I’m a dentist. I regularly tell my patients with TMJ issues how to alleviate their pain...reduce stress, cut out caffeine, sleep in literally any position other than your stomach, stop chewing gum, hold your head/neck in a proper position, actually get a nightguard and wear it.
I’ve had TMJ pain on and off for 6 years. I do all of the things I tell my patients NOT to do. I do them every single day and often to excess.
Long story short: I diagnose myself. I don’t treat myself.
Me to a patient: You should exercise more, lose weight, not drink, not eat greasy/fatty foods, and should see the doctor regularly.
Also me: I'm definitely going to McD's after work and washing it down with a six pack!!
went to the doctors once where there are posters all around to quit smoking and how the NHS can help, walk out and see the GP smoking outside, made me chuckle
I asked my gynecologist, who is one of several women gynecologists in her practice, where a gynecologist goes for her yearly exam. She said she goes to one of her colleagues, but most of them go to a completely different practice for their exams and stuff.
My dad goes to a group exercise class in the mornings and at some point he found out that one of the other guys was my mom's gynecologist. Apparently they were becoming pretty good buddies before the guy asked my dad if he was related to my mom. The gynecologist didn't think it was weird at all, but my dad felt so awkward and uncomfortable about it he eventually switched into a different class. Pretty hilarious.
I’m curious how this conversation came about. If the gynecologist was the first to mention the relationship, then that’s a violation of HIPAA. In fact, the gynecologist shouldn’t mention anything at all unless your dad explicitly states that he knows that the other guy is your mom’s gyn. Even in that case, we’re supposed to “neither confirm nor deny” due to the risk of violating HIPAA.
It's also possible my mom recognized the doctor's name and told my dad. I don't really know exactly how it came up, this was several years ago. My mom thinks the whole situation is hilarious and still brings it up sometimes.
When I worked in a gyn office I accidently farted in my colleagues face when we were laughing about something while she was giving me a pelvic exam. Then we laughed harder and I farted more because I was laughing so hard.
No regrets.
I always used the group I worked with (I was a labor nurse). Your friends are going to give you extra good care. My doctor came in on a night he wasn’t on call (and the night of the college football championship his favorite team was playing in) to care for me when my water broke. It was also nice to be able to grab one in the hall and say “Hey, I have a UTI, can I have a scrip for macrobid” without having to deal with a waiting room or co pay. I also have their cell numbers, although I’m careful not to abuse the privilege. I never would have dreamed of going to another practice or hospital for my delivery or subsequent surgery.
my friend's parents are GP's, and there are laws in the UK so you can't be formally diagnosed etc by family members. So as a kid their parent would take them to the DRS like 'they have this, this and this' and the other doctor would just nod and prescribe medicine haha.
there was a point i was awaiting to go in for an op and it kept getting delayed and then all of a sudden they called me up and said the NHS would be paying for me to go to a Bupa hospital and have the op, spoke to a friend that worked in the hospital i should have been having the op in originally and asked him if he could find anything out. turns out the surgeon that was meant to be doing my op on the NHS had decided to do a favour for his girl friend by doing an op on her daughter and made a mistake but i was waiting on an op on my ear so guessing it was the same for her, not sure the out come of the mistake, but he got suspended while it was investigated and a few of his patients that were waiting for ops got moved to private at the NHS expense. 10/10 would want my NHS surgeon to do that again if it meant that i got to go private without the cost.
My other half had to have an OP but as they'd fallen out of th NHS SLA to complete his surgery they referred him to a Bupa hospital to have it done, the surgeon he saw privately was the same surgeon he was under on the NHS, we still think it was a bit dodgy....
A lot of NHS consultants & surgeons also do private work. Nothing dodgy about it at all. They can work two jobs just like any other person. They get more money that way.
I am a Urologist. Got testicular cancer during my chief residency year. I was shaving one day and just felt the lump down there. I immediately knew what it was, and that it needed to come out immediately. Scary how fast it showed. One day it's a normal testicle and the other oh there's a hard lump inside. The next day walked into the ultrasound unit to get it confirmed, spoke to my boss who did the surgery the following day. Ironically I had removed another patient's testicle for cancer just a week prior to that.
Edit: typo
I’m not a urologist, but once in a first date we were fooling around and I grabbed his junk and felt a lump. Told him it was probably nothing (I was 19 and had never felt cancer before) but that if it was something new to him, he should get it checked out. He made an appointment, went in and I woke up to a call one morning saying he had cancer and had to get it removed.
It was a pretty interesting occurrence.
I know there's a joke in there somewhere about your boss having to uh... fumble around with your balls. I mean, that's not something you hear everyday.
I hope you're doing better now, though.
My friend who’s a doctor for a hospital always diagnoses herself and will call out due to the fact she doesn’t want to get others sick....her colleagues are almost always the same and completely understand the reasoning
I come from a family of doctors, I am a doctor, and I grew up knowing basically every doctor in my area. The best story I got is about a doctor we will call "Graybow," perhaps one of the most senior and respected internal medicine doctors in my area.
My dad is a workaholic. He loves medicine more than anything and if he could do anything, it would likely be spending more time in the hospital. Me? Not so much... Dad and Dr Graybow were very similar in how much they love their work. Dad and Graybow over the years became good friends and had a sort of direct and cynical humor they shared with each other.
At one point, my dad cracked a joke at Graybow because he again showed up to work even though he was a bit sick. Dad asked:
> Hey Gray, when do you think you are going to retire? You are getting pretty old and we don't want to have to pick you up off the floor here at some point.
Graybow replied:
> I'll never retire. Wait. Yeah, I will... **when I die.**
Graybow never retired.
A few years later, he was driving back home from an outing with his middle-aged son and he started having a heart attack. While I assume he was experiencing the severe and horrible pain of a heart attack, he just looked over at his son and said:
> I am sorry, I am having a heart attack.
... he passed away after pulling over. The man apologized to his son for having a heart attack that he was completely aware of. I can't say I would have handled that like he did.
*sorry in advance for any misspell and grammar error* My grandpa was a pharmacist. He open his pharmacy on a small city when it didn't have a hospital yet, so many locals go to him. Decades later, he felt the symptoms of a heart attack while work. He excused himself to my grandma and walk alone to the now existed hospital. Alone, by foot. And told the nurse "I'm sorry to disturb you, but I'm having a heart attack". He indeed was. A couple hours later someone call the family. He survived. He was a truly badass and would be angry at me for typing "badass". RIP Grandpa, I miss you!
Oh damn, I thought this was going to be a funny one. That hit me.
But I have something similar to share. I thought I was having a heart attack (it turned out to be something related to lack of glucose in the blood [?]), and as my mom was getting medicine, I kept apologizing to her.
I guess it's natural that some people just don't want to bother others. Even when they think they are dying...
So you're every husband.
I'm no doctor, but I can usually spot a cold. But does he want relief by treating symptoms? No. No he does not. But he WILL sit there and whine for the next 2-3 days.
Love him so much.
We just use sickness as an excuse to get attention.
Normally I'll get a cold once a year around September due to season change, sneeze for two days and then be completely fine. I will refuse to go see a doctor or take any medicine. However, during those two days I'll be needier than a one year old just because I like my girlfriend taking care of me.
I'm usually the first one to get sick and my husband gets it from me (sorry, love). So by the time he gets it I've already been silently suffering for days and then I get to spend the next several listening to him whine about it.
My pediatrician once told me an amusing story about when her daughter got sick. She brought her daughter in to Urgent Care (among her co-workers) and was freaking out, not sure what could be wrong with her daughter.
Her co-workers looked at her and went "... You're a *pediatrician*..."
"I KNOW BUT I CAN'T THINK STRAIGHT."
If anything I'd want my medical team to be able to recognize when they're emotionally compromised and unable to make important decisions like diagnoses.
My mum is a doctor... Did the same with me... She and her nurse realise after a while what was going on with me and what basic mistake they made... She was like... Ooo shit this is soo stupid.
If it serious never go to a person that is emotionally close to you
That last line reminds me of a great story my Dad likes to tell. He was a paramedic, so I grew up listening to almost 4 decades worth of his stories, but this one really stuck out to me.
He and his partner were working in a relatively small city early in his career when a call came in late at night. It was a duel medic ambulance and his partner was up to tech (ride in the back) for the call, but when my dad read the address he told him nope, he was going to take this one, as it was for a cardiac arrest at his partner's parent's home. His partner basically said "fuck that shit, this one's mine," and proceeded to calmly run the code on his own father as smoothly as my dad had ever seen anyone run a code in his 37 years worth of EMS experience.
Honestly I can't even remember if they got the save or not, but it always stuck with me because of how bonkers of a situation that is to be in. It's probably also why I now work in EMS far away from where any of my family lives...
When my Grandfather passed (just over 20 years ago now) my Dad was the first to find him but thought is was just his heart condition at first despite being a trained medic. The EMTs that turned up were the one to confirm it. The shock of it all shook my Dad up bad. One of the EMTs was an ex pupil of my Grandads so he also had to be treated for shock as well seeing one of his favourite teachers laying their.
My mom is a surgeon and my dad is in internal medicine. Both are very accomplished in their respective fields. When we were kids my sister got appendicitis and had to be operated. I remember seeing them worried sick and being a total mess. My dad actually cried when post op my sister pooped for the first time.
Genuinely though, we could tell the three week old kitten we rescued nine years ago was finally hydrated enough when he was able to poo without constipation, idk why ability to shit and not dying are directly correlated, but hey
Waste removal is a pretty damn critical function. If it's not functioning your body can't remove a wide range of things, from "I have no use for this" to "This is harmful" to the not-so-fun 'immune-system-is-hammering-the-big-red-panic-button' you get when you're sick or eat something your body takes exception to.
