Пациенты оспаривают диагнозы врачей, опираясь на заблуждения из интернета

44 Patients Who Thought Their Doctors Were Clueless, Until They Got A Much-Needed Reality Check There's nothing wrong with being confident. But then we have those who are so confidently wrong, it could almost be written into a sitcom. These are the type of people who walk into an appointment armed with a Google search and a whole lot of certainty. And that's exactly what we'll be looking at today: the kind of audacity that comes with being so sure of yourself that you end up correcting the doctors trying to save your life. So, here are some of the most incredulous stories shared by medical professionals. More info: Reddit This post may include affiliate links. Ophthalmologist here. Told patient he needed reading glasses which he didn't believe. I explained that everyone develops presbyopia eventually. "Come on, George Clooney doesn't wear reading glasses!". A) yes he does & B) not sure why you are comparing yourself with him... Had an extremely frustrating dialogue with one, took about 45 min and got nowhere. The gist: "I keep gaining weight even though I don't eat anything." "That's against the laws of physics." "But it's happening to me. I tried a diet where I ate 800 calories per day for 2 weeks and gained 5kg. So those laws don't apply to me." "I don't believe you." "So you're calling me a liar!?" I eventually proceeded to tell the person that if they were really generating mass out of thin air, then scientists around the world would want to study the phenomenon. The only time I have ever almost lost my temper with a patient. I took care of a child that got chicken pox. The mother was strongly anti-vax but was yelling at me "how can modern medicine not have a treatment for chicken pox". She couldn't grasp the concept that we do, she just refused it for her child. Resistance to medicine is almost as old as medicine itself. But recently, that's been more noticeable than ever. Studies show that in April 2020, over 70% of U.S. adults trusted doctors and hospitals. Four years later, that number had plummeted to just 40.1% of people who said they trusted medical staff. That's a big, big drop. And it came after a worldwide pandemic. People became more distrustful following such a massive global shift, while fear and skepticism toward medical professionals became increasingly common — especially online. That skepticism also helped make holistic practitioners more popular, which can be a rabbit hole in and of itself. Lady comes in with shortness of breath. We check her troponin levels, they're elevated. "Ma'am you're having a heart attack." "No, I'm not." "Uh... yes, you are." "No, I'm not." Her PCP came into the ER and fired her as his patient. She signed an against medical advice and left. She was gone the next day. Of a heart attack. Yeah. While I am a doctor, this happened to my wife, also a doctor. Female pt came in complaining of infertility. Said she and her partner had been trying to conceive for like five years and had "tried everything." At one point she let the pronoun slip "she and I..." and my wife said, "wait, let's back up a minute." Turns out the woman had been in a hetero relationship for a few years and never got pregnant despite using no protection. She then entered a same-s*x relationship and again never got pregnant even though she really wanted to, leading her to believe she was infertile. When my wife tried to explain that conception requires s***m (sourced from a male) as well as an egg, the pt was incredulous, and exclaimed that she "didn't need a man in my life" and she didn't like being judged. Perhaps needless to say the patient was lost to followup. I'm a registered dietician/nutritionist. I was counseling a patient who was morbidly obese, diabetic and had severe peripheral neuropathy. He was also a chiropractor who had a hard on for homeopathic remedies. I couldn't get out a full sentence without this guy trying to tell me that "a dilution of whatever the f**k" would do the exact same thing. Finally, I just said "Look, *Doctor.* You need to cut the sugar and eat something in the vegetable family with every meal. You can drink whatever potions you want on top of that. But 30 years of drinking your distilled water has landed you here, in my office, with a broken pancreas and no feeling in your feet. So let's give this a serious try unless you want to take a chance with your flower remedies when the heart attack or stroke hits." EDIT: Since a few people have asked, he got highly offended and filed a complaint with our VP of Patient Relations. I was ordered to some b******t sensitivity training where I was told that I should have listened to his opinion on care and validated him as being heard. I was also told, by at least three non-clinicians, that since he was a chiropractor I should have given more weight to his opinion since he was a licensed healthcare provider. I finished the training and promptly