Today I spoke to a coworker who had bad experiences with doctors and was seeking recommendations for a new one, then other coworkers chimed in, and so I decided to ask you guys as well. Well, not for a doctor recommendation, but about your bad experienced with doctors?
I'm gonna spoiler mine, because it makes me very uncomfortable, so perhaps it may make someone else very uncomfortable.
uncomfortable
I had a doctor who had no business in it make me show my intimate parts (I'm intersex) and she touched them. She was curious, I guess…? She's a psychiatrist, so, again, literally 0 business doing so. I already have trauma from regular people who treat me like a circus display, I really had no need for someone with systemic power over me using it like that…
No, I didn't report this. I was a teenager and barely functioning at the time. :/
My partner was admitted to the hospital when they couldn't inflate his collapsed lung, as it had a hole in it. They put him on a machine that uses negative pressure to keep the lung shaped as it should be. Normally the hole should close but it wasn't. Ended up with surgery but the problem remained. They were coming up with increasingly outlandish theories as to why it wasn't healing, even going so far as to test him for tuberculosis, and listing him as false negative for covid. They also denied him adequate pain management, until one nurse noticed and gave him ibuprofen to go with paracetamol. This was all when the covid vaccine was only just out so I had to sit by helplessly while I'm increasingly realising the level of care he is receiving doesn't match my expectations. But he's never even been in a hospital and self advocacy is not something he's learned.
Eventually they transfer him to a larger hospital. The doctor there doesn't want to talk straight but between the lines you get the message that he feels the case was entirely mismanaged. They immediately lower the reverse pressure. Hold off on further surgery. Within days healing begins. A week later the lung is healed. It's a miracle…
Anyway, we looked into legal options but there was a lack of proof. The original doctor followed procedure. Yet I'm 100% convinced that because my partner smokes, has bad teeth and looks like a metalhead, there was prejudice at play. I can't know for sure but I feel like the original doctor blamed my partner and figured she'd have to scare him straight. That didn't help of course, he resumed smoking and he's unwilling to seek help because of this experience. I'm honestly shocked at how this could happen, but as time goes on I've seen in other situations how people immediately conclude a person is lower class and thus must be treated differently. If you do one thing for yourself, look into self advocacy. Especially when it comes to medical stuff. My own level of care started to go up when I began to have a conversation with health professionals, outlining my experience and asking many questions. But I'm a middle class woman with fairly conventional looks, so there is a whole level of prejudice I immediately don't face.