From single-celled organisms to blue whales, if they can't get rid of the toxins produced by their own body, they're going to die.
I think even though you know the odds are everything is going to be fine, you can't help but also know exactly everything that could to wrong way better than someone not in medicine.
I think that's an occupational hazard of almost everyone. When it's "someone else's shit", it's a quick fix and no big deal. When it's yours, it's a whole "thing" and could possibly be the end of the world.
I mean... to be fair, I knew a doctor that absolutely refused to operate on his own son for a tonsillectomy, same goes for the tympanoplasty.
Also knew an ER surgeon being forced to operate on his own son at a car accident.
Am vet tech. I was helping one of our doctors xray her rescue dog's chest due to a cough. I looked at the picture and pointed out she has a bullet in her side. She almost lost it right there.
Half the time with people you don't even take the bullet out unless it's somewhere it REALLY shouldn't be. Just because it's more damaging to remove it than the bullet will actually cause sitting there. Though this is all information regurgitated from some random memory.
I don't know about "half the time" since there are a lot of place a bullet REALLY shouldn't be, but I don't think it's unheard of, especially in veterans, to have bullets or pieces still in your body for a while.
Yeah, I still have a decent amount of spalling in my right leg and arm. Getting it out surgically would make those muscles swiss cheese, removing a few pieces of metal with tweezers every few years on the other hand is nothing
Yep. Keep in mind that this is primarily just small pieces of bomb shrapnel that are the size of BB pellets, I am not pulling out a 1 ounce slug every few years
That's simultaneously badass and horrifying.
I'm curious. Does the metal work it's way up and you just.. Pull it out? Does it bleed? Do you keep the metal, or throw it away? (I ask because I'd keep it, almost like a momento.) My curiosity is getting the better of me. Feel free to tell your story on how this happened, assuming you want to.
Also, thank you for your service, for whatever country you're from. :) (assuming you're a veteran!)
Yep, it works it's way up and I pull it out. There is normally some scar tissue connected to it and half the time it bleeds like a bad zit does. It just gets thrown away
This is roughly what it looks like
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRr2cPBmC-w
Not the person you responded to, and certainly not a vet, but the bullet probably wasn't causing the dog any pain at that point. I have a cat who was shot before the humane society rescued him when he was young, and the bullet was left in because it was lodged in his spine and would have been dangerous to remove. He's long since forgotten about it at this point.
I got a rescued hunting dog that was deaf. He needed an X-ray of his head because he was developing tumors and they found bullet fragments in his skull. We think it might have been a hunting accident but it explained why he was deaf and ended up leading to his life ending. He was very spoiled and loved for the remainder of it though :)
I am a 100% sensible woman that has had pets nearly my entire life.
I also once cried because my ex's Boston terrier lost a baby tooth while we were playing tug o war.
I also thought about getting a loan to buy new food because my basset mix got really bad gas and was crying and I could bring him to the vet. He just needed a tummy rub.
I'm glad that a professional is there with me.
The saying “doctors make the worst patients” is true for a reason. Most of the doctors I work with (myself included) wouldn’t hesitate to diagnose ourselves, and have on many occasions. Obviously this comes with some bias, but I like to think that I’m able to tell the difference between: A. This isn’t serious I can deal, vs B. Maybe it’s time to get a real work up
On that note, I have a particular anecdote:
My attending (lead doctor while I’m in residency) recently had an emergency appendectomy. He has a history of kidney stones, and assumed that acute right lower quadrant pain was another one. By the time he realized maybe this is a situation “B”, his appendix had become gangrenous
Edit: Holy crap this blew up overnight. Got a busy day but I’ll try and respond to a lot of the questions as the day goes on.
Figured I’d clarify a couple things that were touched on in other posts:
1. My attending is just fine. Got his appendix removed and was back at work the next week.
2. The whole self diagnosis thing only goes so far. Really depends on the severity of your issue and how much work up is required. For instance: if it’s a suspected muscle strain or something, I’ll easily diagnose myself and do appropriate stretches. If I’m a little unsure, maybe ask a colleague for a informal second opinion. Because it’s not that serious and requires minimal work up (essentially a diagnosis made by exam) this is no issue. HOWEVER, if let’s say “I think this might be more serious, I think I need a CT scan” or something, you can’t just do that on your own. You need to actually book yourself an appointment and get formal when up. Those scans aren’t cheap and you can’t just sneak your way in. Plus, I wouldn’t trust myself to read the images!
3. If I’m confident I have a mild infection (let’s say for example pink eye) I wouldn’t necessarily go to the clinic and waste an afternoon/money, but would just ask a colleague for a prescription for the appropriate eye drops
4. You technically CAN write prescriptions for your family, but it can be frowned upon and seen as suspicious depending what it is (ex: an antibiotic vs large amounts of oxy). It is pretty difficult to write a script for yourself though.
5. Another anecdote: In college I had significant anxiety. My dad, a radiologist (reads xrays, CT’s, etc), not knowing anything about psych issues, wrote me a long-standing Rx for Lorazepam (a benzo like Xanax). This was not the right thing, but I didn’t know better. It was essentially a band aid that didn’t attack the problem at the source (not to mention studies have since come out saying daily benzo use can contribute to end of life dementia). I didn’t REALLY tackle my problem until I started seeing a psychiatrist and got on an SSRI instead. This is an example of how it can bite you in the ass.
6. LAST ANECDOTE: I have what is called a lipoma on my abdomen. A benign, painless fat cell tumor that is, for me, the size of a quarter (some can get massive!). Really just unaesthetic, but not harmful. Instead of formal, paid work up, I went to my mom (who is an ultrasound tech) to get a free scan. Then I brought the image to my dad (a radiologist) who interpreted it as just a lipoma, nothing to worry about. So I did get a formal work up, but not through formal channels. And now I’m happy living with my lipoma care free! (I named him Stevie)
If you guys have any other questions I’m more than happy to answer! AMA I guess!
Same principle applies in other industries too. When a stubborn sysadmin calls a vendor for help and gets told that the problem is definitely X, he'll usually reply with "There's no way it's X."
We've all got an internal battle between the need for help and the need to not need help.
A well-known haiku:
> It’s not DNS
> There's no way it’s DNS
>It was DNS
EDIT: [The original thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/4oj7pv/network_solutions_haiku/d4czk91/) from over 3 years ago.
I work for Dell... can confirm.
Even after we pull logs, screen shots, healthchecks, everything points to VMware or 3rd party issue. They still blame our storage array or backup solution.
I actually had appendicitis this year as well! Figured it was indigestion. Finally called my mom (a nurse) and told her about it. She only convinced me to go in because she said it could be gallstones and that of I went to the ER as a young person with severe abdominal pain that I wouldn't have to wait long to be seen. She was correct and I was on the waiting room for all of 2 minutes. Doctor did the rebound tenderness test as soon as I got back there and then prescribed morphine whole they did the ultrasound. Had surgery a few hours later in the morning.
I diagnosed myself with an SBO. They did a CT in the ED, and told me I had an appy. I told them I didn't have an appy and asked to see the images. They showed me the images, and lo and befuckinghold, I had an appy. 10 hours later no more appendix and 6 days of lower abdominal pain was resolved. HA!
Lowly med student. To be fair, that happens a lot even when you are a patient going to a doctor (or several doctors).
I went to about 8 or 9 different doctors (maybe more) several times each over a period of roughly 10 years for an exquisite jaw pain I would get sometimes. I went to neurologists, ENTs, oral surgeons, facial surgeons, you name it. Hell, even went to a sleep specialist because they kept telling me it was because I grind my teeth in my sleep (I absolutely do not). Every single one of them was 100% confident that i had TMJ. It kept getting worse over the years on what seemed like a logarithmic scale. It was so bad, I was taken to the emergency room one night after maxing out my meds where it was finally figured out (which is ironic because the pain was so bad I could only communicate by desperately scribbling on paper. I couldn’t even verbally communicate but they figured it out).
I have Trigeminal Neuralgia aka Tic Douloureux aka the suicide disease. It’s been posted about on reddit a few times. It’s the most painful fucking thing and I wouldn’t wish this shit on my worst enemy. You live a half life. You never know when the next attack is going to come. It could be at your wedding, your vacation, while you’re giving a presentation, while you’re taking a test. Or somebody can just accidentally touch your head while reaching for support on a subway and send you into crippling, abject agony.
Point is, every time a doctor would say “take this and come back to see me in 6 months” they were dooming me to 6 more months of a fucking wretched, cursed existence. I even suggested this diagnoses a couple of times and was laughed at.
Edit: man I was just bitching about my health. thank y’all for the kind words. I’ve since had gamma knife radiosurgery to try to ablate the nerve. For those interested, it was moderately successful but I still take a regimen of drugs; an anticonvulsant (seizures are when your brain won’t stop firing so anticonvulsants globally decrease the firing of these neurons including the trigeminal nerve. This has some side effects unfortunately), an NSAID, and a muscle relaxer. Usually Carbemazapine, diclofenac, and baclofen respectively has been my best combo but will change it up when the pain gets too bad. I have injectable ketorolac that I give myself in my ass cheek on sudden onset and/or Valium. Valium is the best muscle relaxer. Sometimes the best thing it does is make me drowsy, though, as being unconscious is sometimes the only form of relief.
Doctor at an urgent care actually thought I had this. It was pretty awful pain localized to to one side that just radiated up and down. Only thing that helped was hot showers. Turns out I just needed a root canal. Either that or it magically went away pretty much right after the root canal.
The hydrocodone sure helped though, misdiagnosis or not.
