WTF?
Millington Naval Hospital in the late eighties…oh my god it was hell. No pain relief for childbirth. Screaming in my face, nurse with bad breath…BREATHE! It was a nightmare. Not one person with an ounce of compassion. I wasn’t in the military, they knew this, and yet they treated me like I was in basic training. They took my baby away without me getting to hold her, told me her hips “looked broken” but I never understood why. There wasn’t a thing wrong with her hips. They wouldn’t let me nurse her, tried to convince me to use formula, forget a nursing counselor. I remember one point during labor they tried to make my mom leave and have my husband there instead, despite my protests that she was the one who went to the classes, and my husband and I had been broken up for months.
Then before I checked out they made me take a shot for something despite me telling them I’d already had it, and told me they would not release my baby until I got it. I think they were just seeing how cruel they could be by that point. Every worker at that hospital was awful to me and my family.
My second child’s birth was like heaven compared to that.
Alabama, September of 1998, I started coming down with what I thought was a minor illness–a sore throat and some sinus discomfort. It began on a Thursday, but seemed to be much improved by Friday morning, so I didn’t go see the doctor. Friday night, I began to feel worse, but still not really bad, not worth going to the ER over. This continued over the weekend, and I knew I’d need to see my doctor Monday. Oh, but guess what? Hurricane Georges was on his way and by Monday the weather was BAD. (A lot of us were piled up at my in-laws that Sunday and Monday nights because most of us live in mobile homes and were not safe in that weather.) By then, my throat hurt so badly that I was taking 800 milligrams of ibuprofen every four hours and drinking hot coffee constantly just to make it bearable. I was coughing so hard that I was afraid my internal organs were being rearranged, so I couldn’t rest at all. It was rainy, windy, crowded in the house, and I was sick as a dog–NOT a fun time! But, by mid-morning on Tuesday, the worst of the storm had passed. I didn’t know if the clinic would be accessible after all the rain, but I called to see. They told me the clinic was closed, but that the roads were all open and they could see me in the ER.
When I arrived, the triage nurse took all my info–which included all of the above–and I was shown to an exam room. When the “doctor” came in, he read my chart and the first thing he does in snap, “You’ve been sick for a WEEK and you’re JUST NOW coming in to the ER?!?” (What, you missed the hurricane, doc?) I tried to keep the sarcastic tone to a minimum when I replied, “NO–as I told the nurse, I didn’t start feeling really bad until mid-weekend, and after that, we were holed up by the hurricane til this morning!” So he examines me, tells me the nurse will be in to give me a shot of antibiotic, and starts writing up prescriptions. I asked him to keep it as cheap as possible. He didn’t really respond, just handed me the scripts, said that the nurse would be in shortly, and abruptly walked out–without giving me a diagnosis! I had to ask the nurse when she came in, “Well? What do I have–he didn’t say!” What I had was bronchitis and a severe upper respiratory infection. A shot in the rear, and a 30 minute wait to make sure I had no reaction, and I was on my way to the pharmacy, where I found that he’d written me a hundred dollar prescription. So much for cheap!
I will say this though–he may have been a jerk, but the cough meds he gave me were kick-ass!
Yeah… that was kinda my reaction too…
Rushgeekgirl: the same thing happened to a friend of mine, in an American military hospital somewhere in Korea in the 1990s. No pain meds, no compassion, no nothing. She and her husband were both civilians (he’s an engineer and was there for some major construction project). She said when she became pregnant the next time (in the States) that she had flashbacks to her labor and delivery and almost had panic attacks about delivering again. Luckily, second time around was in your standard community hospital–heaven. 
My dad remembers the time before Civil Rights (he was a resident) where black women (this was at Duke University medical center) were left to labor in the hallway, alone on carts. My mother was an L&D nurse who insisted that ALL laboring women be in a labor room (back then, this was not all that much better: labor rooms were small, cramped, often windowless rooms furnished with a bed, a small table and maybe a chair. No pictures on the wall, not even wallpaper, but at least they had some privacy and a call light. She was considered to be radical, but as the most senior nurse on the 3-11 shift, she was in charge and when she was there, black women got labor rooms).
