Many people put their lives in the hands of doctors because they, themselves, aren't licensed professionals. And often times, we forget doctors are people too. But it's not that all doctors make mistakes (even though a lot do), it's that some don't have a filter. And when they're speaking with a patient, things can slip, causing them to make inappropriate and unwarranted statements. Below, patients share the times their physician, dentist, dermatologist, and other medical professionals showed their true selves, and said something unprofessional. Content has been edited for clarity.
What A Creep
“I was probably about 16 and getting a physical. We got to the hernia check, and I say, ‘I really hate this part.’
Then my doctor, and older, overweight man, for some reason decided to traumatize me as I am taking off my underwear with, ‘Yeah, I don’t really like getting physicals either, but I don’t mind giving them.'”
That’s Not A Cause For Cancer
“This was 2011ish:
Doctor: ‘You have lung cancer.’
Me: ‘What is the cause and how can we treat it?’
Doctor: ‘Well, gayness is a cause for cancer, so I suggest you leave your lover and fix your lifestyle habits.’
I never got a second opinion so fast in my life.
Turns out I still had mucus in my lung just lingering around from my flu. My doctor told me to lay on my boyfriend’s lap and to let him hit my back to loosen it up. Should clear up in two weeks and to come back if it didn’t.”
Got Advice She Didn’t Ask For
“At a college health center, I was being checked out by an RN (older, Southern ‘gentleman’) to see if I had a respiratory infection or just REALLY bad allergies. I’m one of those people who’s fat but doesn’t have any of the health problems people associate with it– perfect blood pressure/blood sugar and cholesterol is even a little low, these have all been tested at this office and should be in my file.
First thing this guy says to me is, ‘Wow, you lost twelve pounds in the last month since we saw you, congrats! What have you been doing?’
I’m a little bewildered and say ‘Uh, I wasn’t trying to?’
‘Well, keep it up! Now, what are you in for?’ Appointment proceeds as normal, he puts in an order at the pharmacy for Claritin-D and says, ‘OK, so you’re gonna want to take this with meals- actually, no, keep them very very small meals, we don’t want to gain that weight back do we?'”
He Made Her Blush, And Then It Got Worse
“When I was sixteen, I unexpectedly got pregnant. And my doctor, quite frankly, did everything to let me know I was too promiscuous.
I felt so ashamed to go to the doctor every appointment and was too embarrassed to tell my parents how he treated me. I’m not too sure why. But my mom wanted to give me my privacy and let me go in by myself.
Once, when he was giving me an exam and touched my chest, I blushed from embarrassment and he told me, ‘Now don’t enjoy that too much.’
But before going into labor, he checked me for dilation for the first time, and said something like, ‘Just pretend I’m one of your boyfriends.’ He also asked me how many times I was intimate with a man, and when I said only twice, his response was, ‘Liars get no rewards.’ He then refused to give me an epidural or any pain meds, and instead of an episiotomy (a surgical cut that helps delivery and prevent certain tissue damage), he just let me tear. Since then, I have had multiple pelvic exam and several times been asked if I was forcefully violated before because of the scarring.
Never have I ever been treated so awful.”
What An Assumption
“A paramedic told me something after checking for signs of life on my mother. They ask loads of questions when it’s a sudden death and one question was, ‘Was she a drinker?’ I respond no and his words which still upset me to this day 6 years later: ‘She looks like a drinker.’
My mum just died. I was the one to find her. She actually died of a brain hemorrhage and not because of her beverage intake/abuse like he was clearly assuming.”
Treated Like A “Welfare Queen”
“I visited an ortho about a month ago, worst visit I’ve ever had.
Doctor comes in, doesn’t look up at me but instead stares at the documents in his hands and starts to tell me my x-rays results. Says he’s gonna send me to PT and can give me some pain killers. At this point, he looks up and says, ‘You look doped up already. Are you on something?’
At this point I’ve already waited over an hour to see him so my face is probably not the most pleasant and I’m exhausted because my teething toddler didn’t let me get sleep the night before. Anyways, I tell him no, I’m not doped up and I am not seeking pain meds; just a PT referral. Doctor proceeds to ask me personal questions such as:
‘Are you married? No? So where’s your baby daddy at? Do you receive welfare? You don’t have insurance? Oh wow. How do you have such great private insurance if you’re a single mom?’ That last one was upon his realization that I do, in fact, have wonderful, expensive, private insurance.
