as heck. The witch was trying to make me flinch.”
“She’s A Jerk For Shaming Me In A Place I Should Feel Safe”
“I went in for an update for my glasses prescription. The doctor had been our family optometrist for a long time and she was friendly with my mother.
DOCTOR: ‘Are you on any medication?’
ME: ‘No. Well, just birth control’
DOCTOR: [makes disappointed face] ‘Oh, I didn’t think you were like that…’
ME: ‘Uhhhm… Doctor, I’m married now.’
DOCTOR: [looks relieved] ‘Oh, that’s good! Congratulations! When are you having kids?’
ME: ‘Oh, we’re not sure if we want children.’
She moved on with the exam, finally, and, as we were finishing up, she started asking me about religion and if I went to church. I told her no. I don’t belong to a church and I don’t go regularly. She then proceeded to say that she is GRATEFUL my husband and I are not having kids because the child would not be raised in a Christian home. I was speechless. She then told me how she has gotten suspended for preaching to her patients in the past, but she doesn’t care, she’ll keep doing it.
I really wish I would have reported her. Or at least stuck up for myself. I’m a woman and, at the time, I was 25-years-old. So, the heck what if I was on birth control?? Even if I wasn’t married. She’s a freaking jerk for shaming me like that in a place I should feel safe. If only I could go back in time.”
“That Doctor Really Messed Me Up For A Long Time”
“I had gained a lot of weight around my mid section a few years back and my periods stopped. I was scared, young, and thought I was pregnant, but the tests came back negative. I went to a doctor to have myself checked out and she did some basic tests before telling me, ‘There is nothing wrong with you. You’re just fat.’
I already had some body confidence issues, but hearing it from my doctor when I was trying really hard to get in shape, really hurt. I worked hard to lose weight, but my belly wouldn’t shrink. I was starting to feel really sick and went back to the doctor who, again, told me it was that I was just fat. I was crushed.
A year later, I went to the hospital for something unrelated and it was discovered that I had a giant Ovarian Cyst, about the size of a newborn. It was throwing off my hormones, making me gain weight, among many other issues. I have since lost weight and am feeling super confident now, but that doctor really messed me up for a long time.”