1 hour ago
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As someone who's been on the patient side of several unspeakable doctor-patient interactions, I can only imagine what innermost thoughts healthcare professionals keep to themselves every day.
Fortunately for my nosey ass, I got to find out when Reddit user u/VegetableUpstairs978 asked, "Doctors of Reddit, what are some things you keep to yourself that you wish you could tell people/patients?" These juicy answers did not disappoint!
1. "I work in a rural primary care clinic. NEVER USE GARLIC TO CLEAN YOUR WOUNDS. I don’t have enough fingers and toes in my whole damn clinic to count the number of wounds I had to debride and dress just from the burns and eschar patients have because of it. Your wounds are not meant to be marinated, people."
2. "Oncologist here. People cling to hope. I provide them with realistic scenarios, though I know, with a relatively decent degree of confidence, whether a treatment will work or not. Oftentimes, I know when someone will be dying even if they get the most efficacious treatment. Particularly when someone is young (think late teens, early 20s) and they strongly wish to try something, we honor that wish, but we know deep down they will be dead soon. It’s not a secret we’re withholding from them. Sometimes hope keeps people alive longer."
4. "The wellness industry is a parasite that is feeding off of people's insecurities, lack of access to healthcare, and growing distrust of doctors as a profession. So many of these online influencers, especially those that promote intense dietary restrictions, are making millions and making people more ill than they are because the whole thing is a con to sell you their $50, $100, $200 supplements that are not regulated by any means in the US."
5. "As a pediatrician, you need to parent your children. You think they have too much screen time? Take the screen away. Your kid has belly aches? Take the Takis away. Your kid won't eat dinner and just eats junk? STOP BUYING JUNK. The number of times a day I have to tell parents it’s OK to tell their kids 'no' is mind-boggling."
"As a pediatric dentist, same. Heaven forbid you tell them to actually parent.
I hate that I have to sugarcoat things; otherwise, parents leave bad reviews and get upset with the truth. Or when they ask their 4-year-old if they’re up for a filling. Little Timmy shouldn’t have a say in health decisions when they are having mental breakdowns over not getting the right cereal that morning."
6. "I'm the radiologist who reads the trauma scans after the first responders scrape what's left of you up off the road and bring you to the hospital: Stop riding motorcycles and e-scooters."
8. "As a psychiatry resident: Some of you have anxiety and depression because your lives are just shitty. I do not have a pill to fix generational trauma, narcissistic parents or partners, low socioeconomic status, and childhood assault. I wish I did. I am sorry you are going through it. But you really need therapy, friend, because taking out your frustration on me, because the SSRI I prescribed isn't fixing it."
"That's how my GP explained SSRIs when she prescribed them to me — these won't solve your problems, but they will get you to a place where you can meaningfully engage with therapy and have enough energy to make your life better (she was right)."
9. "As an anesthesiology resident, I wanted to tell patients in pre-op to leave and not let one particular surgeon touch them. Oh, and certain low-cost insurance companies are absolutely responsible for slow-rolling care, which has led to poor outcomes, particularly in oncology."
10. "Respect your dying parents' healthcare wishes! Don’t make their death about you. Don’t override a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) and push for maximal therapies, knowing full well your mom or dad wouldn’t want that. Just don’t, no matter how sad, scared, or guilty you feel in that moment. Being a healthcare proxy is not about being the decision-maker; it’s about deciding what to do based on what you think your parent would want."
11. "Your research isn’t as good as my research."
"Neither Facebook nor WebMD is research. Watching someone's YouTube video is not research. The 'do your own research' people have no idea what research is."
12. "My dad says it's difficult to listen to people who say they'd 'do anything' to avoid facing the consequences of not treating or managing their type 2 diabetes. Like, 'I told her she needed to change her diet and start exercising for years, and now she's saying she'll do anything to keep her foot. I told her what to do for years, and she still came in drinking a large sweet tea!'"
"My late husband died because he refused to manage his diabetes.
I told him over and over again he was going to lose a foot or go into a coma one day. He'd take his insulin (that I had to measure out for him before I had enough and left) but drink multiple sodas a day and wouldn't eat anything but carbs.
I tried so hard to make small adjustments to his diet and get him to go to the gym with me. He decided he'd rather be dead, and he got what he wanted."
13. "I had to watch a guy nod along while I explained his heart meds, then immediately ask if he could swap them for essential oils instead. I swallowed that rage so hard, it hurt my stomach. I just wanted to scream, but kept my voice steady and 'professional'. The gap between what needs saying and what gets said is huge."
"After going through chemo, I had someone tell me that it was a shame I didn’t know about essential oils beforehand. I could have avoided all those 'chemicals.' I asked her if good-smelling corpses were trending?"
