The doctor-patient relationship is one of the most sensitive trusts we have and it’s the one that can hurt the most when it’s callously broken.
Here’s the thing. Just because someone was smart (or lucky) enough to get through medical school and land a job, it doesn’t mean they know everything about everything (or even everything about anything outside their scope of expertise).
Not only that, but people are still formed by their experiences, their prejudices, the words and actions of their parents…which is to say, sometimes doctors aren’t very nice, or very tactful, and should have just kept their big mouths shut.
Here are 15 times like that, and I’m guessing most of these people are still working on getting over it.
15. Omg it’s Elaine Benes.
He asked me if I felt lonely
I said I don’t think of myself as lonely
He wrote down Lonely and underlined it.
14. What does that even mean, though?
My female doctor, now retired, once told me I had great birthing hips. I’m a male.
13. Unless he was talking about the size of the lump, I guess.
I went to get a lump on my groin checked out, and had to remove my underpants.
The doctor started a whole speech about “size isn’t everything”, which isn’t what I went there for.
12. Teenage girls get the short end of every stick.
When I was in middle school until 10th grade, I would get violent nausea anytime I got hungry.
It felt like my stomach was on fire, and I would miss a lot of school from feeling like shit (although I was a good student and wasn’t falling behind in any way). After a lot of fighting with my mother who accused me of exaggerating, she agrees to take me to a gastroenterologist to be checked out. Before agreeing to do an endoscopy, the gastro accused me of exaggerating because I was a teen girl and that’s just apparently what young women do, he suggested I was just making up these symptoms for attention, and then asked me point blank if I was lying about my pain level to skip school and suggested I had a mental health issue I was trying to cover for.
I had fucking GERD and severe acid reflux, as confirmed by the endoscopy he reluctantly agreed to perform on me. Instead of letting it go, the gastro made a point of angrily telling me that I had “the stomach of a 80 year old man” and must have been intentionally eating in a way to fuck up my stomach.
I have a family history of stomach problems and GERD. I don’t understand why it was so implausible that my brother could have acid reflux at a young age, but I must be a hysterical liar when I claim to have the same symptoms in my teens.
11. Maybe it was supposed to be a compliment? Sort of?
He said I should be happy carrying around a bit of weight.
Because in drought the fattest cows die last…. Seriously wtf
10. Imagine having the gall to tell someone they shouldn’t have procreated…after the fact.
When I was about 4 I got diagnosed with child asthma, doctor told my mum it was her fault because she decided to have a child despite having asthma herself…
9. I mean, at least she said nothing was wrong with you? Ugh.
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.
8. And that’s how that doctor died…
In the ER, about six months pregnant, with heavy spotting and no noticeable fetal movement. Idiot doctor is unable to find the baby’s heartbeat.
Just looks up at me and says, “Yep, probably dead in there.” He couldn’t possibly have said it in a more casual, offhand manner.
Note: I delivered my son three months later, perfectly healthy.
7. This kind of doesn’t surprise me.
First hospital visit: “there’s nothing wrong with your foot, now get your shoe back on and get back to work you fucking malingerer” after a solely visual inspection.
2 days of getting smoked all day long
Second Hospital visit: “Why are you walking on that foot, it’s obviously broken! Someone get that soldier some crutches!
6. To be fair, treating two-year-olds has to be rough.
Wife took our 2 y/o daughter to the doctor because she was sick and her behaviour seemed to be changing. She couldn’t eat or drink. Our local doctor said that’s how kids are sometimes and just monitor her behaviour.
As we were pretty sure there was something definitely wrong we kept seeing different doctors. Last one said we were acting hysterically and our behaviour were a problem. 5 days later our daughter seemed to had a seizure so we went to the hospital. Our daughter had a brain tumor and the doctor at the hospital said this should have been recognized sooner.
He was astounded that we’ve seen 5 doctors all blaming us as parents to “just be acting up over nothing”.
5. You have to advocate for yourself, for sure.
“It’s all between your ears” after missing at least one, but probably two crippling vitamin deficiencies by not ordering the right test.
It took me two and a half years of thinking I was lazy and pathetic before I went to another doctor and got diagnosed.
4. I think she might have chosen the wrong profession.
“I’m sure it’s not that bad”
The intake nurse at the in patient psychiatric unit I was checking myself into after a suicide attempt following a sexual assault.
3. I mean it’s not bad advice, but it’s not always the right advice, either.
Was having digestive issues I eventually learned were a result of my undiagnosed cancer.
Doctor suggested I should wipe better.
2. They’re just sadists with newer magazines.
Different kind of doctor, but a dentist (after poking that sharp piece of steel into my not dead yet gums)
“Oh come, on, it doesn’t hurt that much!” after I jumped and said “ow!”
I looked at him, got up and walked out.
I now have a very nice dentist
1. He was just being (mean and) helpful.
I went to get an earache checked and the first thing the doctor said was “Yeah so I’m gonna put you on some medicine for the ear but we’ve gotta do something about your face, your acne is absolutely terrible.”
Thanks doc.
I am appalled and secondhand angry, how about you?
I’m totally sorry if this has ever happened to you – tell us about it in the comments if you want!
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