Was I U to tell a doctor she’ll understand when she’s a mum?

I personally think it was an awful thing for you to say. Someone said that to me once, they had no idea I had been on the treadmill of IVF unsuccessfully for the past 12 years. It had such a major effect on me that I did not want to go out or see anyone for weeks, if not months. I vowed however that I would never ever say anything so cruel myself, because you never know people's personal circumstances. This has always stayed with me as I felt, feel, I am less of a woman. Someone saying something slightly insensitive can be earth shatteringly painful for another to hear.

Well, firstly, parents don't always know better than doctors.

But, basically, it's an obnoxious thing to say to anyone, let alone a professional person who is trained in healthcare! If the OP still doesn't understand why, then she's not the empathetic person she evidently believes herself to be.

This. And it’s only ever said to belittle women who are not mothers.

So much missing information. Did she help the child? Was she calm in a crisis? Was the kid ok? I do think doctors tend to get on with the job rather than get caught up in the emotion. Especially in a&e. It’s not necessarily a bad thing.

You want a doctor who will act with emotion as if it’s their own child instead of calm detachment? How do you expect them to make difficult decisions ? Would you expect that of a male doctor as well?

Drs would be burnt out very quickly.

YANBU, but what I hope she was trying to say, badly, is that she is calm under pressure.

Though even if you are a parent there are plenty of people who had do that AND put their professional hat on, so it's not an ability confined to non-parents.

FFS how obnoxious of you. And yes I'm a mother.

I think she was very off to voice that at that particular time. She needs to learn when silence is golden. A doctor I knew evacutated a very sick baby by helicopter and the baby died on the way. She was SO upset. I really worried for her because as a pediatric doctor (and especially in her line of work) she will see children in pain, very very sick and some will die and will have massively distraught parents. While she has bo be caring/warm she will also need to create a distance or she will be a nervous wreck in no time. I think this is what this person meant but she just came across as a cold cow.

The situation happened. You said what you did-and were right to say that. It’s not necessary to revisit that interchange should you see her in a non-professional role again.

It seems like you probably overreacted a bit in the circumstances (understandable), the doctor made a comment (an unnecessary and insensitive one) that made you defensive and brought up bad feelings from what you went through with your own child, so you said what you said in the heat of the moment.
Now instead of accepting that that’s what it was, you are doubling down.
It was an unreasonable thing to say though.
You have no reason to think this woman will ever have kids. You probably wouldn’t have said it to a male doctor.
But at the same time, I think I get where you were coming from. The instincts you get to protect children as a mother can be very powerful. It’s good for a doctor to be calm and objective, but it’s also good that parents have (usually) have a strong, innate ability to react quickly and with emotion (as if it was their own child).

I don't know, I feel like both of you said equally silly things to be honest. She basically said she ignores empirical evidence, which as a doctor is quite strange. And you basically said she won't have a complete view of the world until she gives birth, which is both misogynistic and insensitive given she may not want or be able to.

Just tell the doc what you said here and how being respected and heard reduced the anxiety and how important it is to trust patents gut

doc sounds cocky
and yes you can be excellent with kids and parents without having them

You were unreasonable yes. Totally. Doctors need to remain calm.

My late GP husband used to say that he always listened to mothers as they were tuned in to their babies in a way noone else could be.

Yes. Plus op is actually considering approaching this person, just to 'tell' her what she 'needs' to do. It's a bit unhinged.

You honestly don’t think the majority of adults above say 25 understand human pain and emotion and not to be totally selfish?
And all parents are totally not selfish? As others have pointed out on here before, selfish people become selfish parents. They might not be selfish when it comes to their own kids, but they just extend their selfishness to include their own kids and screw everyone else’s. Just see the stories of women with buggies saying they refuse to pack down the buggy for a wheelchair user because their child is asleep and they don’t want to disturb them.

It was the wrong time to say it and she didn’t say it well but you do have to dissociate from what is happening sometimes to deal with the problem calmly and appropriately. I’m a healthcare professional and had to deal with a very unexpected, very sick child a few weeks ago. It was chaos, several people crying, very public. Honestly, I blocked out the screaming mum, concentrated on the assessment of the child and ensuring that appropriate help was on its way then once I was sure the child was being well managed I turned my attention to what mum was telling me. It would be easy to be distracted by the very upset adult but that may have meant the child having no oxygen going to their brain and I didn’t want to risk that.

Less urgent situations are different and of course doctors miss out on vital information if they don’t listen to parents. But teasing apart parental anxiety (which is normal) from a parental sixth sense is a nuanced skill not possessed by most newly qualified doctors and by many who have been qualified for a long time.

To me the ultimate demonstration of this is the difficulty I have in using that “sixth sense” on my own children. Many health professionals report that with their own family members they are either far to cautious or nowhere near cautious enough, sometime both at the same time! There’s too much emotion and it blurs things. Objectivity and distance from emotion are incredibly important in medicine.

But yeah, pointing out how medicine makes you a bit dead inside and how an upset child covered in blood doesn’t bother her was badly timed and poorly judged at a time of high stress for everyone involved. If I was trying to analyse that I’d say she was probably over compensating for the fact that it was horrible and she did feel stressed and she perhaps felt that she shouldn’t have. But still a poor choice on her part to voice it. It all sounds really upsetting, I hope the child is ok.

Let it go.

Do not get involved with this person and start telling them how to do their job.

Exactly this.

you were very patronising.

I’ve actually voted YANBU

But more because i am concerned she referred to ‘anxious mothers’

My experience and those of many of us is that actually, we are right when there is a problem but we are fobbed off as anxious mothers by GPs.

A recent example is that i took my 1 year old to the GP because she was struggling to breathe through her nose at night and this had been going on for nearly a year, regardless of what we tried to help. The GP fobbed me off, saying it was the sniffles. I went private to get a second opinion and turned out she had enlarged adenoids and tonsils causing obstructive sleep apnea and needed surgery.

Sounds like she has an awful attitude for a dr. But what you said was U

Coming from the mother of an aspiring doctor, what you said was so uncalled for.

sometimes doctors see so much that telling themselves - or others - that they can easily ‘ignore the vibe’ in an extremely traumatic situation is actually a protective mechanism.
i think the next time you see her you should apologise, not give her more crap like you’re intending.

Girl? Would you say this to a 'boy' doctor?

The doctor sounds arrogant. But your comment of “when you become a mum” was knobbish purely because of the assumption that she wants to breed.

I adore my DC, but had them late and never felt broody. I didn’t need children to have a great life and I’m pleased to see so many younger women nowadays not automatically choosing marriage and kids.

YANBU, she doesn’t sound much of a doctor - more an ‘I’m so coooool’ type who doesn’t have a caring bone in her body.

And taboo as it is, I agree. Being a parent, for most (not all before I get piled) seems to switch on a completely different emotional response to human pain and suffering which makes parents more empathetic and less selfish people (that isn’t saying all childfree people are selfish, but being a parent gives you a LOT of practice in putting others first that cannot otherwise be replicated unless eg you have caring responsibilities for disabled relatives or something)