14. "Our bodies are not textbooks, and medicine is not an exact science. We can perform all available diagnostics, follow evidence-based guidelines, and throw every treatment option at a patient, but there may be times when we won’t find a definitive cause for a patient’s symptoms. Other times, treatments we usually prescribe may not work for certain patients. That doesn’t mean we give up, but sometimes things can’t be explained in concrete terms. And we don’t have a magic wand we can wave and make everything better."
15. "As an anesthetist working in an operating room and seeing a lot of naked bodies, bad hygiene is extremely unpleasant, no matter how professional we are. Feet with long, unwashed toenails, a genital area that is unwashed for a long time, lots of dirt in the belly button, and especially bad oral hygiene. I don't understand how so many normal-looking people take so little care of themselves. We generally don't care about fat rolls, piercings, tattoos, stretch marks, and how you look. But the bad hygiene gets everybody discreetly wrinkling their noses."
16. "The level of service that you will receive today will be the result of what your insurance company wishes to pay, not on what we actually want to provide you, unfortunately."
"People don't appreciate the moral injury of not being able to provide the level of care you feel would be appropriate."
17. "Doctors don’t know everything. Looking something up, asking a colleague, or saying 'I’m not sure yet' doesn’t mean we’re incompetent. Sometimes good medicine is knowing what you don’t know."
18. "There are A LOT of people in the wellness industry lying to you. A LOT. And yes, they are making money off the natural remedies they recommend for you. Patients will try these, then come back to 'conventional' medicine when the false cures prove ineffective. They become scared, sad, and angry when they return to find that they can't get curative treatment anymore from doctors. They think that doctors are punishing them for trying natural treatments first, and not that the cancer has progressed to incurable stages."
"I recently watched the show Apple Cider Vinegar on Netflix, and I highly recommend it. It was also very, very painful to see, because several of the women on the show went through the exact same things I've seen my patients go through."
19. "Don't let a chiropractor ever touch your neck."
"Don’t let a chiropractor ever touch you.
You either need a massage therapist, a physical therapist, or a physiatrist. In literally 0% of situations, a chiropractor is the correct decision."
20. "I'm a midwife, not a doctor. Sometimes I want to go full Gregory House and give them pamphlets to funeral homes for their baby when they refuse vitamin K. It's a fucking vitamin. Have your shitty opinions about vaccines, whatever; I give up, but vitamin K is literally just a vitamin. You eat it in your vegetables (presumably, you eat those). Babies DO NOT have enough of it, and in 1 in 250 infants that don't get supplemental vitamin K, it can cause FATAL BRAIN BLEEDS. If you'd like to be the parent of one of those 1-in-250 babies, be my guest — you can always just make another one, right?"
21. "As a physiotherapist, I wish I could tell my patients the reason they have so many body aches isn't that they turned 30; it's because they live a horrifically sedentary lifestyle. Doesn't matter if you were an elite athlete at 16. Once you sit on your ass for years on end, those muscles have atrophied just like anyone else's. Even suggesting that more regular exercise could help gets met with so much pushback. They WANT it to be because they're 'older,' not because they sit down all day."
22. "I am a doctor. I spent all night with one patient trying to save them; they're going to stay alive, but they were absolutely crashing for hours, and it was a complete nightmare. Their child spent their entire time ignoring or belittling me. I just wanted to tell them, 'You know what? Your opinion doesn't count right now, and you need to respect our policies, and no, goddammit, you can't go into that extremely contagious room without a gown right now.' Yeah, I couldn't say that. It would just look like I'm saying something for my ego to someone whose parent was on the verge of death. But trust me, it was so enraging being treated like that by someone you're giving it your all for."
23. "I would say that their family members giving them questionable medical advice shouldn’t be trusted. I wish I could tell them their family members are awful. A lot of the time, I’m just nodding along with whatever nonsense their son-in-law's daughter, who was almost a nurse, said. If something comes up that actually seems harmful, I will speak up and give some education. Otherwise, I just let them ramble."
24. "Being overweight leads to worse outcomes in the hospital simply from logistics, irrespective of the disease."
"CTs and X-rays are significantly lower resolution. Ultrasounds are way more difficult. IV access becomes a problem. Intubating can be more difficult. C-collars don’t fit. Physical exams are less reliable. The physiotherapist might require more help just to walk you."
"Surgery is more difficult. Mask ventilation is more difficult. Mechanical ventilation is more difficult. Recovery from surgery and anesthesia are both more difficult and dangerous.
Sometimes being very large means you cannot receive certain diagnostic or procedural care because you are over the safe weight limit for things like CT scanners, MRI scanners, or procedure tables."
English (US) 