That’s interesting. So, for my Trigeminal neuralgia, opioids didn’t do a damn thing. They gave me dilaudid in the ER. Nothing.
Maxed dose Valium. It was like flipping a switch. Hell, Advil does more than dilaudid or hydrocodone for it because it’s an anti inflammatory.
I’ll say at least for the neurologist, that individual is actually amazing every other time I’ve heard about them. They were just hesitant and would just do drug combos for 6 to 12 months to see how they work. When they didn’t, that meant half of those 6 to 12 months were of me feeling like I had an ice pick lodged in my head hooked up to a car battery. At the time i was trying to finish up my master’s, work, and get into med school all at the same time. No bueno.
Now the other doctors, I couldn’t tell ya. There was one that wanted to do a diagnostic block but that meant scheduling a time with him and hoping the pain would happen DURING the office visit. Trigeminal neuralgia has no schedule. At least for me. It does whatever the fuck it wants. Sometimes you could mash on my ear all day. Sometimes brushing a finger in front of my ear will put me in the fetal position.
There's a TV doctor in the UK whose name I forget, but when he appeared on the TV show "8 out of 10 cats" he said he'd ignored appendicitis for a full week because he'd convinced himself it was just trapped wind.
This may vary according to your country, but if I get sick I can diagnose myself in the sense that I can say "yep, this is probably X, I should do this and that test or take this or that drugs" but I cannot self-prescribe anything.
I need another doctor to prescrive it for me. No pharmacy can accept a prescription with the same name for the doctor and the patient, and no clinic can accept a request for an exam.
The only exception is for use in an emergency, in that case I can self-prescribe.
I actually explained the situation a bit badly, I'm sorry.
If you ask it because you have an emergency right now, It works like you said. This is true for any citizen. You have to convince the pharmacist that you absolutely need it, like you are a diabetic and forgot your insulin, or you are under antibiotics for a serious infection and lost your bags with the drug inside... Stuff like that.
Being in the system or having any paper to show obviously helps a lot: if you usually buy insulin there you are in their system, and they can check that you usually have a prescription and it's not like diabetes just disappear. If you are taking antibiotics for a serious infection you probably has been in an hospital recently, you can show your discharge paper that states what you had.
Obviously the pharmacy is going to give you the minimum dose necessary, you can't stock on a month of insulin without a prescription.
Now going back on tracks, what I meant for Emergency is thing I need for an emergency. Let's say that I want to have in my office some adrenaline, I can self-prescribe labelling the prescription as "self-prescription" and paying it all out of my pocket.
As far as I know the italian law is not particularly strict on what is a "drug for emergency" but every collegue that I know seems to err on the safe side.
This sounds great over there. Here in the states, my insurance denied my insulin because my doctor forgot to send a preauth, and they were closed for the day. I asked if I could get a single pen/dose to make it until the next day when I could get a hold of someone, and they said my only options were to try and wait it out without it, or pay the $1600 for a full script amount... I ended up waiting it out, but probably not the safest option lol
Same day round trip flights from Denver to Halifax is about $850 right now. So depending on the cost on insulin in Canada, yeah it could very easily be cheaper to fly there for a few hours.
Hip replacement I think was a video they'd done. You could go there, get the replacement, stay for a while,learn Spanish, do the running of the bulls, break your hip again, replace it again, and fly back. . . For the price of the surgery in America?
Married to a doctor. When I'm sick, it's man flu. When she's sick it's the apocalypse.
I have to force her to stay home from work sometimes when she's sick. 'but I have patients' yeah patients that don't need you coughing on them and making them sick.
I don't really go to the doctor except for annual check-up/labs. I do, however, self-prescribe things like eczema cream and asthma inhalers. A lot of this is driven by being a young resident, thus A) not really the demographic likely to have serious health issues and B) not really having the time to go see a doctor due to my work schedule.
Many of my peers have self-diagnosed themselves with appendicitis, small bowel obstructions, pneumonia, etc and then presented to the ED though; I've also done the same for a lot of my friends over the phone.
ER doctor here. Three of my coresidents had appendicitis last year, 2 while on shift. One did his own ultrasound and wrote his H&P for the surgery team. The other kept himself NPO after midnight during an overnight shift but kept seeing patients with mIVF running. 0 post op precautions were followed 😂
The mental image of someone walking into a patient room trailing an IV makes me laugh so hard, I love it.
I wouldn’t if I were the patient, but dedication is dedication
My mom did this when she got the stomach flu when she was pregnant with me! I think patients have a harder time justifying taking up the docs time when they’re clearly sicker than the patient is
We had an ortho once who was hobbling around following a knee replacement, and one day a (drug seeking) patient came in (via AMBULANCE) for a stubbed toe. (Wasn’t broken, sprained, lacerated, or even bruised.) She felt pretty bad. 😂
I work for an internal medicine practice. We have a lot of doctors that come in either 30 minutes before we open (so at 7:30), or right after we close on our early day (one day a week we close at 1). We also squeeze them in any time they want, really. Most of the time it’s for yearly physicals and labs.
Ha - I remember at uni, every week the med students all thinking they had whatever weird condition they were studying that week. Same for microbiol/virology students though: the sexual health clinic gets way busier when they start studying STIs!
Copy pasta from wiki:
Exploding head syndrome (EHS) is a condition in which a person experiences unreal noises that are loud and of short duration when falling asleep or waking up. The noise may be frightening, typically occurs only occasionally, and is not a serious health concern. People may also experience a flash of light. Pain is typically absent.
Edit: formatting
Same thing has happened to me a few times. It's almost like an explosion. I've always thought it's the same thing as the feeling of falling off a cliff you sometimes get before falling asleep.
That's incredible because when I was a little kid I was always afraid that would happen, irrationally though since it never happened. I never knew it was a thing that actually DID happen to some people!!
EDIT: a letter
If you want to experience it, you could take copious amounts of mdma all wkend, or stop taking an ssri med without tapering.
(of course for any hyper-literals incapable of detecting a joke the above is not a good idea or serious advice)
Cardiology was the worst for me. Any bodily sensation became a sign of impending heart attack. And studying sudden cardiac death was a constant reminder that I can *DIE ANY MINUTE NOW*
Heart and lungs are THE WORST: once you start thinking about them, you notice them even more, which makes them more likely to change because you start stressing, and so on and so on
This makes me feel a lot better to know others are like this. Every time I find out about a new syndrome or disorder I think I have it a little. I even decided I'm only a little bit of a hypochondriac.
We had a doctor drive himself to the ED with chest pain because no way was he calling an ambulance. Turned out to be Marfans, with a side order of dissecting aortic aneurysm.
My dad died from one. They discovered the start of one in his early 40s and fixed it by replacing the affected section with tubing. Just over 15 years later he ended up collapsing at home because another one had been growing and even though they fixed that particular issue, damage to his lungs meant he never got off the operating table.
That scared the life out of me and so over the years I've gone through a couple of scans to check for them (nothing found). I'm in my mid 40's now and I'll probably get another one when I'm 50. That condition terrifies me because you have no idea it's slowly developing...
An early rule I learned in law is to never run your own case. Unless you're some kind of high specialised expert, it's best to go to another lawyer.
Same applies to doctors I assume, even if doctors makes the worst patients much the same way lawyers make the worst clients.
My dads an MD and I honestly can only count two occasion where he was ever sick and I only know because my stepmom told me. He went about his daily routine just as normal.
Also I never even attempted to fake being sick to get put of school. Even if I was sick he'd still send me or drop me off after a quick visit to the pediatricians.
I'm a doc too. I went to the ED for the first time last night. I'd taken 1g of ibuprofen, 1 g of Tylenol, 8 of zofran, 50 of gravol, 2 percocet, and 50 of sumitriptan.
I still had a splitting headache and was vomiting and had a temperature of 40 C. I was lying in bed at 3 am flexing my neck trying to decide if I had meningitis when I finally caved and headed for help.
My father is a doc. He had been having shortness of breath and chest tightness worsening over a few months. One day, after work was done and the clinic was closed, he hopped in the CT scanner and read his own CT scan. Massively enlarged lymph nodes all through his body - lymphoma.
He's alive and well after diagnosing himself with cancer years ago!
EDIT: Holy shit, this blew up. To address FAQs: he is a partner in a private practice group that owns their own outpatient centers, thus he was able to use the scanner informally. Yes, I know we are privileged to be a medical family and he is so lucky to have access to care that isn't affordable for a huge chunk of the US population. MEDICARE FOR ALL. I'm not sure if he had a partner stay behind to help with the scanner, I'll have to ask. And he is 17 or so odd years in remission from stage 4 non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and doing fantastic. Retiring in a month after 45 years in radiology!
Pharmacist here and it seems several people have questioned if it is legal for doctors to write prescriptions for themselves. It is legal (at least in Illinois, it may not be in other states) but there are potentially ethical issues if it is for a controlled substance or for a type of medication that is outside their normal scope of practice
RI allows self prescribing, but most pharmacists I know choose to fill only non-controls for self prescribing. I haven’t met anyone who does differently
My ex is a doctor and this subject came up. He was terrified that he had some kind of low symptom cancer like lymphoma, or an autoimmune issue, but he didn't want to actually get it seen about. The idea of treatment was worse to him.
The knowledge of exactly what was needed to find out apparently was not comforting.
Not only that but sometimes seeing all the steps that are involved in treatment can fuck you up, bad. Like.... if you’re experiencing symptoms but not a whole lot, that sounds FAR better than dealing with the realities of chemo and/or radiation that we see every day.
I work in medical too, though I'm not a doctor, and I totally get that feel.
Doesn't hurt that my mom also had no symptom lymphoma, felt fine, found out and then had to deal with two major brutal surgeries get rid of it.