Guy totally made me angry and I never returned. I went to get an x-Ray and a PT referral and instead was treated like a welfare queen/ addict.”
“Oh, You Wanted The Baby?”
“When I got pregnant for the first time, I had a miscarriage. When the bleeding started, my husband and I rushed to the hospital. I look a lot younger than I actually am. At the time I was 24 and looked maybe 16. The nurses were kind and did all tests and ultrasounds. They told me the doctor would come in shortly to let us know what’s up.
So we waited forever and then we hear the doctor in the hall flirting with the nurses, which is fine, whatever but then he made a joke and then walked into my room laughing, looks at my chart and goes, ‘Well, good news is you aren’t pregnant anymore.’
I bust out in tears and his smirk faded from his face and he goes, ‘Oh, you wanted the baby? I assumed because you are a teenager that you didn’t want it.’
My husband looks him dead in the eye and tells him that I’m 24 and we have been married for 2 years and we did want a baby. So then the doctor begins backpedaling and tells me that everything else looks fine and in time we could try again. I got up, called him an a-hole then went home and cried on the couch for 2 days.”
She Made Fun Of A Patient
“I was around 12 years old and I was getting a physical. The nurse told me I had diabetes and I was so freaked out about it, I started to cry. Turns out, the nurse was wrong and I didn’t test positive for diabetes. When I came back to test for it, she just misdiagnosed me on the spot. The next year, I was getting another physical at the same place when a different nurse laughed at me and said, ‘Oh it’s you! Are you going to cry again this time? Haha!’ I remember feeling really embarrassed for getting emotional, until I realized that the nurse was an a-hole for making fun of a patient.”
He Said What?
“Toss-up:
1. I was 9 years old, getting an annual sports physical from the same doctor I’d been seeing since I was 5. I have a genetic disorder called lymph edema that causes my legs and feet to swell, but otherwise doesn’t really have much of an impact on my life. The doctor, upon seeing my legs, visibly started and said, ‘WHOA! What’s wrong with your legs? That’s not normal. I can’t possibly clear you to play sports when your legs look like that!’ No amount of attempts to convince her that it was the same harmless genetic disorder that I’d had every other time I saw her previously would persuade her to sign the darn form, and I ended up missing out on a full year of field hockey because my parents couldn’t set up another appointment in time for the physical form deadline.
2. I was 15, at my first ever gynecologist visit. At the time, I saw the same gynecologist who saw my mom and sister. He–a tiny, ancient Asian man–took one look at my privates and said, ‘You look just like your mom down there! Not like sister, though.’ I didn’t go back for years and to this day refuse to see a male gynecologist.”
A “Problem” With Her Body
“I got a pap smear and the doctor I got it from was a male I hadn’t actually seen before. He was taking a bit longer than I had found typical, and I was getting a bit impatient/weirded out/annoyed. Then he says to me, ‘I think there must be something wrong with your hoo-ha, its shape is unusual and it’s impossible for me to complete the examination.’
I said, ‘Excuse me?’ because, what the eff did I just hear? And he goes ‘Well, this is a problem with your body, you must have had doctors comment on it before.’
I had not, because I am lucky enough to have a very easy time with this sort of thing. He was just an idiot. I’ve had male and female doctors manage it before that and since then with no issues.”
Caused A Fear Of Dentists
“When I was a kid, I was terrified of both needles and dentists. One day, I had to have a tooth removed and I was extremely nervous. As the needle approached my gums, I pulled away.
‘If you do that again, I’ll stab you more times than I have to,’ my dentist told 11 year old me. He made my fear of dentists far worse and it was something that stuck with me into my early twenties.”
She Felt Horrified
“I had my drink spiked. I made it outside the club before half passing out and puking everywhere. When the paramedics arrived, I heard the male ask, ‘Do we need to check if she’s been violated?’
To which the female responded with a scoff, ‘It wouldn’t surprise me, have you seen what she’s wearing?’ I just remember being horrified – to note, I hadn’t been violated (intimately, at least. – Having your drink spiked in general is violating on its own). But imagine if you had, and you heard that from a medical professional who was meant to be helping? And because apparently it’s important – I was wearing skinny jeans and a tank top.”