began looking for a new job. This intense drop isn't accidental either. Aside from negative personal experiences or even psychological avoidance — both of which experts have cited as reasons why medical distrust exists — we now have a new, much more gigantic horse in the race: social media. Much like a lot of what's wrong with our society, social media has become one of the main reasons why more and more people have grown to mistrust doctors. Algorithms and online sources can easily overload people with information, feeding confirmation bias and making them feel overly confident in their own self-diagnoses. No, sir, that TikTok doctor (or online witch) can't confirm your condition. Doctor here. One we get commonly is "I know my body." Scoped a guy with knee pain - the joint looked perfect. Told him after the surgery, and he told us "no, my tendons are all torn. I know my body" Told a lady she was pregnant. "No, I'm not. I just had a big lunch. I know my body" Edit: Absolutely, when something doesn't feel right and your doctor doesn't want to listen, seek a second opinion. You know how your body normally feels. But if someone has performed an invasive surgery to look at your joint, or has seen a fetus on ultrasound, they probably know what they are talking about. "I didn't have a heart attack, I had a myocardial infarction" That's what a heart attack is chief. And then, of course, we have the multiple issues within healthcare itself. If you're somewhere like the United States, where free healthcare is essentially a foreign concept, people may not necessarily distrust doctors, but they can become more reluctant to seek medical help in the first place. In fact, according to a Yale Cancer study, a significant number of patients completely refused modern medicine as a form of treatment. Instead, they opted for alternative treatments and holistic measures, which ultimately led to them succumbing to their illnesses earlier than they might have with standard care. 20 year old girl and her fiancé find out that she's pregnant Me (part way through taking her history): Do you smoke cigarettes Her: Yea, about a pack a day Me: You should definitely stop that Her: Well, my sister told me that if I stopped smoking, the baby would go into withdrawal and d*e PSA: DON'T SMOKE IF YOU'RE PREGNANT OR PLANNING ON BECOMING PREGNANT. IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO QUIT. Patient comes in with abdominal pain. "I think it's my gallbladder," they say. Looking over their chart, I see their gallbladder was removed 20 years ago so that is impossible. I mention this, to which they reply "yeah but it grew back." Edit: Yes I know there are a number of other things it could've been. A retained stone crossed my mind, but after 20+ years I found this unlikely. He/she also had the scar to vouch for the surgery. There was definitely a psychosocial element to this case. I introduced myself to a patient as Doctor... your anaesthetist. Patient said that I could not be a doctor as anaesthetists aren't doctors. Not long after another patient asked me if I had to go to uni to be an anaesthetist and still another asked me if I had to know as much as a pharmacist. Edit: The number of patients I have seen who are acutely unwell because they stopped their medication does my head in. Almost always the reason they stopped the medication is because the condition they were taking it for went away. As a result of the medication. SMH. But obviously, as we've mentioned, this fear is hardly new. If we were to hop into a little time machine, we'd find that medicine came to be through some... harsh interventions. Mercury dosing, purging... well, you get the idea. Historians have long documented the unethical experiments carried out by doctors of the time, even while trying to treat mundane illnesses. Nowadays, it isn't nearly as intense, but whenever something new is being developed, there's still an inherent human fear of what might come from it. And this isn't exactly a new phenomenon, either. In the 1850s, when mandatory smallpox vaccination laws were set, anti-vaccination leagues formed across North America and Europe. History really is cyclical. I asked a patient complaining of dizziness if she had ever been diagnosed with "vertigo". The daughter chimed in and said "no, no, she's a Libra..." I then laughed hysterically at her awesome joke. She was serious. Veterinarian here. The anti-vax movement has been slowly seeping into my profession for years, but in my area its gotten much worse recently. Almost every day now I have a client inform me on how toxic vaccines are and that I should talk to their dogs breeder because he/she is very informed. Most of the time I'm able to convince them that this is incorrect. However some are still quite resistant. Vaccinating for rabies is not just a suggestion, it is the law, and my clinic has a policy that we don't let any of our healthy animals be "vaccine-free". I've had a few clients