Say What?!
My friend Tammy over at What Was I Thinking? had a funny post about her favorite Thanksgiving. She tells about what can only be describe as a surreal ER visit — one doctor tells her friend that she’s not skinny enough to have ulcerative colitis and maybe it’s just her period. If that weren’t strange enough, another doctor tells her she must have been evil in a former life and needs to set a doomed animal free!!! Yes, this was in a state hospital, not in some third-world shaman’s hut.
What’s with doctors who say whatever is on their minds? Yes, they are experts in certain areas, but really, could medical schools start teaching tact? You’d think with so many years of school, they’d be nice and socialized! I was trying to think if I have had a doctor say anything strange to me. The only time I can think of, I wasn’t the patient. Jasmine was a newborn, and I was discussing breastfeeding with her pediatrician. He had come recommended highly by my sister-in-law, and I loved how the kids in the office ran to him and hugged him while I was waiting for our turn. He was old-school, though. I forget exactly what we were talking about, I think it may have been about how long to breastfeed. He told me “Babies don’t need to breastfeed longer than a year. Most women who do it longer than that don’t do it for the baby — they just like to have their nipples sucked.” The weirdest thing — I didn’t read ANY sexual connotation into that at all at the time!!! He was serious, not leering, not being suggestive at all. I just nodded and we moved on to another topic. I didn’t think anything of it until I was telling someone else, laughing at how ignorant so many doctors are about breastfeeding. They didn’t laugh along and just stared at me in shock. That’s when it hit me how odd that was to say. We still went to that pediatrician until we moved Downriver. He never said anything that weird again!
So, what weird doctor sayings have you heard?
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When my daughter was 6 months old (to the day) and intermittently CRAWLING around and SITTING up on the exam table, the ped told me that if I did not start her on solids immediately she would end up developmentally delayed and would never sit up or crawl. I just looked between my daughter who was clearly already crawling and sitting up and the ped and couldn’t think of anything to say.
November 27th, 2006 at 8:29 amWHAT?!? That breastfeeding “advice” really takes the cake.
November 27th, 2006 at 9:30 amI had an intern tell me it was physically impossible for a woman to be 42 weeks pregnant, and if I was, then it was a medical miracle.
And he did it with a straight face. I had 3 overdue kids out of 4.
November 27th, 2006 at 10:40 amThat was the day that I learned that doctors are no smarter than the rest of us. It really helped when the ped told me to fix J’s spitting up problem the solution was to give him lots and lots of water and to water down his formula. Ummm no that doesn’t sound right. On to the next doc that said, no he needs thicker food and formula, not to eat more or thiner. It needs to be heavier in order to stay down there in his tummy. Made a whole lot more sense to me. That whole gravity thing that I learned in elementary school begged to differ.
November 28th, 2006 at 11:08 amOh Tammy, that reminds me of my first child. He has a similar spitting up problem that the doctor poo-poohed for months. Even when I had nursed him, he spit up *everything*. At night, I would often have to change him, me, and the bedclothes.
The final straw came when the doctor told me it always looked worse than it was, and assured me it was just new mom worries. Then as I left, Addison puked a huge amount all over his office floor.
He believed me then.
November 28th, 2006 at 2:33 pm