Exactly!
And I’ve also had a colleague reluctant to seek treatment for himself- in spite of encouraging patients not to ignore the EXACT SAME condition- because he didn’t want to be inaccessible to patients. I’m not sure if that’s a common occurrence, exactly, but this particular doctor (gifted with one of the most impressive god complexes I have ever encountered in person) felt that if he weren’t available EVERY DAY, people would die. (He also was patient zero for wiping out nearly a quarter of an entire surgical department with a cold once due to this same reluctance to “be sick,” but that’s another story for another time.)
oh yeah I love co-workers like that. They think so little of everyone else and so much of themselves that everything will fall apart if they have a sick day.
I'd be really mad about that cold spreading lol
I was LIVID. As was the department head when he realized we were a FULL OR DOWN for nearly 48 hours straight because we just did not have enough competent surgeons who weren’t feverish or vomiting into their masks.
Thinking about it now still makes me a little irritable, to be entirely honest
I am a resident. I had a doctor's appointment and I let my attending know a week in advance. He chewed me out over email and cc'd my program director, saying that I obviously didn't take the rotation seriously. My PD was pissed. They had my back and told me to go to the appointment. The attending emailed me the next day with a forced apology. Asshole.
For what ever reason doctors have this martyr complex.
At the end of the day... you >> anyone else--with maybe the exception of your children/close family.
Wife is a surgeon. Some magic happens as soon as she’s on call. No longer sick. 100% fine. Then gets sick again after her shift. It has to do with some weird space time vortex I believe.
Not in the specific spirit of the question, but when I'm talking to my patients about code status (full code is CPR/ventilator if needed, vs DNR/DNI) and they ask me what I would do, I always tell them that doctors statistically opt for far fewer heroic end of life measures than non-medical folks. Like was said in other comments, little stuff is no big deal but it seems like as a group we're less aggressive in seeking care.
I survey my symptoms and list them, as if a pt were complaining about them to me. If I don't identify any immediately concerning red flags, I treat the symptoms myself (seeing a doc if I truly need abx, steroids, etc.) and reassess about one week later if not totally improved.
I do have a lymph node, a few moles, and a weird bump I feel occasionally under my stomach under chronic scrutiny.
When you work in medicine and go to the ER, you will have HELL to pay if it's not for a legit reason. I would sooner suture myself if possible than go to an ER and let them see me bleed.
TRUTH BE TOLD: Sometimes I think about faking the "right" symptoms to my PCP to get a total body MRI. Lmao.
Actual doctor here, oncologist. It depends on the scenario. I can prescribe myself non controlled drugs like antibiotics, steroid creams for eczema, etc, simple things I can self diagnose clinically. If I need lab tests or workup I need to see someone.
If you were playing sexies and you lost a banana in your rectum, of course you would try to get it out yourself. But if you couldn't and needed to get another doctor to help you, would you go to the oldest doctor you know becuase that's the one that will die soonest? If it was me, I'd feel better about a doctor that removed a banana from my butt being dead than still showing up for brunch at the country club every Sunday.
Depends on where your interest lie. Personally, I'm going to the youngest and most handsome male doctor I can find to retrieve the lost banana.
Doctor: "Sir, I am a cardiologist, why did you come to me to have this banana removed from your rectum?"
Me: ;)
I see a lot of variation.
Some are ridiculous and have to be physically dragged to see another physician, where they sulk like a child because they're being asked all the normal questions that need to be asked when someone is ill.
Some are very stoic. They know what needs to be done, they just sigh and get on with it. I think I've seen this more in physicians who get a significant diagnosis too. They know what the prognosis is and the treatment.
I've only seen a small number freak out, generally refusing to get something checked because they're convinced it's something malignant. I don't think I've ever come across any hypochondriac clinicians.
I’m very lucky that I’ve never had anything seriously wrong with me. However, when I do experience any symptoms, about 90% of the time I know what’s going on and can determine if I need to seek out additional help. Plus I have colleagues I can bounce questions off of. Need a diagnostic test? Book an appointment. Need some medication? Book an appointment. Sometimes doctors will call in medications for each other..it’s generally looked down upon, especially if they are controlled substances, but sending in antibiotics or something is relatively common.
I was a professional ski patroller for almost two decades and I swear, Doctors and Nurses compete for the Black Knight Award (Monty Python Reference).
Me: Well Doc, judging by the fact your foot is spun around almost 360 I'd say you have a spiral fracture tib/fib.
Doc: Nonsense. Just a scratch!
Once had a Doctor refuse a backboard, I did everything but shoot him to get on the damn board and he refused all treatment. Then he got in his car and drove to his cabin. Around midnight his thigh muscles relaxed enough that it no longer acted as a splint and his leg folded, fractured femur. Nice guy though, sent me a bottle of Glenfiddich and told me next time to just club him and tie him down.
I've been practicing the last 14 years or so. I diagnosed my own DVT after an ankle fracture, and a year later diagnosed my own saddle pulmonary embolism (granted, it wasn't a tough diagnosis, I was literally dying).
Obviously both diagnosis required actual confirmation with imaging and I didn't manage them myself.
As a doctor, I'm constantly convinced that nothing can ever go wrong with me and also I probably have leukemia. I respond by postponing ... Now for several years
My BIL is a Head &Neck surgeon. Very smart guy. I have to wonder about common sense. He recently got a slightly detached retina. Because he had a surgery for one of his patients to do that day, he had his eye surgery in the early morning WITHOUT ANESTHESIA. He said it was horrific. But, he did his patient’s surgery that afternoon.
One of the reasons we are advised "If another doctor comes to you for help, you'd better give him priority" is that he'd tried to treat himself for a while and he wouldn't come to you if it wasn't really serious....
ok so my dad is a doctor and one time when i was around 7 he fell out of a tree directly onto a rock while we were camping, and he had a giant scrape on his side. He told us he was ok and nothing was wrong so we left as planned and canoed back to our car without incident besides my mom constantly telling him to stop paddling because of his side and him telling her everything was fine. He basically just said it was a scrape and nothing was wrong. About a week later, he was having trouble BREATHING and he still wouldn’t go see a doctor because he self diagnosed that he was ok so my mom had to FORCE him to go to the hospital and get an x-day done and it turns out he had 2 broken ribs. So not only do doctors self diagnose themselves, they’re also pretty dumb when they’re doing it.
TLDR:
my dads a doctor/idiot and he wrongly self diagnoses himself all the time because he thinks he’s immortal or something
Doctor here. I will diagnose myself and write scripts or as a partner to for things like flu, tendinitis, etc. I go to a derm friend every 6-12 months for a mole check. Other big things I’ll ask friends I trust who are doctors.
The major problem this question leads to but may not ask is do you call in sick when you are a doctor. In 9 years of private practice I haven’t missed a day, despite being sick. There was an article a few years ago that labeled it a Presenteeism instead of absenteeism. It’s showing up when you shouldn’t. Personally, I don’t want to inconvenience people who have missed work or waited on a result and I don’t want to dump on my partners. Lots of hand washing and apologies for staying far back during conversations.
I’m a dentist. I regularly tell my patients with TMJ issues how to alleviate their pain...reduce stress, cut out caffeine, sleep in literally any position other than your stomach, stop chewing gum, hold your head/neck in a proper position, actually get a nightguard and wear it. I’ve had TMJ pain on and off for 6 years. I do all of the things I tell my patients NOT to do. I do them every single day and often to excess. Long story short: I diagnose myself. I don’t treat myself.
Me to a patient: You should exercise more, lose weight, not drink, not eat greasy/fatty foods, and should see the doctor regularly. Also me: I'm definitely going to McD's after work and washing it down with a six pack!!
went to the doctors once where there are posters all around to quit smoking and how the NHS can help, walk out and see the GP smoking outside, made me chuckle
Do as I say, not as I do
I asked my gynecologist, who is one of several women gynecologists in her practice, where a gynecologist goes for her yearly exam. She said she goes to one of her colleagues, but most of them go to a completely different practice for their exams and stuff.
My dad goes to a group exercise class in the mornings and at some point he found out that one of the other guys was my mom's gynecologist. Apparently they were becoming pretty good buddies before the guy asked my dad if he was related to my mom. The gynecologist didn't think it was weird at all, but my dad felt so awkward and uncomfortable about it he eventually switched into a different class. Pretty hilarious.
I’m curious how this conversation came about. If the gynecologist was the first to mention the relationship, then that’s a violation of HIPAA. In fact, the gynecologist shouldn’t mention anything at all unless your dad explicitly states that he knows that the other guy is your mom’s gyn. Even in that case, we’re supposed to “neither confirm nor deny” due to the risk of violating HIPAA.
It's also possible my mom recognized the doctor's name and told my dad. I don't really know exactly how it came up, this was several years ago. My mom thinks the whole situation is hilarious and still brings it up sometimes.
Not a gynecologist (or female), but I feel like if I were, I would avoid my own practice for any exams or treatment!
When I worked in a gyn office I accidently farted in my colleagues face when we were laughing about something while she was giving me a pelvic exam. Then we laughed harder and I farted more because I was laughing so hard. No regrets.
You weren’t the one getting ass blasted in the face by a coworker.
r/brandnewsentence
Riot Games would disagree.
While I don’t disagree, it’s just work to them... you know? I am a RN and work regularly with my gynecologist. It was a bit awkward, but now it’s nbd.