walk out over this policy. I feel bad for their animals. These are the same kinds of clients that won't use flea and tick prevention on their obviously flea infested dog but will use lemongrass and peppermint instead. Spoiler: it doesn't work. * Me: Sir, I need to know why you stopped taking your antiretrovirals for your HIV. * Him: Well I met this witch online that... * Me: Wait, did you just said "witch"? * Him: Yeah, she sent me a bunch of herbs every month to cure my HIV, and they worked, last time i checked I was cured. * Me: Where and what tests did you do to know you were cured? * Him: I made an online test that the witch told me to, they were a lot of random questions but in the end it said that I was free of HIV. * Me: Ooook, we will need to do a blood test to confirm that. Now, can you tell me wich herbs were you consuming? * Him: I don't know the name, but I have them right here :points at his backpack: * Me: May I take a look? * Him: Sure! I opened the bag and what I saw was nothing but grinded oregano with something that smelled like chlorine... The patient, sadly, was gone from a severe sepsis a month later with a highly resistant microorganism. Just because a "witch" in a website told him to stop taking his meds... But here's what we have to remember: doctors spend years studying and training to help us. At its core, medicine is meant to help people, and while there are obviously good and bad professionals everywhere, that's where collaborative questioning comes in. Experts say that asking for clarification and making informed decisions together with your doctor are all healthy ways to face your fears. Of course, reluctance is a very normal human response. But more often than not, medical professionals are the people we turn to when we need help, and at the end of the day, we need to make the best decisions for ourselves. With that said, have you ever had a medical experience that made you mistrust a healthcare provider? Let us know! Me: Your blood pressure is very very high. You need to take the blood pressure medications I prescribed you. Him: I don't need no pills doc. All I need is Jesus. Mom of baby: I don't vaccinate, it's against my religion. Me: oh, really? Just out of curiosity, what religion is that? Mom: I'm Catholic. Not really a correction per se, but made me laugh a lot. I work in a burn ICU- which is a weird little specialty- but the number of patients and visitors that come in knowing ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING is annoying. Mayonnaise, mustard, and butter are not acceptable burn treatments. Leave the condiments in the fridge. I don not appreciate having to scrub three jars of mayo off grandma. I had an incredibly sick patient with large burns, and "ARDS"- a serious respiratory complication that makes it very difficult to oxygenate someone- even with maximum settings on the ventilator and continuous medication to open up the lungs. He was then put in a rotating bed that we bolt patients into, and rotate them face down. He was also on continuous dialysis from sudden kidney failure. Anyway- so patient sick as h**l, had 10- 12 IV bags going at once- just a general shitmess of a person. Here comes the family member with "medical experience". These are the worst- they always end up being a transciptionist or a nursing assistant at a nursing home or some s**t- but they enjoy coming in and trying to run the show. Some highlights from "medical expert" before I kicked her out of the unit. "WHY AREN'T YOU PAYING ATTENTION TO HIS BRAIN WAVES!?" (Yes she yelled everything.) She was pointing to the display on the ventilator- which has everything to do with breathing and nothing to do with the brain. "WHY ISNT HE ON PRO-PROPANOL!? ITS NEGLIGENT TO NOT HAVE HIM ON PRO-PROPANOL." She meant Propofol (think Michael Jackson)- but he was on Ketamine and Versed because those worked like a charm for him, and Propofol was having some unwanted effects on him earlier. "THE DRESSINGS ARE DIRTY YOU NEED TO CHANGE THEM IMMEDIATELY!!" Ok f**k right off with this s**t. One, it takes at least an hour or so to change a full body dressing while they are in the rotating bed, AND the patient was so sick that if we rotated him from face down, to face up to get the dressings on his front, the fluid shifting in his lungs would likely have k****d him. Also burn dressings get "gross" quickly. I was super f*****g irritated by the time I kicked her out. Never kicked anyone else out since but g*****n she was annoying. **Bonus since you're reading:** here's the kind of injuries that should be seen in a specialized burn center according to the American Burn Association and some paperwork my boss gave me and I lost. 1. Partial thickness burns greater than 10% total body surface area (TBSA). 2. Burns that involve the face, hands, feet, genitalia, perineum, or major joints. *You're going to want a specialist to repair your face and bits. Trust me. Also, since scars do not stretch, joints provide an issue* 3. Third degree burns in any age group. *Third degree requires surgical involvement.