Doctors And Medical Professionals Are Sharing The Medical Questions Friends Asked That They Wish They Hadn't
I, too, am guilty of being the concerned friend asking my doctor-adjacent friends what to do about my problems — still, I try to ask within reason!!! So, when I came across this Reddit thread that asked, "Doctors of Reddit, what is a medical question a friend has asked you that you wish they hadn't?" I was very curious about the kind of asks I should probably steer away from.
Here's what everyone shared:
1."Mum's friend showed me her MRI scans at a dinner party ahead of seeing her neurologist. The report and pics showed features consistent with multiple sclerosis. There was no way I was having that conversation with her, so I feigned stupidity and said it was outside my knowledge area and told her to discuss it with her doctor instead. My mom was mad at me for pretending to be dumb. I made it clear that under no circumstances would I be giving any ad hoc medical advice to her friends moving on."
—Unusual-Ear5013
2."'Can you read my husband's MRI report?'...Report clearly shows metastatic cancer. Oof."
—Boogersnsnot
3."Not a proper doctor, but I'm a retired combat medic, and I've been asked a couple of odd questions. At a Christmas party for a charity that my ex used to work with, I got chatting to with the charity's founder. Naturally, we got round to, 'Oh, you're X's partner?' Oh cool, uh, if you don't mind taking a look at something for me...'"
"He'd slipped on the stairs a few days earlier, had a bit of an ache in his upper arm, and wasn't sure it was worth going to a doctor. I took a look for him because why not? I'm accommodating. Reddit, his humerus was broken. Midway, by the feel of it, clear through the bone. Not displaced, but it was grinding a bit when he moved his arm. That was a fun one to explain."
—ParticlesInSunlight
4."Not a doctor, but rather a critical care paramedic. I had a long-time friend ask me to clarify notes she received from her boyfriend's oncology visit. Just asking me to translate medical speak. It was one of the worst reports I've ever seen, and I was amazed he was still alive. She was super hopeful and obviously wanted the best outcome. I gently told her that I was not the one to go over the report with her. He passed about a week later."
—redundantposts
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5."Wishing I had a funny or less depressing answer, but in training, I ended up diagnosing and eventually confirming cancer in a hometown friend when he asked me why he sweats through his sheets every night. He's cancer-free and in remission now, but also doesn't talk to me anymore."
—LonelySeeds24
6."I am not a doctor, but I am a respiratory therapist. During one of the waves of COVID, a lab tech's mom was admitted and was on a BiPAP (a type of noninvasive ventilation) with COVID. One night, while we were both working, she asked me how her mom was doing. I told her I didn't want to tell her because I was not going to lie to her. She told me she wanted to know."
"'Everyone I have had on this high of settings on the BiPAP has died,' I said. 'That's not to say we aren't going to keep trying, but I want to be realistic with you.' She started crying. She had just lost her grandmother a week prior, so this was pretty rough. Up until that point, apparently no one had been honest enough to tell her just how serious her mom's COVID was."
—pwg2
7."Not a doctor but a former anesthesia RN here. The worst question? My mom asking if she was going to be alright, after they found a 2€ coin-sized melanoma on her back. The damn thing was showing dendrites when she finally went to the doctor. The PET scan they did a few weeks later lit up like a Christmas tree. Due to some trial meds, she did make it past two years, which is a miracle on its own. In the end, the cancer won, though."
"Second worst question? People asking what the most horrible case I have seen in the OR. It's not really something you want to talk about or want to be reminded of. I usually answer with, 'It's the kids that hit hardest,' and it's so damn true."
—DullMaybe6872
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8.Similarly, "Occasionally, less often as my circle and I age, someone will, upon finding out that I'm a surgeon, ask, 'What's the worst thing you've ever seen?' The answer is, and has always been, something about which I've been trying very hard to avoid thinking, no matter what that is. The worst thing I've ever seen is very likely something that I can't remember and deliberately so."
—themeanestthing
9."I'm a sonographer. I had a friend who was on a sports team with me send me her images from an ultrasound she had performed on a breast mass. It was not good."
—thnx4stalkingme
10.From a medical student: "Recently visited my parents, and a family friend was over the house, and shoved a phone in my face with MyChart results pulled up. They wanted me to interpret imaging and labs before their doctor contacted them. I held my tongue and refused; their degenerative spine was a trainwreck and had progressed to needing surgery. Not my place to tell them."
"...It's bad medicine to diagnose without performing a clinical exam. I hate diagnosing with just a CBC or a blurry phone picture. Better to see the patient and include a physical exam before drawing conclusions. Some things are black and white, but most exist in grey areas. There's nuance and context that that results and imaging simply can't elucidate."
—nevertricked
And lastly, to end on a lighter note, here are a few somewhat unfortunate and funny entries:
11."I'm going to go with the time that my uncle sent me an unsolicited picture of his anus asking if this was a hemorrhoid or not."
—InvestingDoc
12."Had a friend ask me to look at his taint at the height of monkeypox. It was a heat rash."
—CSnarf
13."A friend of my then-boyfriend asked me, 'How do you know if you have syphilis?' out of the blue one day. I asked him why he was wondering, and he said he was just curious. Sure, Bert, sure, we're all curious. But if you think you NEED to know if you have syphilis, the chances are high you have been engaging in syphilis-enhancing behavior and should get yourself and your downstairs area checked out. He went to the doctor. He had syphilis."
—tryingisbeautiful
14."My wife's cousin wanted me to see if his testicles had shrunk from using steroids. I politely declined."
—nycemt83
And lastly:
15."Not a doctor, but a paramedic, and I think this fits all right. I had my dad and mother call me because my dad was dizzy. He was lying down, and they checked his blood pressure, and it was fine. I was doing the questioning I normally would, and I asked him to sit up and take his blood pressure again, and it was low. I asked a few more questions and finally my dad blurts out that he took Viagra and it started right after they were...intimate."
"Turns out he took his new blood pressure medication/anxiety medication that day. He had never taken both medications on the same day. Both affect blood pressure, and the combo was most likely the cause of the blood pressure issues. I was glad to help before he walked around and passed out or took them both again another time. But I could have gone my whole life without that knowledge."
—cierramaranara
Welp, do you work in the medical field and have questions you hate when people ask? Let me know your experiences in the comments or at this anonymous form below.
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