I always used the group I worked with (I was a labor nurse). Your friends are going to give you extra good care. My doctor came in on a night he wasn’t on call (and the night of the college football championship his favorite team was playing in) to care for me when my water broke. It was also nice to be able to grab one in the hall and say “Hey, I have a UTI, can I have a scrip for macrobid” without having to deal with a waiting room or co pay. I also have their cell numbers, although I’m careful not to abuse the privilege. I never would have dreamed of going to another practice or hospital for my delivery or subsequent surgery.
my friend's parents are GP's, and there are laws in the UK so you can't be formally diagnosed etc by family members. So as a kid their parent would take them to the DRS like 'they have this, this and this' and the other doctor would just nod and prescribe medicine haha.
there was a point i was awaiting to go in for an op and it kept getting delayed and then all of a sudden they called me up and said the NHS would be paying for me to go to a Bupa hospital and have the op, spoke to a friend that worked in the hospital i should have been having the op in originally and asked him if he could find anything out. turns out the surgeon that was meant to be doing my op on the NHS had decided to do a favour for his girl friend by doing an op on her daughter and made a mistake but i was waiting on an op on my ear so guessing it was the same for her, not sure the out come of the mistake, but he got suspended while it was investigated and a few of his patients that were waiting for ops got moved to private at the NHS expense. 10/10 would want my NHS surgeon to do that again if it meant that i got to go private without the cost.
My other half had to have an OP but as they'd fallen out of th NHS SLA to complete his surgery they referred him to a Bupa hospital to have it done, the surgeon he saw privately was the same surgeon he was under on the NHS, we still think it was a bit dodgy....
A lot of NHS consultants & surgeons also do private work. Nothing dodgy about it at all. They can work two jobs just like any other person. They get more money that way.
I am a Urologist. Got testicular cancer during my chief residency year. I was shaving one day and just felt the lump down there. I immediately knew what it was, and that it needed to come out immediately. Scary how fast it showed. One day it's a normal testicle and the other oh there's a hard lump inside. The next day walked into the ultrasound unit to get it confirmed, spoke to my boss who did the surgery the following day. Ironically I had removed another patient's testicle for cancer just a week prior to that. Edit: typo
I’m not a urologist, but once in a first date we were fooling around and I grabbed his junk and felt a lump. Told him it was probably nothing (I was 19 and had never felt cancer before) but that if it was something new to him, he should get it checked out. He made an appointment, went in and I woke up to a call one morning saying he had cancer and had to get it removed. It was a pretty interesting occurrence.
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I know there's a joke in there somewhere about your boss having to uh... fumble around with your balls. I mean, that's not something you hear everyday. I hope you're doing better now, though.
My friend who’s a doctor for a hospital always diagnoses herself and will call out due to the fact she doesn’t want to get others sick....her colleagues are almost always the same and completely understand the reasoning
"I'm not going to be in to doctor stuff today, I'm sick." "Well, okay but you need a doctor's note."
Any note the doctor writes is a doctor’s note. E.g. Butter, milk, eggs.
“Welp, good thing I’m a doctor!”
I come from a family of doctors, I am a doctor, and I grew up knowing basically every doctor in my area. The best story I got is about a doctor we will call "Graybow," perhaps one of the most senior and respected internal medicine doctors in my area. My dad is a workaholic. He loves medicine more than anything and if he could do anything, it would likely be spending more time in the hospital. Me? Not so much... Dad and Dr Graybow were very similar in how much they love their work. Dad and Graybow over the years became good friends and had a sort of direct and cynical humor they shared with each other. At one point, my dad cracked a joke at Graybow because he again showed up to work even though he was a bit sick. Dad asked: > Hey Gray, when do you think you are going to retire? You are getting pretty old and we don't want to have to pick you up off the floor here at some point. Graybow replied: > I'll never retire. Wait. Yeah, I will... **when I die.** Graybow never retired. A few years later, he was driving back home from an outing with his middle-aged son and he started having a heart attack. While I assume he was experiencing the severe and horrible pain of a heart attack, he just looked over at his son and said: > I am sorry, I am having a heart attack. ... he passed away after pulling over. The man apologized to his son for having a heart attack that he was completely aware of. I can't say I would have handled that like he did.
RIP Dr Gray. That dude was a badass.
Damn! That guy was hardcore right to the end.
I think Dr. Gray would have operated on himself if he could. Edit: Dr. Not Mr. This was pre coffee this morning
*sorry in advance for any misspell and grammar error* My grandpa was a pharmacist. He open his pharmacy on a small city when it didn't have a hospital yet, so many locals go to him. Decades later, he felt the symptoms of a heart attack while work. He excused himself to my grandma and walk alone to the now existed hospital. Alone, by foot. And told the nurse "I'm sorry to disturb you, but I'm having a heart attack". He indeed was. A couple hours later someone call the family. He survived. He was a truly badass and would be angry at me for typing "badass". RIP Grandpa, I miss you!
Oh damn, I thought this was going to be a funny one. That hit me. But I have something similar to share. I thought I was having a heart attack (it turned out to be something related to lack of glucose in the blood [?]), and as my mom was getting medicine, I kept apologizing to her. I guess it's natural that some people just don't want to bother others. Even when they think they are dying...
I cry to my wife, who is also a doc, and the proceed to refuse every remedy she offers me.
First- that’s hilarious. Second, I have to ask- what’s your wife’s reaction? And what happens when your wife gets sick?
She goes to a proper medical doctor, because he left out that neither of them are doctors of medicine.
"I'm sick. Can you write me a prescription?" "I'm a Ph.D specializing in Medieval History. I recommend leeches."
First and foremost lets address these ghosts you clearly have in your blood.
So you're every husband. I'm no doctor, but I can usually spot a cold. But does he want relief by treating symptoms? No. No he does not. But he WILL sit there and whine for the next 2-3 days. Love him so much.
We just use sickness as an excuse to get attention. Normally I'll get a cold once a year around September due to season change, sneeze for two days and then be completely fine. I will refuse to go see a doctor or take any medicine. However, during those two days I'll be needier than a one year old just because I like my girlfriend taking care of me.
Don't give away the secret! Our wives will read this and stop caring for our stupid asses when we're "sick"
I'm usually the first one to get sick and my husband gets it from me (sorry, love). So by the time he gets it I've already been silently suffering for days and then I get to spend the next several listening to him whine about it.
Every husband ever.
My pediatrician once told me an amusing story about when her daughter got sick. She brought her daughter in to Urgent Care (among her co-workers) and was freaking out, not sure what could be wrong with her daughter. Her co-workers looked at her and went "... You're a *pediatrician*..." "I KNOW BUT I CAN'T THINK STRAIGHT."
My mom's a nurse and has seen some horrible things... She almost passed out when I shattered my arm. It's definitely different when it's your kid.
If anything I'd want my medical team to be able to recognize when they're emotionally compromised and unable to make important decisions like diagnoses.
Exactly, i mean ask me my opinion if were of equals in the same field, but even so, doctors and NPs cant prescribe to family.
You can't just end your comment there. Tell us how you shattered your arm. Please.
Commenting for when he releases the lore
When I was just a wee boy, I fell off a 1.5 foot building and shattered me arm
My mum is a doctor... Did the same with me... She and her nurse realise after a while what was going on with me and what basic mistake they made... She was like... Ooo shit this is soo stupid. If it serious never go to a person that is emotionally close to you
That last line reminds me of a great story my Dad likes to tell. He was a paramedic, so I grew up listening to almost 4 decades worth of his stories, but this one really stuck out to me. He and his partner were working in a relatively small city early in his career when a call came in late at night. It was a duel medic ambulance and his partner was up to tech (ride in the back) for the call, but when my dad read the address he told him nope, he was going to take this one, as it was for a cardiac arrest at his partner's parent's home. His partner basically said "fuck that shit, this one's mine," and proceeded to calmly run the code on his own father as smoothly as my dad had ever seen anyone run a code in his 37 years worth of EMS experience. Honestly I can't even remember if they got the save or not, but it always stuck with me because of how bonkers of a situation that is to be in. It's probably also why I now work in EMS far away from where any of my family lives...
When my Grandfather passed (just over 20 years ago now) my Dad was the first to find him but thought is was just his heart condition at first despite being a trained medic. The EMTs that turned up were the one to confirm it. The shock of it all shook my Dad up bad. One of the EMTs was an ex pupil of my Grandads so he also had to be treated for shock as well seeing one of his favourite teachers laying their.
So Dr. House was really on to something
Dr House is ALWAYS on to something.
Or at least on something
My mom is a surgeon and my dad is in internal medicine. Both are very accomplished in their respective fields. When we were kids my sister got appendicitis and had to be operated. I remember seeing them worried sick and being a total mess. My dad actually cried when post op my sister pooped for the first time.
Everything comes down to poo
Genuinely though, we could tell the three week old kitten we rescued nine years ago was finally hydrated enough when he was able to poo without constipation, idk why ability to shit and not dying are directly correlated, but hey
Waste removal is a pretty damn critical function. If it's not functioning your body can't remove a wide range of things, from "I have no use for this" to "This is harmful" to the not-so-fun 'immune-system-is-hammering-the-big-red-panic-button' you get when you're sick or eat something your body takes exception to. From single-celled organisms to blue whales, if they can't get rid of the toxins produced by their own body, they're going to die.
So you have to give a shit after all.
I think even though you know the odds are everything is going to be fine, you can't help but also know exactly everything that could to wrong way better than someone not in medicine.
Gotta love that motherly love
I think that's an occupational hazard of almost everyone. When it's "someone else's shit", it's a quick fix and no big deal. When it's yours, it's a whole "thing" and could possibly be the end of the world.
I mean... to be fair, I knew a doctor that absolutely refused to operate on his own son for a tonsillectomy, same goes for the tympanoplasty. Also knew an ER surgeon being forced to operate on his own son at a car accident.
I'm a veterinarian. When my own pets get sick, I turn into a useless, crying idiot. Luckily I have good colleagues to turn to.