I don’t know how common it is, but I’ve heard horrible stories from several different people about experiences where they went to the doctor for something not related to their weight, and all the doctor could focus on was that they were overweight and that losing weight would cure all their ills.
I’ve seen a lot of doctors but most of them have had really good bedside manner. Even my orthopedic surgeon was a great guy, although stereotypically they don’t have the best communication skills.
My one bad experience with bedside manner was when I was maybe 8 or 9 years old. My family was on vacation and I developed an ear infection. We went out to a nice restaurant one night, and then the pain started later. I remember trying to fall asleep at night in the tent trailer and crying in pain. So my parents took me to the local hospital where they diagnosed me and prescribed antibiotics. My mom asked for it to be in liquid form, as I had a strong gag reflex and had never been able to swallow pills. The doctor smarmily insisted I was plenty old enough to swallow pills and it wouldn’t be a problem. He gave me a pill, I did my best to try to swallow it, gagged and retched (the nausea from the ear infection probably didn’t help), and puked up my entire dinner all over his pants and fancy black dress shoes. I felt only a little bad about it. I know the aversion to pills was just “all in my head” and I did get over it a few years later, but even if it was just in my head that doesn’t mean it wasn’t real. What would have been the harm in just giving me liquid antibiotics?
Here’s a whole collection of these stories.
My daughter and I went to this one dentist for about 2 visits each before we figured out that this dentist was just no good. I told him that Novocaine does not work on me and he told me I was just making it up. When I came out of the chair with tears in my eyes, he told me to “be a man”.
I found out later from my daughter that at one visit, he had asked which high-school she went to. When she told him, it turned out it was the same school that his son went to. He said to her, “Do you know [his son’s name]? You should date him. He has quite the panty collection from his trophys.”
My daughter was 15 or 16 at the time. I’m kind of glad she waited a bit before she told me. I rather enjoy not being in prison, because my first reaction was to seek him out and destroy him.
When I told my next dentist about it, he all but gave me the number for the local dental board so I could report him.
This is a really tough issue, and possibly deserving of its own thread. But one thing I’ve been struck with in nursing school is how “obesity” is a contributing, predictive, or causative factor for, without exception, every damn ailment we’ve learned about so far. While I agree that health care professionals shouldn’t be mean about it, and certainly should treat the presenting condition, the science does seem to show that no matter what you’re in for, even if it doesn’t immediately seem related to being overweight, it probably is (or is harder to treat because of it) at some level. If we want/demand preventative medicine and increased wellness, unfortunately this means being lectured at about being overweight (and smoking!), even if we’re treating a simple bone fracture.
I did something similar to grade school teacher who wouldn’t let me go to the nurse’s office because she thought I was faking. 
Wow, a lot of these stories are making Doc Martin seem like a prince of good bedside manner!
I remembered another one: When I was young I got a lot of urinary infections, like many another 20-something girl. My doctor at the time told me “I see that you’ve been prescribed a diaphragm. You should just change your lifestyle”. I felt like the world’s biggest tramp for awhile until I remembered that I only had the one boyfriend (who I eventually married and is now my husband).
Later I figured out that it was the diaphragm itself that was causing my problems, probably in combination with too-tight jeans and nylon undies. Once I changed those three factors I never again had a UTI.
Obesity may be a contributing factor to lots of ailments. But how effective is lecturing people about being overweight at getting them to not be overweight?
I don’t think there’s anythign wrong with mentioning it as a contributing factor, and even pushing a change as it may be one of the only alterable contributors (vs, say, genetic predisposition.) It’s when the only thing one can get from the health professional is a barrage of comments about the weight, and nothing further regarding treatment options or prognosis; that’s when you’ve got a serious problem.
Depends on the lecture, I guess. Did you watch Food Revolution? Showing the 16 year old (obese) girl that she has about 7 years to live because she’s eaten her liver into disrepair seemed quite effective as a motivator.
A simple, “You’re fat and disgusting, you must lose weight or die” probably isn’t all that effective (understatement!) But some patients do change their behaviors (eating, smoking, exercise) when faced with a real health crisis that can be linked to their lifestyle . . . but that requires someone to tell them in a way that they can understand.