* 4. Electrical burns, including lightning injury. *Electrical injury can cause severe, hidden internal injury, as well as s****y heart rhythms.* 5. Chemical burns. *Ok honestly I always call p****n control for backup because you people get into some weird stuff.* 6. Inhalation injury. *As you already know, burns swell and blister. Burns to the airway are just the same- and without intervention, the airway can swell shut.* 7. Burn injury in patients with preexisting medical disorders that could complicate management, prolong recovery, or affect mortality. *Diabeetus.* 8. Any patient with burns and concomitant trauma (such as fractures) in which the burn injury poses the greatest risk of morbidity or mortality. In such cases, if the trauma poses the greater immediate risk, the patient may be initially stabilized in a trauma center before being transferred to a burn unit. Physician judgment will be necessary in such situations and should be in concert with the regional medical control plan and triage protocols. *Pretty self explanatory.* 9. Burned children in hospitals without qualified personnel or equipment for the care of children. *Kids are not just small adults, and require a fuckton of their own equipment. They are also still growing- a problem when scars do not stretch and grow with them.*. Had a patient come into the ED for what was essentially a cold. Kept requesting antibiotics, kept explaining that they wouldn't help her viral symptoms. But I did then sit down and give her a basic tutorial on the differences between bacteria and viruses, and antibiotics and antivirals. Hopefully it was enough to help her in medical school finals the next week! Edit: Thank you for all the upvotes! I have surpassed my husband on his upvotes 😄. Probably the legions of women that seemingly don't know how long it can take for an IUD to work and want it taken out cause it didn't instantly stop their periods within a month. Also the women that come in with chlamydia but deny having had s*x. Like, come on, I'm not your boyfriend, you don't need to lie to me. Saw a lady pre operatively for removal of melanoma. Advised sunscreen usage. "I never use that stuff. I think it causes skin cancer". Med student here, but I have had two winners. When discussing a precancerous skin lesion on a patient, they opted to use their "laser ray" instead of classic treatment. It was a cancer laser ray that was bought online. It also apparently had "frequencies for arthritis". They insisted that the vibratory frequency can be tuned to destroy cancer cells, just like a trained singer may be able to use her voice to break a crystal glass. The patient did not believe that cancer cells and regular cells would have the same frequency. Another patient insisted that his cancer had been properly treated at home with baking soda (he gave me a website). The patient also had with them a surgery report in which it appears their baking soda consumption resulted in buildup of abnormal calcium in the wall of the stomach, which had to be removed. When I was a medical student, this middle aged male patient from a rural area got it in his head that I knew absolutely nothing and he was doing me a service teaching/talking to me. He was in colorectal clinic for something unrelated and started telling me about the "gland" on the back of his neck that would drain every so often. When he saw that I was unfamiliar with this particular "gland," he gave me this knowing look, laughed and started instructing me (the dumb little medical student) about this "gland." Apparently everybody has this gland for the immune system, but that his would drain when he was "stressed." No sir, I was being polite but you have a nasty f*****g abscess on the back of your neck. I was hoping that the patient would try to explain this medical wonder to my attending when he came in, but, alas, he didn't. Woman with breast cancer. She was in the medical field too, so I am unsure why she said the things she did.. perhaps she was still in denial? Idk... Anyhow, so I was the intern when she came in for a chest tube insertion to drain her pleural effusion (it was obviously suspected to be malignant). After the procedure, I went home and the resident on-call had to deal with multiple calls from the distraught staff in her ward, for reasons I shall explain below. The next morning I was told by said resident -sporting a haggard appearance and blood-shot eyes from a busy shift - that she was my problem now. With that, the poor man left for home. I go in to see her and first get accosted by ward staff, who tell me she legit refused all pain meds. Right after procedure. Which entailed a tube scratching against her parietal pleura. Ow. So I go in and am told, by this woman, who, let me remind you, was employed in the healthcare sector, that the tube has been "pushed in far too much" and is "stabbing" her and that I need to *undo the stitch and pull it out a few centimetres*. Um no, lady, I'm not authorized to do that. The X ray was fine, no intervention was necessary. I tell her she needs to take her meds if she wants the pain to get better, and she says, no joke, that "pain meds will further spread the cancer" and that I "should know that, being a student of medicine". And she further said, "Look, no need to tell anybody, you're a doctor, use your own judgement and pull the tube out." o.O Sigh. She was adamant. My professor was going to be late that day, and I obviously wasn't going to do anything without his permission. I documented her refusal and went on my way. She left by the afternoon, against medical advice. I feel bad for her, but she want letting me help, so yeah. It's really sad when it happens, but when I have to explain to people that their limbs aren't growing back. Am a Doctor, but this was my Nonna not a patient. She was drinking 11 cups of coffee a day, which is too much. We held an intervention while visiting for dinner and when we told her she was a******d she responded... "No, no, the coffee is good for me. It helps me with my shaking." She cut down once we explained to her what d**g withdrawal was. Woman had a BAD yeast infection. Besides *that* smell, I also smelled feces. I asked if she wiped back to front. She said "yeah, but that's not why I have this, it's from drinking pop". Despite my assurances that it *was not* from drinking Pop, she wouldn't believe me. I said "Ok, you must be right, I'm just a Doctor" and prescribed her the same thing I would have if she was an intelligent person. Radiographer here and had the ED doctor give me a request for soft tissue neck X-rays and the doctor was p much like "don't question it, just do it." Anyway after that patient had left the ED dr came and told me that the gentleman presented to ED at 3am because he had hot milk three days ago and his tongue has been hurting ever since. The patient basically burnt his tongue but was insisting on a X-ray to ensure nothing is wrong. I am a family practitioner and I had a family not want to vaccinate their newborn because they heard that vaccines were derived from monkeys brains and they didn't want their child to develop monkey like characteristics. A mother brought her 14-year old daughter to the ER due to hypogastric pain and spotting. We asked the daughter when was her last period. She said a 2 months ago. We asked her for her s****l history, thinking this might be an ectopic pregnancy. The mother kept butting in saying that she is still a virgin and she has no boyfriend. We left it at that, until her mother went out to go to the bathroom. The patient admitted that she had s****l intercourse with a classmate of hers. We requested for pregnancy test and hCG titers... It really looks like ectopic pregnancy. We advised the mother that her daughter needs immediate surgical intervention. She refused to believe us saying that the lab results are unreliable and untrue. She keeps on saying that her daughter is a virgin. She stormed out of the ER with her daughter that looks really in pain. Had a female patient. Her mom asked me to adjust her s*****m. Trying not to burst out laughing, I said "Your daughter's s*****m?" She acted like I was stupid and pointed to the back of her neck. I knew she wouldn't listen as she was so convinced so I stopped arguing with her. And I also wanted her to go around saying it to other people. Med student, but a patient was telling me about how a doctor suggested she may have shingles of the eye, trying to get me to laugh at the other doctor because apparently shingles of the eye is a ridiculous concept. You can totally get shingles in your eye, though. I'm a med student, and my mom is a nurse, but this is about my grandmother. My grandpa is in his 80s and recently had his second back surgery. My grandma is in her 70s and is his only caretaker. The reason? She knows everything about medicine ever. After Grandpa's first back surgery (that was shortly after a knee surgery as well), my mom flew to my grandparents to help my grandpa the first couple weeks of recovery. He needed some extensive help with PT and lots of trips to the doctor about an hour away, so a younger set of hands that was used to this was extremely needed. But grandma didn't think so. My grandpa takes about 8-10 prescriptions daily, all of which my mom has extensive knowledge on. My mom wasn't allowed to touch his medications, give them to him, or remind him when it was time for his next dose. She couldn't help him out of his recliner, bed, or to the toilet and shower, wasn't allowed to help him with his prescribed physical therapy, couldn't make him food, and couldn't help clean his sutures. The way she described was that she was 5 years old again. Why did her mother act like this? Well, since my mom took 6 years to get her nursing degree, she's obviously not fit to be a nurse! Never mind the