63 Medical Professionals Reveal What They’d Tell Patients If There Were No Consequences

If you aren't getting vaccines, you're a social parasite who is relying on everyone else to do their duty to keep you from getting sick.

Obviously I can't say this, so instead I try all the other appeals to reason.

I don't care equally about all patients. Drunk driver who drove into a tree and got paralyzed? Don't care.

3 year old who choked on some food, went into cardiac arrest, got recusitated and now has brain damage? You bet I'll be crying in my car on my way home from work.

“You should have worn a seatbelt.”

“You were too drunk to drive.”

“It gets better.”

I can’t tell my patients these things because I’m the pathologist doing their autopsy.

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 vitamin. Have your 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? Baby coffins are so cute too!

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 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. .

Dont let a chiropractor ever touch your neck.

Not patients but other doctors. Stop shrugging young women off, just because they’re young. It’s not always anxiety and stress. Unfortunately we’ve never had more young women diagnosed with breast & cervical cancer, also, many different autoimmune diseases than we have now. If someone comes to you with serious symptoms and concerns, do something about it before it’s actually too late.

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.


Edit: 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, including coming back to "conventional" medicine when the false cures prove ineffective and being scared and sad and angry when they return to find they can't get curative treatment anymore from doctors and thinking that doctors are punishing them for trying natural treatments first and not that the cancer has progressed to incurable stages.

That I would never ever say?

“You did this to yourself.”.

* Diet and exercise. On a related note, almost nobody needs supplements: our problem is _surplus._ It's not a hard and fast rule, there are some vitamins that are worthwhile and menstruating women should keep an eye on their iron intake. Make sure you get enough calcium, particularly if you're avoiding dairy, vitamin D goes in here, as well.
* Preventative medicine. Your doctor's giving you good tips, lose weight, get your jabs, keep an eye on your blood pressure, lipids, metabolic stuff.
* Politics. RFK Jr. is a madman, and the government is harming you, if you listen to them.

I'm not tooting my own horn, I'm a trauma surgeon, but you can make a lot of headway further upstream by just doing the right thing, starting when you're young.

Stop telling me that you don’t take medicine because you only want “natural things” in your body — all with a Mountain Dew in your hand. Also stop telling me I get money from telling you to get vaccinated. Our clinic actually loses money but we supply vaccines because they work and are life saving. Also no I’m not signing your disability form because you’re pregnant.

Usually I just nod and smile because I’m running behind….

As a psychiatry resident: Some of you have anxiety and depression because your lives are just bad. I do not have a pill to fix generational trauma, narcissistic parents/partners, low socioeconomic status, and childhood trauma. I wish I did. I am sorry you are going through it. But you really need therapy, friend, and taking out frustration on me because the SSRI I prescribed isn't fixing it is helpful to no one.

Tell us if you didn’t take the medication, if you smoke, drink, use something else, haven’t been eating well, or if you did something you’re embarrassed about. Hiding it only makes it harder for us to figure out what’s actually going on.

Also, 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.

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. Swallowed that rage so hard it hurt my stomach. Just wanted to scream but kept my voice steady and 'professional'. The gap between what needs saying and what gets said is huge.

Our bodies are not textbooks, and medicine is not an exact science. We can perform all the available diagnostics, follow evidence based guidelines, and throw every treatment option at a patient, but there may be times we aren’t going to find a definitive cause of 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.

I get this. I really do. However please don’t let the opposite attitude happen, where if someone is old you’re just kinda like well… they’re old! And then don’t treat them.

My grandma was 87, and living independently, super healthy, etc.

She ended up having a fall at her apartment. She was ok, and she wanted to go home. She enjoyed her life and her friends, etc. she just needed some treatment to be able to recover & go back home.

Well, the doctors at the hospital had an attitude of “well, she’s 87….” And they really weren’t helping her at all. She ended up getting moved to a rehabilitation place that had an even worse attitude. While she was there, she fell again which… they said she got up during the night and just tried to wander off and fell.

She said she didn’t, and they were actually taking her somewhere and had told her to get up in a way she was concerned about. She said she asked them and they said “no go ahead, you won’t fall” and so she did it and did indeed fall. But there were no witnesses and so the rehab place’s word won. They said she must have been confused.

Then the rehab place was even worse after that. She had gotten more injured in the second fall, and she said for physical therapy when she couldn’t do something the way they wanted, they would just stop trying and bring her back to her room. Where they’d set her far away from all her stuff, and she didn’t even have water near her.

She said they wouldn’t come for hours when she called (this one is 100% confirmed by people who were visiting her. The person visiting said she’d see her press the call button and someone wouldn’t show up for hours. The rehab place said she was confused and losing track of time and they were always responding quickly).

My grandma ended up passing away there.

She was 100% healthy before her first fall and she was in good spirits and wanted to live. She wanted to try to be treated and be given the opportunity to recover if she could. I get letting people go when it’s their time, but I don’t get just giving up completely when someone is older. If they want to get better… let them try.

I am still so upset about this. There’s even more to the story but I absolutely hate the attitude of “well they’re X age…” alright but it’s still your job to help them if they want to be helped, not just write them off.

It really matters a lot when you want to give me a hug! We see so many people who are angry or upset, and it’s great to have a reminder that someone is happy we are here!!

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 passing away 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 gone soon. It’s not a secret we’re withholding from them. Sometimes hope keeps people alive longer.

As an anaesthetist working in an OR and seeing a lot of bodies: bad hygiene is extremely unpleasant no matter how professional we are. Feet with long unwashed toe nails, genital area that is unwashed for a long time, lots of dirt in belly bottom and especially bad oral hygiene. Just brush your teeth and prosthesis. I don't understand how so many normal looking people take so little care of them selves. We generally don't care about fat rolls, piercings, tattoos, stretchmarks and how you look. But the bad hygiene gets everybody discretely wrinkling their noses.

My dad says it's difficult to listen to people who say they'd "do anything" not to face the consequences of not treating/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!".