Shoulda Kept That in the Drafts
When doctors on twitter get it wrong
Earlier this week on everyone’s favorite hellsite, Twitter dot com, user EM_RESUS, an ER doctor tweeted:
“Annoy an ER doctor in one tweet”
What proceeded was a few doctors describing things that their patients have done that have “annoyed” them. This varied from minor things like showing up at 3 AM to major things like demanding further testing.
In no time, it went from doctors commiserating about their shared grievances to patients chiming in about being neglected by medical professionals.
The tweet was doomed from the start. The impetus of the tweet, that a patient can “annoy” you by simply asking for the best care, is one that many doctors share, and it’s a problem.
https://twitter.com/anonymousldb/status/1679593173675540490?s=51&t=kjdC3JWnluImhkpORAH_9w
When I was 19, I was home from college and doing one of my many Jillian Michaels ab workout videos to stay in shape. As I lay on the ground, doing cycling kicks to strengthen my core, I heard a pop and suddenly was doubled over in excruciating pain. I cried out and reached for my phone, and dialed 911. My mother heard me and asked what was going on. To make a long story short, I ended up at the ER driven there by a family friend to save on the bill I would eventually get.
At the ER, I, still doubled over and wincing, explained what had happened. I was immediately treated like a drug seeker instead of someone genuinely in pain. I was asked no less than four times if I was sure I wasn’t just pregnant. I explained that it wasn’t possible, and they of course forced me to do a test before administering pain medication.
When the test came back negative, they gave me morphine and did some imaging which revealed a small yet mighty hernia. I was sent home with some literature and told to be careful the next time I exercised. I had already had surgery for a hernia as a baby which I told them about, still, that history wasn’t enough for them to believe me when I said I was in pain.
When we see tweets or media of doctors talking about just how annoying their patients are, it strikes a chord, because many doctors have fallen victim to bias. Especially when dealing with Black, fat, queer, disabled, or houseless patients. Many doctors operate from a place of disbelief, and it’s your job as a patient to “prove” you really have a problem.
Doctors are annoyed when patients google things about their condition, annoyed when they self-diagnose, annoyed when they ask for MRIs, and annoyed when they ask for more pain meds. Not long ago, a group of labor and delivery nurses were fired because they posted to TikTok a video of them describing their patient “icks,” things that pregnant women did that got on their nerves.
What doctors fail to understand is that they may be annoyed for a split second to an hour, but their patients have likely been suffering for months and years. It should not be an inconvenience to do your job, serving the community you swore to serve.
Under that tweet I mentioned were doctors from all walks of life laughing at desperate patients. It’s one thing to talk about working in a high-stress situation. It’s an entirely different scenario when you make light of other people’s misfortune. These same doctors will scold a patient that has come in with an exacerbated problem that could have been resolved years ago, but that patient was either ignored or was too afraid to “annoy” a doctor.
When you have people going into debt for years for one doctor’s visit, one surgery, it’s downright egregious to see doctors post things like this online. If doctors want to work on the trust between themselves and their patients, they must deal with the unconscious bias that makes them think every other person is drug-seeking or just looking for attention.
The tweet mentioned has since been deleted, go figure.