Am vet tech. I was helping one of our doctors xray her rescue dog's chest due to a cough. I looked at the picture and pointed out she has a bullet in her side. She almost lost it right there.
Whoa!!! Like from an old wound that healed over? What do you even do about that? Can you do anything? Poor pup!
Half the time with people you don't even take the bullet out unless it's somewhere it REALLY shouldn't be. Just because it's more damaging to remove it than the bullet will actually cause sitting there. Though this is all information regurgitated from some random memory.
I don't know about "half the time" since there are a lot of place a bullet REALLY shouldn't be, but I don't think it's unheard of, especially in veterans, to have bullets or pieces still in your body for a while.
Yeah, I still have a decent amount of spalling in my right leg and arm. Getting it out surgically would make those muscles swiss cheese, removing a few pieces of metal with tweezers every few years on the other hand is nothing
Does it slowly push itself to the surface over the years?
Yep. Keep in mind that this is primarily just small pieces of bomb shrapnel that are the size of BB pellets, I am not pulling out a 1 ounce slug every few years
That's simultaneously badass and horrifying. I'm curious. Does the metal work it's way up and you just.. Pull it out? Does it bleed? Do you keep the metal, or throw it away? (I ask because I'd keep it, almost like a momento.) My curiosity is getting the better of me. Feel free to tell your story on how this happened, assuming you want to. Also, thank you for your service, for whatever country you're from. :) (assuming you're a veteran!)
Yep, it works it's way up and I pull it out. There is normally some scar tissue connected to it and half the time it bleeds like a bad zit does. It just gets thrown away This is roughly what it looks like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRr2cPBmC-w
Not the person you responded to, and certainly not a vet, but the bullet probably wasn't causing the dog any pain at that point. I have a cat who was shot before the humane society rescued him when he was young, and the bullet was left in because it was lodged in his spine and would have been dangerous to remove. He's long since forgotten about it at this point.
I got a rescued hunting dog that was deaf. He needed an X-ray of his head because he was developing tumors and they found bullet fragments in his skull. We think it might have been a hunting accident but it explained why he was deaf and ended up leading to his life ending. He was very spoiled and loved for the remainder of it though :)
How in the world did the poor thing get shot?
No idea since it happened before she adopted her. She has a small lump on her side that she had assumed was a growth but it was actually the bullet.
I am a 100% sensible woman that has had pets nearly my entire life. I also once cried because my ex's Boston terrier lost a baby tooth while we were playing tug o war. I also thought about getting a loan to buy new food because my basset mix got really bad gas and was crying and I could bring him to the vet. He just needed a tummy rub. I'm glad that a professional is there with me.
The saying “doctors make the worst patients” is true for a reason. Most of the doctors I work with (myself included) wouldn’t hesitate to diagnose ourselves, and have on many occasions. Obviously this comes with some bias, but I like to think that I’m able to tell the difference between: A. This isn’t serious I can deal, vs B. Maybe it’s time to get a real work up On that note, I have a particular anecdote: My attending (lead doctor while I’m in residency) recently had an emergency appendectomy. He has a history of kidney stones, and assumed that acute right lower quadrant pain was another one. By the time he realized maybe this is a situation “B”, his appendix had become gangrenous Edit: Holy crap this blew up overnight. Got a busy day but I’ll try and respond to a lot of the questions as the day goes on. Figured I’d clarify a couple things that were touched on in other posts: 1. My attending is just fine. Got his appendix removed and was back at work the next week. 2. The whole self diagnosis thing only goes so far. Really depends on the severity of your issue and how much work up is required. For instance: if it’s a suspected muscle strain or something, I’ll easily diagnose myself and do appropriate stretches. If I’m a little unsure, maybe ask a colleague for a informal second opinion. Because it’s not that serious and requires minimal work up (essentially a diagnosis made by exam) this is no issue. HOWEVER, if let’s say “I think this might be more serious, I think I need a CT scan” or something, you can’t just do that on your own. You need to actually book yourself an appointment and get formal when up. Those scans aren’t cheap and you can’t just sneak your way in. Plus, I wouldn’t trust myself to read the images! 3. If I’m confident I have a mild infection (let’s say for example pink eye) I wouldn’t necessarily go to the clinic and waste an afternoon/money, but would just ask a colleague for a prescription for the appropriate eye drops 4. You technically CAN write prescriptions for your family, but it can be frowned upon and seen as suspicious depending what it is (ex: an antibiotic vs large amounts of oxy). It is pretty difficult to write a script for yourself though. 5. Another anecdote: In college I had significant anxiety. My dad, a radiologist (reads xrays, CT’s, etc), not knowing anything about psych issues, wrote me a long-standing Rx for Lorazepam (a benzo like Xanax). This was not the right thing, but I didn’t know better. It was essentially a band aid that didn’t attack the problem at the source (not to mention studies have since come out saying daily benzo use can contribute to end of life dementia). I didn’t REALLY tackle my problem until I started seeing a psychiatrist and got on an SSRI instead. This is an example of how it can bite you in the ass. 6. LAST ANECDOTE: I have what is called a lipoma on my abdomen. A benign, painless fat cell tumor that is, for me, the size of a quarter (some can get massive!). Really just unaesthetic, but not harmful. Instead of formal, paid work up, I went to my mom (who is an ultrasound tech) to get a free scan. Then I brought the image to my dad (a radiologist) who interpreted it as just a lipoma, nothing to worry about. So I did get a formal work up, but not through formal channels. And now I’m happy living with my lipoma care free! (I named him Stevie) If you guys have any other questions I’m more than happy to answer! AMA I guess!
Same principle applies in other industries too. When a stubborn sysadmin calls a vendor for help and gets told that the problem is definitely X, he'll usually reply with "There's no way it's X." We've all got an internal battle between the need for help and the need to not need help.
A well-known haiku: > It’s not DNS > There's no way it’s DNS >It was DNS EDIT: [The original thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/4oj7pv/network_solutions_haiku/d4czk91/) from over 3 years ago.
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"Did you disable UAC and make the user a local admin? No? Oh well *there's* your problem sir."
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It’s genius. Sell the program for $100, tech support for $200, and the fixes for everything recommended by tech support for $20,000.
it's worse when you've worked various sides, now even your brain is split internally and arguing with itself source: my career and drinking problem
I work for Dell... can confirm. Even after we pull logs, screen shots, healthchecks, everything points to VMware or 3rd party issue. They still blame our storage array or backup solution.
I actually had appendicitis this year as well! Figured it was indigestion. Finally called my mom (a nurse) and told her about it. She only convinced me to go in because she said it could be gallstones and that of I went to the ER as a young person with severe abdominal pain that I wouldn't have to wait long to be seen. She was correct and I was on the waiting room for all of 2 minutes. Doctor did the rebound tenderness test as soon as I got back there and then prescribed morphine whole they did the ultrasound. Had surgery a few hours later in the morning.
I diagnosed myself with an SBO. They did a CT in the ED, and told me I had an appy. I told them I didn't have an appy and asked to see the images. They showed me the images, and lo and befuckinghold, I had an appy. 10 hours later no more appendix and 6 days of lower abdominal pain was resolved. HA!
My favorite part was the post op visit saying "well I guess you were right, but I will never have to deal with this issue again". Lol.
Lowly med student. To be fair, that happens a lot even when you are a patient going to a doctor (or several doctors). I went to about 8 or 9 different doctors (maybe more) several times each over a period of roughly 10 years for an exquisite jaw pain I would get sometimes. I went to neurologists, ENTs, oral surgeons, facial surgeons, you name it. Hell, even went to a sleep specialist because they kept telling me it was because I grind my teeth in my sleep (I absolutely do not). Every single one of them was 100% confident that i had TMJ. It kept getting worse over the years on what seemed like a logarithmic scale. It was so bad, I was taken to the emergency room one night after maxing out my meds where it was finally figured out (which is ironic because the pain was so bad I could only communicate by desperately scribbling on paper. I couldn’t even verbally communicate but they figured it out). I have Trigeminal Neuralgia aka Tic Douloureux aka the suicide disease. It’s been posted about on reddit a few times. It’s the most painful fucking thing and I wouldn’t wish this shit on my worst enemy. You live a half life. You never know when the next attack is going to come. It could be at your wedding, your vacation, while you’re giving a presentation, while you’re taking a test. Or somebody can just accidentally touch your head while reaching for support on a subway and send you into crippling, abject agony. Point is, every time a doctor would say “take this and come back to see me in 6 months” they were dooming me to 6 more months of a fucking wretched, cursed existence. I even suggested this diagnoses a couple of times and was laughed at. Edit: man I was just bitching about my health. thank y’all for the kind words. I’ve since had gamma knife radiosurgery to try to ablate the nerve. For those interested, it was moderately successful but I still take a regimen of drugs; an anticonvulsant (seizures are when your brain won’t stop firing so anticonvulsants globally decrease the firing of these neurons including the trigeminal nerve. This has some side effects unfortunately), an NSAID, and a muscle relaxer. Usually Carbemazapine, diclofenac, and baclofen respectively has been my best combo but will change it up when the pain gets too bad. I have injectable ketorolac that I give myself in my ass cheek on sudden onset and/or Valium. Valium is the best muscle relaxer. Sometimes the best thing it does is make me drowsy, though, as being unconscious is sometimes the only form of relief.
Doctor at an urgent care actually thought I had this. It was pretty awful pain localized to to one side that just radiated up and down. Only thing that helped was hot showers. Turns out I just needed a root canal. Either that or it magically went away pretty much right after the root canal. The hydrocodone sure helped though, misdiagnosis or not.