Well, That’s Just Hurtful
“I have Tourette syndrome, meaning I make involuntary movements and noises called tics, so I can look pretty weird at times. It started when I was 4.
Recently diagnosed, highly insecure 12 year old me was at the doctors for an unrelated health concern when I was told: ‘people won’t want to be your friend if you’re doing that all the time, they’ll think you’re weird’ – referring to a facial tic.
Accused Of Faking It
“I had been extremely dizzy for several days. When it progressed to the point when I couldn’t walk unassisted, I went to the ER. When the doctor examined me, she did some neurological tests. I did poorly on some of them. She then accused me of ‘not really trying’ since I had ‘no real reason to do poorly’ and told me that she would come back in a few minutes. When she came back, I still could not successful complete the tests. She said that she couldn’t help me since I ‘wanted to be sick’
I went to a different ER and the doctor there looked at my ears. She diagnosed me with a viral infection that had spread from my ear to one of my cranial nerves. Guess which part of me the first doctor hadn’t bothered to look at?
This is one of the reasons that I only disclose my mental health history after a doctor has shown that they won’t automatically attribute my physical health problems to malingering or psycho-symptomatic effects. Several other doctors have done similar things but this was the only one who outright accused me of faking it.”
“There’s Nothing Wrong With You”
“I was 13 and slipped on the stairs taking out the trash (it had just rained). I was really sore and was walking with a limp, so my mom took me to my doctor. He told me, ‘There’s nothing wrong with you, you’re just fat.’ So of course nothing happens.
Cut to 3 months later and we had moved to a new city and I went to see a new doctor. All the doctor did was watch me walk across the room and I had emergency surgery scheduled for a day later.
It’s turns out that the fall fractured my femur and dislocated the ball of my femur from my pelvis, which also had a hairline fracture. I ended up with two titanium rods in my leg and a story.”
“If You Weren’t So Mean”
“My biological mother’s doctor was a quack, guilty of more malpractice in just a couple of years than I’ve seen over the rest of my lifetime thus far. I used to work for a medical malpractice claims company, so I know whereof I speak. My mother made me go to this man; even as a young child, I knew he was experimenting on several of his patients because I overheard his conversations. I was ten years old and already reading medical texts that were required reading for first year residents.
My mother was extremely abusive in almost every way, that is, when she wasn’t MIA for days at a time. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia, as well as with being a true psychopath. She didn’t want to be responsible for me, because I was an ‘accident’ as well as having several serious medical issues she told the doctors she wasn’t going to acknowledge or let them treat.
So, Doctor Quack has me in his office and I’m trying to make sure he doesn’t touch me inappropriately as he regularly did to other young girls. I’m also doubled over in severe pain at that point, because of Crohn’s Disease. He looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘If you weren’t so mean to your mother, you wouldn’t be in pain. I’m not going to do anything for your pain because you don’t deserve relief.’
Mean? You’ve got to be kidding! I spent my first 17 years on this rock trying to take care of her, despite the abuses she heaped upon me — most of which are far too heinous to share here.”
She Was Young, But Not A Liar
“When I was a freshman in high school, I suddenly got these intense pains in my stomach. Like, no joke. Probably the worst pain I’ve ever had in my life. We didn’t take it seriously for a couple of days because my parents were convinced they were just really bad cramps. But when the symptoms didn’t go away, they made an appointment with this doctor.
Both of my parents came with me into his office, I don’t remember if I asked them to come with me but considering how introverted I was at the age, it really doesn’t surprise me if I did. I was a shy kid.
Doctor did his usual questions, asks the symptoms, I give him the answers. Then he asks if I’ve ever had been truly intimate with a man. Awkwardly, I look over to my parents briefly before honestly saying, ‘No.’ Which was true, like I said. I just finished middle school so I hadn’t even started exploring that aspect of my life yet. But somehow, this convinces him I’m lying (???).
He gets irritated with me, and says, ‘Look at me when I’m asking you this, and answer honestly this time.’ Repeats the question. Now I’m irritated and slightly humiliated because, not only am I in intense pain, but he’s bluntly just called me a liar in front of my folks.
I repeat my answer, ‘No.’ And still somehow not good enough. So, now he goes to ramble on how I’ve been unable to keep eye contact with him, and also how a lot of the symptoms I’ve shared sound suspiciously like early signs of pregnancy. Then we go through this long back and forth trying to convince him otherwise. Still makes me do the pee test.
