There is no better comfort than knowing there are medical professionals out there who can help us if our health declines. Every single day people trust doctors with their lives and the lives of their loved ones. However, these stories may make you think twice about who you trust! People share the shadiest thing they caught a doctor doing. This content has been edited for clarity.
Confidentiality
“I went to see a doctor who happened to be an acquaintance of my parents. I told him I had a few symptoms that worried me. He immediately thought it was an STD and asked me if I was sexually active. I said yes and he recommended I go do a blood test at some hospital.
After the appointment, I went to my girlfriend’s house for a bit before going home. As soon as I came in the door, my dad told me we needed to have a talk. The doctor had called my dad and told him I am sexually active and might, MIGHT have an STD. My dad didn’t even know I had a girlfriend.
I was really pissed off at that point. I got my blood test done that week and the hospital sent the results to the doctor. He called my parents, again, to say that I was clean. It makes me mad every time I think about it. I was 21, why the hell was he calling my parents?
I’m pretty sure what he did was illegal by violating patient confidentiality. I did consider complaining to the Order of Doctors that takes care of those things.”
No Answer
“I’m a physician and used to work twelve-hour night shifts at this hospital in California. My co-worker who was also a doctor and admittedly, a young and good-looking fellow, and I covered pages from different floors. If there was nothing going on, I would usually be in my call room reading, sleeping, or watching TV until a nurse would page me for a problem.
My colleague’s on-call room shared the same wall as mine. One night, I was reading in my room when I started hearing my colleague and another woman going at it. The noises started getting louder and were fairly difficult to ignore. Then, in the middle of that charade, I heard his pager go off several times without him answering it.
Eventually, I left the room and called the hospital operator. I asked her who had paged my colleague and then called the nurse who was trying to get in touch with him. It turned out the page was for a patient that was in serious condition and had to be taken to the ICU. I took care of everything and went back to my room.
Later on, I told him they were paging him for a critically ill patient overhead and that he must have ‘fallen asleep.’ I didn’t say anything about hearing him fooling around, but I think he knew that I knew because he got red and thanked me for covering for him.”
Long Weekend
“I broke my arm on an independence day weekend. I broke it badly. So bad that after the x-rays were done, the ER doctors and nurses kept calling each other over to the computer monitor,
‘Hey, you gotta see this!’ My elbow was literally shattered into over a hundred pieces and eventually had to be replaced with a metal elbow. Normally, the doctors in the ER will patch up a broken bone but this was so messed up they had to bring in the orthopedic surgeon on call that day.
They paged him multiple times with no response. Remember, this was the orthopedic surgeon who was supposed to be available to come in at a moment’s notice. Meanwhile, I was flat on my back in a bed and the hospital staff was making all the preparations for the surgery on my elbow.
Finally, five hours after he was first paged, the orthopedic surgeon called in and looked at my x-rays via a remote connection. One of the ER doctors came into my cubicle to tell me they were going to discharge me because my situation was not an emergency and therefore does not require immediate attention.
I overheard the same ER doctor telling my nurse the surgeon just didn’t want to come in on a long weekend. I was sent home and scheduled for surgery the following week. I filed a complaint with the state medical board who, of course, did nothing.”
Sketchy
“When I was doing paramedic training I had to get a list of things done to show I was competent in doing them. One was bagging an unconscious patent in the hospital with a bag valve mask. Oddly enough, it was actually a hard one to get.
So anyway, a guy comes in with a dislocated shoulder and the ER doctor gave him propofol to relax his muscles and pop that baby back in. But with that drug, it relaxes all your muscles and can make you actually stop breathing, so a respiration tech (me) is there in case that happens.
Anyway, the doctor gave the guy x amount of propofol, he fell asleep, his shoulder goes in, and the guy is breathing normally. Then the doctor looked at me and asked,
‘You still need that bag valve mask sign-off? Give the patient x amount more of propofol,’ with a wink.”
Hard Of Hearing
“My nan was in the hospital two years ago with a rare case of vasculitis (inflamed blood vessels). She ended up in a ward of extremely old people as they had no room on the actual ward she should’ve been on. Next to her was this really old woman, I believe in her 90s, who had an extremely weak heart. Due to her age, the doctors had made the decision she was not to be resuscitated if she took a turn for the worst.
So, the doctor and his buddy come along to inform her of this, but she’s struggling to understand. Duh, she’s 90, so her hearing isn’t what it used to be. The doctor raised his voice, but she still couldn’t hear. So he went right by her ear and shouted loud enough that everyone in the ward could hear,
‘You may have a heart attack in six months or six hours. We don’t know, but we’re not doing anything if that happens. You’ve had your time.’
He then proceeded to walk off chatting with his buddy. Maybe it’s just my town, but most of the doctors I’ve encountered seem to just do what suits them, not the patient.”
