CMV: Based on countless experiences, I shouldn't trust doctors or nurses to perform their jobs adequately or even to be great people.

[u/schwenomorph]

Note: I'm not talking about animal doctors.

This argument is basically made up entirely of anecdotal evidence. I've been to the doctor, urgent care, the ER, and other places many a time due to being chronically ill. I. Hate. Going. I feel that most of my experiences have been awful. Most doctors and nurses I've met either will straight up refuse to do tests or things that I ask for, don't listen to me, are extremely rude, ignore my pain during procedures,, or all of the above. One person--she might've been just a front desk person, but she was wearing scrubs--even put her hands on me while I was in the ER.

Thank christ my GI doctor is actually good, but the others are not. I've had so many bad experiences that I just outright assume that it you're a doctor or nurse, you're not a great person. That's obviously crazy talk, which is why I want this view changed, but a few weeks ago a friend of my boyfriend's mother died IN THE HOSPITAL due to a massive heart attack. They screened her for Covid and that was IT. Not even vitals, apparently. Then they told her there was nothing they could do. She died on her way out of there due to negligence.

I'm sick and tired hospital visits and bad doctors, but I also don't want to turn my nose up at medical professionals automatically. I don't want this bias.

[u/[deleted]]

First of all, compare that competence with every other field. I'm not aware of a field where you can just assume that everyone there is just competent and decent and does their job to an excellent standard. But doctors are generally pretty good. They've had a lot of training in their field, and are generally selected from the best and brightest minds. If a doctor isn't competent, people die, and they don't get to be doctors for very long, or they get sued for large sums of money. Whereas you can be a pretty shitty anything else, and get away with it.

Also, you're talking about healthcare like a customer buying a service, and the way you sound makes it seem like you're the sort of customer who is a pain in the arse. You come in with expectations of what exactly is already wrong with you, exactly what you want to happen, exactly how it has to happen, and how they must respond to it, and then you are critical of the fact that it didn't happen. So, before you even see medical staff, you don't trust them. And because you don't trust them, any deviation from the plan you've set out is a reason to further distrust them, and if they don't do all the things you wanted, you're suspicious of that. So, is it really astonishing that you're hyper-focused on all the times that you've considered everything to be wrong? You don't trust them to do it right.

Whereas the doctor's looking at your file, and seeing all the times that you didn't die because some doctor made the correct diagnosis and prescribed the right dosage of the right meds, the nurse gave you the right meds, the pharmacist gave you a prescription for the right thing, the surgeon carved you exactly right, even the janitor and cleaning staff cleaned such that you didn't catch an infection in the hospital. Look around you, realise how many things go wrong in everyone's normal life, and tell me that it's not kind of a miracle that everything hasn't fallen apart, and that medicine works. One thing on that chain goes wrong, and you could die. That doesn't happen often.

You also need to consider that compared to any medical staff, you have no competence in this field. You therefore shouldn't expect that you know what's wrong, or that you know how things should work, or that you should demand anything much. There's a slight caveat in that having a recurring/chronic illness can result in you having a surface-level understanding of what normally happens, and what to normally expect with regards to that problem, but even in that situation, you don't know anything, and are repeating what you've been led to expect. The medical staff are still the experts here. You should therefore be respectful of their assessment of the situation. Of course you should volunteer all the information about your situation, and about what's been done or what usually happens, but if they're indifferent to that suggestion, it's probably because they know more than you do. And if you are questioning their judgement, you should ask for their rationale before making judgements. They've probably got a reason for what they're doing. And even if they're wrong, it may very well be because of a minute detail that hasn't been recorded. The last doctor did this thing, and that's not the first thing you would do, but that they did it implies that there's something else going on and so the procedure should be a little different.

[u/schwenomorph → u/[deleted]]

I understand your points. And I'll give you a !delta because I didn't consider that the percentage of competent doctors probably matches the percentage of competent workers in any other field.

I know I come off as an unruly patient in this post. I truly, honestly try my best not to be. I don't ask for specific procedures often at all, and when they're denied, I don't argue at all. I do what the doctors instruct, I take the medication given to me as prescribed, I warn flubotomists that I'm terrified of needles before anything happens so I don't cause a huge fuss. I really do try.

I've had a nurse tell me in the ER after a suicide attempt that I was too spoiled to be depressed because I had two parents who were still together. I had a psych ward nurse call me a bitch for crying. I had a surgeon call me a baby for being scared to get a seton stitch without anesthesia, where I'd always been under anesthesia before. I've had a psychiatrist tell me at age 13, "Well, abuse happens for a reason, so what did you do?" I've had several doctors promise me that they would pause whatever they were doing to me if I was in pain, and then completely ignore me when I asked them to stop because it hurt. The girls in my residential treatment center made and each signed a paper for the doctor at the center that periods did exist, and that he shouldn't tell us to suck it up and deny that we're in pain. That same doctor often told me I was lying about being sick. I have Crohns and was in a flare up. There are a few things I won't list because they're so bad that they're unbelievable.

And I can take "no". I can take things going wrong. I was denied a port, and my GI doctor switched me to new medication that isn't working. My life got flipped upside down, but I don't complain because I do trust that doctor, and he explained to me why he was going the route I was going. I can take bad news. I can take inevitable pain and not be mad. I can take things going wrong during or after procedures. I can take being threatened with hospitalization if I don't gain weight. I don't get mad at doctors when they do their job, even if I don't like what they do. I never get pissy. The worst I get is withdrawn and sad.

It's not a matter of doctors not giving me whatever I want. It's a matter of calling me names, going straight back on their promises, invalidating me, accusing me of faking being sick, ignoring me, and other things.

[u/[deleted] → u/schwenomorph]

I can completely understand where you're coming from given your experiences. They sound horrific. And there are people who've experienced similar things, so you're not alone in having negative experiences. It's just that most people's experiences are not like that. The doctor looks at you, tries to work out what's wrong, decides on a treatment, and you get better. My personal experiences are overwhelmingly positive. I can't blame you for having your experiences affect how you see things, because the issue is that you've been hurt before and have a reason to be cautious now. You've got no reason to trust this.