Eventually I give in because I’m tired of arguing, and I’m thinking the urine sample might help show other clues to why my stomach is like this.
Twenty minutes later.
‘Hey, test results came in. Good news, she’s not pregnant.'”
“Did Something Happen?”
“Dr: ‘You see these, sort of ridges, on your tibia? That’s new bone growth where it was cracked. Several places.’
Me: ‘Do you even remember when I was here a few months ago and you said there was nothing on my x-ray?’
Dr: ‘No, why, did something happen?’
Me: ‘Yeah, I was run over. You thought I was fine.’
Dr: ‘Oh. Well, your leg was broken, I guess.'”
Yelled Like He Saw A Friend At A Party
“It was my first time at the gynecologist; naturally I am a scaredy-cat girl, not familiar with anything that is going on in here; guy does an internal ultrasound (did not know that particular procedure existed) to do an initial check for tumors in the lower abdomen, comes across a large black spot on the ultrasound monitor and goes ‘Holla!’
Right. Holla.
He quickly tries to cover up his outburst, scanning a different area; completes the rest of the scan, goes back to check out the black spot in detail, while I sit and worry.
Later he tells me that it is most likely a cyst, and we were just watching it for a few weeks. Ok, me still being completely clueless what in the world a cyst was at the time, proceeded to fret and kind of got so choked up that I was being to form the proper follow up questions and just thought I had a kind of tumor now. So I just ask questions like ‘what do I do now?’ and ‘what is going to be done next,’ while he apparently oblivious to my ignorance just goes on about things when the next checkup is going to be etc.
So yeah, read up on the internet what a cyst was; went to the checkups; switched doctor immediately after, and have been growing new harmless cysts in my body ever since, like a garden beet.”
Wouldn’t Help Her Out
“I am a professional actress/singer and was having major vocal problems. I went to an ENT (ears, nose, throat doctor) and he kept referring to me as a ‘professional’ and doing air quotes and saying it in the worst tone ever. I was about to open a show and asked if there was any sort of steroid he could give me to just help me get through the next 8 shows. And he says, ‘Uh, nope. You’re on your own. I’m not going to do that.’ I literally left his office in tears after he gave me awful news and then told me there was nothing he could do. Saw another ENT the next day and he couldn’t believe the other doctor wouldn’t give me something to help me out.”
Didn’t Ask For Help With That
“Doctor I thankfully only saw once asked what medication I was on. I’m on three different prescriptions to treat my anxiety and depression, and I answered thus.
He proceeds to lecture me on how the medicine won’t cure my mental illness and I have to ‘make things right in my soul’ for about fifteen minutes.
Bro, I didn’t ask your opinion about my mental health. I’m here so you can treat my carpal tunnel.”
“Could Be Pretty”
“I was with my mother when she went for some sort of specialist consultation (allergies, I think). She often gets me to come along because I take good mental notes and she has a tendency to forget the picky details. Anyways, I hadn’t said a peep the entire time, just sat in a chair next to my mother, when the specialist doctor looked at me and said, ‘You could be pretty if you spent some money on getting your teeth fixed.’ Yeah, it is true I have bad teeth because I’m too poor for braces, but what?”
Bad Luck With Doctors
“I had a Gyno who was also a travel agent. She would seriously try to sell you vacations or concert tickets when you came in for an exam. The first time I went there (and spent over and hour in the waiting room and 45 minutes in the exam room in a paper gown), she came in and asked if I liked concerts. I was flabbergasted and just sat there staring at her wondering if she was for real.
Another time when I was about 8, I has this massive sinus infection that wouldn’t go away for almost two months. My mom was telling the doctor how I wasn’t getting better even though I was on meds and all. He shrugged and said, ‘Eh, why don’t we just take her out and shoot her?’ I don’t remember being really upset by this but my mom was furious.
Also I dated a girl who had a mental illness from early childhood and her parents brought her to this psychiatrist who was like an outdated Freudian textbook. He told her parents she was attracted to women because they allowed her to sleep in their bed until puberty. And he encouraged them to get her an adult toy at age 14 because she might hurt herself/continue hurting herself if she couldn’t get off easily. I seriously don’t know how her parents didn’t stop her from seeing him that day.”