Medical Field Workers Share Things They Wish More People Understood

Psych NP - m*******a is a lot more risky and dangerous than many people know.

1 - My job is educated guessing. Especially true of you came to me instead of going to the specialist like you were told to see multiple times previously. Going to the ER multiple times for the same chronic problem is going to get you the same result. My job isn’t to diagnose all your conditions. It’s to keep you alive until your next doctor’s appointment, whether that’s in the hospital or as an outpatient.

2 - Stop lying. I really don’t care about any of your unhealthy life choices, but I can’t help you if you don’t actually tell me what’s going on.

I do home care visits for the home/bed bound. I'm there as your primary care provider, not as a paid companion. I really do understand that you are lonely and want company, but I have 18 other patients that I have to see. While I actually do want to hear all about your grandchild's best friend's new puppy, I just don't have the time.

Being an organ donor does NOT mean I will try less hard to save your life.

I have no idea who is an organ donor. An entirely separate entity from anyone associated with the hospital puts those wheels into motion when someone is already braindead.

That 99+% of the times people say they “woke up during anesthesia”, they were not actually under general anesthesia but rather receiving light sedation for minor procedures like colonoscopies or those performed with local anesthetics where sedation is given more as a courtesy than anything else. 

If a patient is not getting a breathing tube put in for a procedure, it’s unsafe for the anesthesiologist to give them enough medication to guarantee they won’t wake up or remember anything 100% of the time. The possibility of waking up is the trade off for not getting a breathing tube and the risks that come with it. .

We are not trying to scam you when we said "diet and exercise" as a part of your treatment, we say it because it's proven to help.

If you want to birth without pain interventions (such as an epidural) please for the love of god, do some prep work other than watching TikTok! Labor is PAINFUL and you need to prepare your mind and body.

Please clean out your bellybutton.
So many dirty bellybuttons.
It makes it easier for the o.r. team to clean and prep for surgery. Some times i have to use a surgical clamp to remove rock hard bellybutton lint/dirt and its nasty.

Introverts are also attracted to the medical field. We do care. We are intrigued by our field. Sometimes, we're just socially burnt out, and our brain isn't processing excessive casual conversation. It's not you (usually). We're not mad or sad. We're just tired, especially if we've been picking up overtime. We will bounce back... After posting up with dogs and books in total silence for a minute.

Pharmacy technician here. People need to know more about their own medications. You’d be surprised how many people don’t even know the bare minimum such as what the medication is called, what it’s for, and who prescribed it.

Also, people don’t understand that the primary roll of the pharmacy is to keep you safe. The pharmacy is not the “put the fries in the bag” kind of place that even some prescribers think it is.

We gave up our twenties and took out huge debt to care for people who sometimes demonize and disrespect us.

The bloat in healthcare cost is administration, not doctors, nurses or other healthcare professionals salaries.

As a primary care doc I have thousands of patients to take care of, and 20+ are in-person on any given day. The patients in front of me get 100% of my attention while there. Your paperwork emergency that needs turned in tomorrow that you forgot until today and don’t have an appointment for is unpaid work for me and the last priority on my to-do list after seeing patients, verifying lab results, reviewing notes from specialists or hospital admissions, and answering other patient messages. I feel for people and I do absolutely make exceptions but your lack of planning is not my emergency when I may be dealing with people actively trying to d*e on me in my clinic.
I’m also much less likely to do you a favor and fill it out asap if you’re rude to me or especially my front desk staff.

Paramedics are not taxi drivers.

I wish people whose loved ones have dementia would stop talking to them as if they remember everything, as if they are the exact same people they used to be. I wish they would not get upset when their mom doesn’t remember that their dad already died 10 years ago or blame their loved one for “knowing better“ when they neglect their own health or medication and end up hospitalized.

Do your bowel clean out correctly. The next in the biopsy procedure is pathology and we can't do our job right if you don't.

THE ER IS NOT YOUR PCP.

"I'll wait until it's a problem."

When it becomes a problem, the diagnostics are riskier to perform and it's a less treatable condition.

In maternity - 97% of the time your birth plan isn’t going to be how your birth plays out. We try our best but there’s a reason that pregnancy & birth is no longer a d***h sentence: because interventions exist

Also, after being a midwife for 5 years I’m yet to meet a midwife who doesn’t have best intentions at heart, we’re not out to cause trauma or create a bad experience.

If I’m running behind, I’m frustrated too. It’s either because I needed to spend more time for something urgent or people before you showed up late.

Mental health nurse here, pretty much everybody is a few nights without sleep and some tragic news away from a psychiatric episode.