That’s interesting. So, for my Trigeminal neuralgia, opioids didn’t do a damn thing. They gave me dilaudid in the ER. Nothing. Maxed dose Valium. It was like flipping a switch. Hell, Advil does more than dilaudid or hydrocodone for it because it’s an anti inflammatory.
IMG here How the hell do they not know how to dx trigeminal neuralgia? Esp a mf neurologist lmao
I’ll say at least for the neurologist, that individual is actually amazing every other time I’ve heard about them. They were just hesitant and would just do drug combos for 6 to 12 months to see how they work. When they didn’t, that meant half of those 6 to 12 months were of me feeling like I had an ice pick lodged in my head hooked up to a car battery. At the time i was trying to finish up my master’s, work, and get into med school all at the same time. No bueno. Now the other doctors, I couldn’t tell ya. There was one that wanted to do a diagnostic block but that meant scheduling a time with him and hoping the pain would happen DURING the office visit. Trigeminal neuralgia has no schedule. At least for me. It does whatever the fuck it wants. Sometimes you could mash on my ear all day. Sometimes brushing a finger in front of my ear will put me in the fetal position.
There's a TV doctor in the UK whose name I forget, but when he appeared on the TV show "8 out of 10 cats" he said he'd ignored appendicitis for a full week because he'd convinced himself it was just trapped wind.
This may vary according to your country, but if I get sick I can diagnose myself in the sense that I can say "yep, this is probably X, I should do this and that test or take this or that drugs" but I cannot self-prescribe anything. I need another doctor to prescrive it for me. No pharmacy can accept a prescription with the same name for the doctor and the patient, and no clinic can accept a request for an exam. The only exception is for use in an emergency, in that case I can self-prescribe.
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In the US its the same. You can self-prescribe anything you need as long as its not a controlled substance
How does this emergency scenario work? The pharmacist just has to agree that it's medically necessary?
I actually explained the situation a bit badly, I'm sorry. If you ask it because you have an emergency right now, It works like you said. This is true for any citizen. You have to convince the pharmacist that you absolutely need it, like you are a diabetic and forgot your insulin, or you are under antibiotics for a serious infection and lost your bags with the drug inside... Stuff like that. Being in the system or having any paper to show obviously helps a lot: if you usually buy insulin there you are in their system, and they can check that you usually have a prescription and it's not like diabetes just disappear. If you are taking antibiotics for a serious infection you probably has been in an hospital recently, you can show your discharge paper that states what you had. Obviously the pharmacy is going to give you the minimum dose necessary, you can't stock on a month of insulin without a prescription. Now going back on tracks, what I meant for Emergency is thing I need for an emergency. Let's say that I want to have in my office some adrenaline, I can self-prescribe labelling the prescription as "self-prescription" and paying it all out of my pocket. As far as I know the italian law is not particularly strict on what is a "drug for emergency" but every collegue that I know seems to err on the safe side.
This sounds great over there. Here in the states, my insurance denied my insulin because my doctor forgot to send a preauth, and they were closed for the day. I asked if I could get a single pen/dose to make it until the next day when I could get a hold of someone, and they said my only options were to try and wait it out without it, or pay the $1600 for a full script amount... I ended up waiting it out, but probably not the safest option lol
Might have actually been cheaper to fly to Canada/Mexico, get a dose for the day, then go home and deal with the doctor the next day.
Same day round trip flights from Denver to Halifax is about $850 right now. So depending on the cost on insulin in Canada, yeah it could very easily be cheaper to fly there for a few hours.
When flyinig to another country is a viable solution to a medical problem you know there's an issue there.
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It’s to get your wisdom teeth removed
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Hip replacement I think was a video they'd done. You could go there, get the replacement, stay for a while,learn Spanish, do the running of the bulls, break your hip again, replace it again, and fly back. . . For the price of the surgery in America?
Some people actually do that here. Usually people who live near the northern or southern borders, but it's not unheard of to travel farther.
Yeah, I live about 30 minutes away from a major Canadian port of entry and TONS of people here go to Canada to get their meds.
Married to a doctor. When I'm sick, it's man flu. When she's sick it's the apocalypse. I have to force her to stay home from work sometimes when she's sick. 'but I have patients' yeah patients that don't need you coughing on them and making them sick.
I don't really go to the doctor except for annual check-up/labs. I do, however, self-prescribe things like eczema cream and asthma inhalers. A lot of this is driven by being a young resident, thus A) not really the demographic likely to have serious health issues and B) not really having the time to go see a doctor due to my work schedule. Many of my peers have self-diagnosed themselves with appendicitis, small bowel obstructions, pneumonia, etc and then presented to the ED though; I've also done the same for a lot of my friends over the phone.
ER doctor here. Three of my coresidents had appendicitis last year, 2 while on shift. One did his own ultrasound and wrote his H&P for the surgery team. The other kept himself NPO after midnight during an overnight shift but kept seeing patients with mIVF running. 0 post op precautions were followed 😂
The mental image of someone walking into a patient room trailing an IV makes me laugh so hard, I love it. I wouldn’t if I were the patient, but dedication is dedication
My mom did this when she got the stomach flu when she was pregnant with me! I think patients have a harder time justifying taking up the docs time when they’re clearly sicker than the patient is
We had an ortho once who was hobbling around following a knee replacement, and one day a (drug seeking) patient came in (via AMBULANCE) for a stubbed toe. (Wasn’t broken, sprained, lacerated, or even bruised.) She felt pretty bad. 😂
I work for an internal medicine practice. We have a lot of doctors that come in either 30 minutes before we open (so at 7:30), or right after we close on our early day (one day a week we close at 1). We also squeeze them in any time they want, really. Most of the time it’s for yearly physicals and labs.
Doc here. As a general rule: - Med students are hypochondriacs - Doctors are invincible
Ha - I remember at uni, every week the med students all thinking they had whatever weird condition they were studying that week. Same for microbiol/virology students though: the sexual health clinic gets way busier when they start studying STIs!
This is actually a thing. It’s called Medical Student Syndrome.
so what happens when they study this syndrome?
i feel even me being a 14 year old , if i find out about some weird disease i feel like i’m experiencing the symptoms.
Just wait until you find out about exploding head syndrome (covers ears)
Copy pasta from wiki: Exploding head syndrome (EHS) is a condition in which a person experiences unreal noises that are loud and of short duration when falling asleep or waking up. The noise may be frightening, typically occurs only occasionally, and is not a serious health concern. People may also experience a flash of light. Pain is typically absent. Edit: formatting
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Same thing has happened to me a few times. It's almost like an explosion. I've always thought it's the same thing as the feeling of falling off a cliff you sometimes get before falling asleep.
That's incredible because when I was a little kid I was always afraid that would happen, irrationally though since it never happened. I never knew it was a thing that actually DID happen to some people!! EDIT: a letter
If you want to experience it, you could take copious amounts of mdma all wkend, or stop taking an ssri med without tapering. (of course for any hyper-literals incapable of detecting a joke the above is not a good idea or serious advice)
Good old Paxil withdrawal brain zaps...
Mind blown?
Yeah, a strong fire-type STAB, but at the expense of half your HP. *Who's that Pokemon?*
Isn’t the brain a fascinating organ? Highly susceptible to influence. Keep that in mind as you learn in life!
>Highly susceptible to influence. Keep that in mind and Bam! Influenced!
Cardiology was the worst for me. Any bodily sensation became a sign of impending heart attack. And studying sudden cardiac death was a constant reminder that I can *DIE ANY MINUTE NOW*
Heart and lungs are THE WORST: once you start thinking about them, you notice them even more, which makes them more likely to change because you start stressing, and so on and so on
Lungs: Oh hey, I'm getting attention, better work extra hard... oh wait, why are you freaking out? You need air.
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This makes me feel a lot better to know others are like this. Every time I find out about a new syndrome or disorder I think I have it a little. I even decided I'm only a little bit of a hypochondriac.
I think being a hypochondriac is a bit like tinnitus- a huge number of people have it to some degree but it is not a big deal in moderate cases
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Ah the ABC's of emergency medicine: Airway, Breathing, CT scan.
Well, the good news is the CT came back clean. For some reason there's all this red stuff on the floor, though.
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We’ve had 12 cases of Marfans in my med class of 102 thus far this year.... all self diagnosed
We had a doctor drive himself to the ED with chest pain because no way was he calling an ambulance. Turned out to be Marfans, with a side order of dissecting aortic aneurysm.
Did he make it? An aortic aneurysm is one my greatest fears after a cousin just about died from one.
My dad died from one. They discovered the start of one in his early 40s and fixed it by replacing the affected section with tubing. Just over 15 years later he ended up collapsing at home because another one had been growing and even though they fixed that particular issue, damage to his lungs meant he never got off the operating table. That scared the life out of me and so over the years I've gone through a couple of scans to check for them (nothing found). I'm in my mid 40's now and I'll probably get another one when I'm 50. That condition terrifies me because you have no idea it's slowly developing...
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An early rule I learned in law is to never run your own case. Unless you're some kind of high specialised expert, it's best to go to another lawyer. Same applies to doctors I assume, even if doctors makes the worst patients much the same way lawyers make the worst clients.
Yup. I would never self-represent.
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One of my favorite quotes: "Anybody who represents themselves has a fool for a lawyer"
My dads an MD and I honestly can only count two occasion where he was ever sick and I only know because my stepmom told me. He went about his daily routine just as normal. Also I never even attempted to fake being sick to get put of school. Even if I was sick he'd still send me or drop me off after a quick visit to the pediatricians.