First of all, the post that introduced this topic was talking about something else entirely: a doctor who not only grossly insulted his patient, but also refused to make any effort to investigate what was actually wrong with him. Perhaps a good rule of thumb for the medical profession, when confronted with a fat patient with a specific complaint, would be to consider the same possible causes for that complaint as would be considered if a thin person presented it.
Secondly, I haven’t seen Food Revolution, and I am curious (genuinely curious, this is not sarcasm), as to how a 16-year-old girl could have “eaten her liver into disrepair,” to the extent that she would be dead within 7 years. The implication is that she is in this predicament solely by virtue of her obesity, but it does seem a somewhat unusual outcome.
[quote=“Dolukhanova, post:115, topic:538924”]
First of all, the post that introduced this topic was talking about something else entirely: a doctor who not only grossly insulted his patient, but also refused to make any effort to investigate what was actually wrong with him. Perhaps a good rule of thumb for the medical profession, when confronted with a fat patient with a specific complaint, would be to consider the same possible causes for that complaint as would be considered if a thin person presented it.
[QUOTE]
Thank you. Yes I am fat, but I somehow manage to get around quite well on my own… until someone manages to put soemthing RIGHT behind me causing me to take a fall on concrete.
Also, PapSett is a HER. 
FTR my wife’s OB was a gem, the coolest doctor I have ever met.
Back when my son was born, it was very uncommon to allow dads into the OR in the event of a c-section. Being a former boy Scout during one visit I asked if I could be there if there had to be a section. The doc hemmed and hawed a bit, and I broke the silence by saying “If I promise not to be an asshole, can I be there?”
doc laughed and said “In that case, no problem.”
Sure enough, there had to be an emergency section, and good to his word, he let me be there.
My godmother was pregnant while in Korea and she went to a local hospital for a checkup. She went into the doctor’s office to find that the examination table where she was supposed to lie down was covered in a newspaper.
The doctor didn’t seem to understand why she was concerned about this.
My mom was also pregnant here - she spent the first few months of her pregnancy in the US and then flew to Korea to be with her family for the acutal birth. When she went to her first checkup in Korea she noticed that the doctor didn’t weigh her (her American doctor had weighed her first thing at every checkup). So she tentatively asked the Korean doctor if her weight wasn’t going to be recorded for the checkup.
“You can do that at home, can’t you?”
Apparently, I provided some pretty poor bedside manner a few nights ago.
For some reason, my wife wasn’t feeling well during the middle of the night, and she decided to wake me up and tell me. I still don’t really know what she wanted me to do about it, but what I did do was turn over and say “God, shut the fuck up. I’m trying to sleep.” She told me about it the next morning, and said I really hurt her feelings. I don’t remember any of this. I’m typically not the kind of person who casually uses foul language either, so that just increases the humor factor. I told my coworkers about it a couple days later and they thought it was hilarious. My wife, not so much.
I had to go to an assigned clinic for a physical to get hired for a job. The doctor asked if I had any problems and I told him I got severe cramps (which seems to be a common thread in this thread) and he asked what medicines I had tried for them. I said Ponstel and Anaprox. He looked at me skeptically and said “well, they worked for my wife,” implying that they should have worked for me, not in a “oh that’s too bad” way.
I wasn’t even ASKING for a prescription either, so it wasn’t like I was drug-seeking.
The nurse’s assistant at a hospital years later I was at for surgery would just open the door when I was in the restroom. I know everyone had seen me inside and out that week, but I didn’t have my dignity surgically removed. A knock and a “Are you ok in there?” would have been reasonable. (She tried opening the door and I grabbed the handle and yanked it closed and yelled at her.)
That same hospital years later was where I gave birth. I didn’t know the sex of the baby and wanted to be surprised. I ended up needing an emergency C-section. We got down to the surgical floor and the nitwit nurse goes in this singsong, high-pitched, overly sweet voice, “Ok, let’s go get this girl out of you.” Me, my support person, and the nurses who had been with me all day just all stared at her with our jaws open. I think the other nurses said something to her because she didn’t come near me again, nor open her mouth.
I know I was going to find out just a few minutes later, but I was so pissed off at her idiocy and arrogance. I don’t like spoilers for tv shows, so having some dumbass spoil my child’s birth was EPIC FAIL.