fact she's been working in the field for 25 years, is the leading nursing authority at her current job for the past 10, and is currently going through another RN program simply to learn the new advancements that have come about. My grandmother is older than her and has dealt with her husband's issues longer, she's the main authority on his health. She also told me that going into physical therapy was a waste of my money because she never needed PT before, so who does? The time I was telling the family that the patient is going to d*e and her lab results (pH 6.6, lactic acid 25) are not compatible with life and they said they were pretty sure she would wake up if I put ice in her underpants. Well. Yeah we are not going to do that. She died and they still didn't believe me she was d**d. They kept trying to wake her up. All the ones I can remember follow the same theme: patient misunderstands the difference between correlation and causality. The most striking example was a young man who was dying of AIDS: "Doc, I was never sick a day in my life until y'all started giving me all these d**n meds." (Well, sir, while you still had a functional immune system, you didn't need these d**n meds.) HIV is a treatable illness these days if you actually take the d***s. If you believe the d***s are the problem and not the virus, well... you can still d*e from it very quickly. Variations on that theme are very common unfortunately. I had a patient once with family members who were some of the most frustrating people I've ever dealt with. The patient was obese and had open sores and wounds in all her skin folds. Cleaning her when she was first admitted was like some sort of disgusting clown car. We found a floral pillowcase shoved under one fold and what we think was a smashed bread crust in a fold near her groin. Anyway, because of her weight she wasn't a candidate for surgery and therefore there was nothing our team could do for her. I think about 5 or 6 different meetings were held with her family to discuss her prognosis. Her daughter told the attending physician he didn't know what he was talking about and that she had been this sick before and pulled through. Her pH was so low it just read as " 1 year old hospitalized with ingestion of unknown d**g. No immediate signs or symptoms. Mother says it is h****n from her brother's stash. Urine comes back positive for M**h. Mom gets very angry and defensive and tells us it is "just" h****n and we should stop "accusing" her of having m**h. Like, lady why you think letting your toddler try h****n is so much nobler? Edit: Another one I remembered back from my gp days out in the middle of nowhere. Lady comes in with itching of the scalp. I look at her head and she has matted greasy extremely dirty hair that actually smelled. I have seen a lot of dirty people but it was really something else. She wanted medication. I suggested she wash and comb her hair regularly for a few days and see if it would get better. She said "and what if I wash my hair and it DOESN'T get better?" Well I am sure you can accumulate the filth again in ten years or something so it is not a permanent loss. Might be late to this, but a 17 year old girl who was pregnant and came into the emergency department to get checked as she was punched in the stomach. She wanted to go out for a smoke so I did the whole pregnancy and smoking spiel, she stopped me and told me I knew nothing as the baby would be harmed if she stopped smoking straight away. When I was shadowing in a peds unit, a doc told me how a father of a newborn was against vaccines, even vit K because he thought the preservatives in them were harmful AS HE WAS EATING A BAG OF F*****G DORITOS. Family came in like a day later because the kid was about to bleed out. Edit: spelling. Had a patient with atrial fibrillation that needed to be on anticoagulation. I chose Pradaxa and patient said ," no. That one does not have any antidote". In fact it's the only new oral anticoagulant that has an approved reversal agent. Patient refused to believe me. Like I got some bonus for k*****g her or something. Gynecologist here. Imagine a revved up version of that dreadlocked beanie-wearing woman meme: "Uh, it's not vuh-JI-nah anymore, it's pronounced vaah-ZHEE-nah now.". Woman with this weird abdominal cramping, twitching presentation. I won't say stupid because she probably had some kind of undiagnosed dementia, but definitely the most bizarre. Ask her what she is feeling, why she's twitching her abdomen "It's like it's trying to get out!" "Like what's trying to get out ma'am?" "My.... my.... my S***M!" "Um ma'am... you don't have s***m" "Oh" For those of you curious, by the time I saw her last official diagnosis was pseudoseizures. She had a tendency to start twitching parts of her body whenever we would start asking whether she had twitching in those areas. "Ma'am have you had any twitching in your legs" *she looks at leg, leg starts twitching" "Yeah, I have".