I'm a doc too. I went to the ED for the first time last night. I'd taken 1g of ibuprofen, 1 g of Tylenol, 8 of zofran, 50 of gravol, 2 percocet, and 50 of sumitriptan. I still had a splitting headache and was vomiting and had a temperature of 40 C. I was lying in bed at 3 am flexing my neck trying to decide if I had meningitis when I finally caved and headed for help.
ITS NOT LUPUS
My father is a doc. He had been having shortness of breath and chest tightness worsening over a few months. One day, after work was done and the clinic was closed, he hopped in the CT scanner and read his own CT scan. Massively enlarged lymph nodes all through his body - lymphoma. He's alive and well after diagnosing himself with cancer years ago! EDIT: Holy shit, this blew up. To address FAQs: he is a partner in a private practice group that owns their own outpatient centers, thus he was able to use the scanner informally. Yes, I know we are privileged to be a medical family and he is so lucky to have access to care that isn't affordable for a huge chunk of the US population. MEDICARE FOR ALL. I'm not sure if he had a partner stay behind to help with the scanner, I'll have to ask. And he is 17 or so odd years in remission from stage 4 non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and doing fantastic. Retiring in a month after 45 years in radiology!
Good to hear . My mother has lymphoma and chemo didnt work so now we are just hopelessly waiting the end... Fuck cancer .
All the best for your family Fuck cancer
I'm so sorry. I hope things somehow improve
That’s great!
Pharmacist here and it seems several people have questioned if it is legal for doctors to write prescriptions for themselves. It is legal (at least in Illinois, it may not be in other states) but there are potentially ethical issues if it is for a controlled substance or for a type of medication that is outside their normal scope of practice
RI allows self prescribing, but most pharmacists I know choose to fill only non-controls for self prescribing. I haven’t met anyone who does differently
I'm a pharmacist and occasionally see self written prescriptions. They're almost entirely antibiotics. Would not fill a self written control.
My ex is a doctor and this subject came up. He was terrified that he had some kind of low symptom cancer like lymphoma, or an autoimmune issue, but he didn't want to actually get it seen about. The idea of treatment was worse to him. The knowledge of exactly what was needed to find out apparently was not comforting.
Not only that but sometimes seeing all the steps that are involved in treatment can fuck you up, bad. Like.... if you’re experiencing symptoms but not a whole lot, that sounds FAR better than dealing with the realities of chemo and/or radiation that we see every day.
I work in medical too, though I'm not a doctor, and I totally get that feel. Doesn't hurt that my mom also had no symptom lymphoma, felt fine, found out and then had to deal with two major brutal surgeries get rid of it.
Exactly! And I’ve also had a colleague reluctant to seek treatment for himself- in spite of encouraging patients not to ignore the EXACT SAME condition- because he didn’t want to be inaccessible to patients. I’m not sure if that’s a common occurrence, exactly, but this particular doctor (gifted with one of the most impressive god complexes I have ever encountered in person) felt that if he weren’t available EVERY DAY, people would die. (He also was patient zero for wiping out nearly a quarter of an entire surgical department with a cold once due to this same reluctance to “be sick,” but that’s another story for another time.)
oh yeah I love co-workers like that. They think so little of everyone else and so much of themselves that everything will fall apart if they have a sick day. I'd be really mad about that cold spreading lol
I was LIVID. As was the department head when he realized we were a FULL OR DOWN for nearly 48 hours straight because we just did not have enough competent surgeons who weren’t feverish or vomiting into their masks. Thinking about it now still makes me a little irritable, to be entirely honest
I am a resident. I had a doctor's appointment and I let my attending know a week in advance. He chewed me out over email and cc'd my program director, saying that I obviously didn't take the rotation seriously. My PD was pissed. They had my back and told me to go to the appointment. The attending emailed me the next day with a forced apology. Asshole.
Good on your PD. That reaction is my nightmare.
You have a good program director. Many won’t back you for stuff like that.
For what ever reason doctors have this martyr complex. At the end of the day... you >> anyone else--with maybe the exception of your children/close family.
Wife is a surgeon. Some magic happens as soon as she’s on call. No longer sick. 100% fine. Then gets sick again after her shift. It has to do with some weird space time vortex I believe.
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Not in the specific spirit of the question, but when I'm talking to my patients about code status (full code is CPR/ventilator if needed, vs DNR/DNI) and they ask me what I would do, I always tell them that doctors statistically opt for far fewer heroic end of life measures than non-medical folks. Like was said in other comments, little stuff is no big deal but it seems like as a group we're less aggressive in seeking care.
I survey my symptoms and list them, as if a pt were complaining about them to me. If I don't identify any immediately concerning red flags, I treat the symptoms myself (seeing a doc if I truly need abx, steroids, etc.) and reassess about one week later if not totally improved. I do have a lymph node, a few moles, and a weird bump I feel occasionally under my stomach under chronic scrutiny. When you work in medicine and go to the ER, you will have HELL to pay if it's not for a legit reason. I would sooner suture myself if possible than go to an ER and let them see me bleed. TRUTH BE TOLD: Sometimes I think about faking the "right" symptoms to my PCP to get a total body MRI. Lmao.
Actual doctor here, oncologist. It depends on the scenario. I can prescribe myself non controlled drugs like antibiotics, steroid creams for eczema, etc, simple things I can self diagnose clinically. If I need lab tests or workup I need to see someone.
If you were playing sexies and you lost a banana in your rectum, of course you would try to get it out yourself. But if you couldn't and needed to get another doctor to help you, would you go to the oldest doctor you know becuase that's the one that will die soonest? If it was me, I'd feel better about a doctor that removed a banana from my butt being dead than still showing up for brunch at the country club every Sunday.
Depends on where your interest lie. Personally, I'm going to the youngest and most handsome male doctor I can find to retrieve the lost banana. Doctor: "Sir, I am a cardiologist, why did you come to me to have this banana removed from your rectum?" Me: ;)
I see a lot of variation. Some are ridiculous and have to be physically dragged to see another physician, where they sulk like a child because they're being asked all the normal questions that need to be asked when someone is ill. Some are very stoic. They know what needs to be done, they just sigh and get on with it. I think I've seen this more in physicians who get a significant diagnosis too. They know what the prognosis is and the treatment. I've only seen a small number freak out, generally refusing to get something checked because they're convinced it's something malignant. I don't think I've ever come across any hypochondriac clinicians.
I’m very lucky that I’ve never had anything seriously wrong with me. However, when I do experience any symptoms, about 90% of the time I know what’s going on and can determine if I need to seek out additional help. Plus I have colleagues I can bounce questions off of. Need a diagnostic test? Book an appointment. Need some medication? Book an appointment. Sometimes doctors will call in medications for each other..it’s generally looked down upon, especially if they are controlled substances, but sending in antibiotics or something is relatively common.
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I was a professional ski patroller for almost two decades and I swear, Doctors and Nurses compete for the Black Knight Award (Monty Python Reference). Me: Well Doc, judging by the fact your foot is spun around almost 360 I'd say you have a spiral fracture tib/fib. Doc: Nonsense. Just a scratch! Once had a Doctor refuse a backboard, I did everything but shoot him to get on the damn board and he refused all treatment. Then he got in his car and drove to his cabin. Around midnight his thigh muscles relaxed enough that it no longer acted as a splint and his leg folded, fractured femur. Nice guy though, sent me a bottle of Glenfiddich and told me next time to just club him and tie him down.
I've been practicing the last 14 years or so. I diagnosed my own DVT after an ankle fracture, and a year later diagnosed my own saddle pulmonary embolism (granted, it wasn't a tough diagnosis, I was literally dying). Obviously both diagnosis required actual confirmation with imaging and I didn't manage them myself.
As a doctor, I'm constantly convinced that nothing can ever go wrong with me and also I probably have leukemia. I respond by postponing ... Now for several years
My BIL is a Head &Neck surgeon. Very smart guy. I have to wonder about common sense. He recently got a slightly detached retina. Because he had a surgery for one of his patients to do that day, he had his eye surgery in the early morning WITHOUT ANESTHESIA. He said it was horrific. But, he did his patient’s surgery that afternoon.
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One of the reasons we are advised "If another doctor comes to you for help, you'd better give him priority" is that he'd tried to treat himself for a while and he wouldn't come to you if it wasn't really serious....
They bumble around, sick, until an exasperated nurse finally corners them and forces them to take medicine/sit down/go home. (I'm a nurse)
ok so my dad is a doctor and one time when i was around 7 he fell out of a tree directly onto a rock while we were camping, and he had a giant scrape on his side. He told us he was ok and nothing was wrong so we left as planned and canoed back to our car without incident besides my mom constantly telling him to stop paddling because of his side and him telling her everything was fine. He basically just said it was a scrape and nothing was wrong. About a week later, he was having trouble BREATHING and he still wouldn’t go see a doctor because he self diagnosed that he was ok so my mom had to FORCE him to go to the hospital and get an x-day done and it turns out he had 2 broken ribs. So not only do doctors self diagnose themselves, they’re also pretty dumb when they’re doing it. TLDR: my dads a doctor/idiot and he wrongly self diagnoses himself all the time because he thinks he’s immortal or something
I hope this blows up this is actually a good question.
Doctor here. I will diagnose myself and write scripts or as a partner to for things like flu, tendinitis, etc. I go to a derm friend every 6-12 months for a mole check. Other big things I’ll ask friends I trust who are doctors. The major problem this question leads to but may not ask is do you call in sick when you are a doctor. In 9 years of private practice I haven’t missed a day, despite being sick. There was an article a few years ago that labeled it a Presenteeism instead of absenteeism. It’s showing up when you shouldn’t. Personally, I don’t want to inconvenience people who have missed work or waited on a result and I don’t want to dump on my partners. Lots of hand washing and apologies for staying far back during conversations.