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

[Calmondeck]

I usually hate when people say things like “you’ll only understand when…”, “you don’t know because you’ve never…” etc etc

But today I found myself telling a newly graduated doctor that she won’t understand until she’s a mother.

For context, a neighbour (aged 4) had a huge crash on their bike. Their helmet was dented from the impact and they had blood gushing from their forehead. There were no other adults around, just myself and my children, I attended to the child until his mother found him. At this point the child and I were covered in so much blood that both our shirts were soaked.

By coincidence the mother had a friend present, a newly graduated doctor, who told us proudly that she’s so used to seeing screaming children and overly anxious parents that she’s immune to it. She just walks into anxious rooms and “ignores the vibe”.

There was a pause, and I found myself saying she’ll understand if she ever becomes a mother.

She didn’t say anything in reply.

This has got under my skin. My child fought cancer for several years at an age where his doctors really relied on my husband and I to interpret his pain, translate toddler speak, spot symptoms etc. The team told us on day 1 of the diagnosis that no one knows the child better than the parents (they actually said mother but I chose to ignore this slightly patriarchal view) and they needed us to be vocal. My husband and I, who are pretty relaxed, originally thought “we’ll trust the professionals (ie the doctors)” but realised quickly that we really did need to point out things.

I see this neighbour almost daily, and will run into her doctor friend undoubtedly over the coming days (she is staying with them). Would it be unreasonable to tell her she needs to stop being immune to upset kids and their appropriately concerned parents?

Please don't tell anybody else something this callous. You could be speaking to someone who's infertile.

She might not want to have children, or she might be unable to have them, so your comment was out of order for those reasons alone.

I would find that patronising and a bit discriminatory.

You wouldn't say that to a man or an older woman.

And how would you know and what business is it of yours how many surviving children a medical professional has or hasn't given birth to?

You weren’t wrong to call her out on her thoughtless comment, you just said slightly the wrong thing. No big deal.

My first thought as I read it was about doctors saying to me they always trust Mums' judgement when my kids have been ill.

I read it as her saying she ignores and dismisses the anxious parents and screaming kids but it seems like others have taken it she meant she stays calm when the parents are anxious.

For what it's worth, I'm a healthcare professional and my first response was that you're not being unreasonable. My job often involves having to stay calm when things get crazy and I didn't interpret what she said as that, I interpreted it more as a bumptious newly qualified doctor thinking they know it all. Could still be the calm thing expressed poorly though

Also although the title says 'when', the actual post says you said "if you ever become a mum" which I think makes a difference.

Well you would want a doctor to be calm in such a situation so I don’t know why you felt the need to say that. She was a bit twattish though describing concerned parents as over anxious.

Would you rather assume irrationality and be wrong? You don’t need to trust people to be rational to take parental concern into account alongside other evidence. As a PP noted, the evidence is strong that this is best practice.

This ^ 100%
Don’t mention it anymore. You made clumsy comment in response to her clumsy comment but you were understandably upset so I would leave it there.
Hopefully she will improve her conversation skills.
Hope injured child is ok.

I think she’s probably fresh out of training where she’s been taught to be scientific. She would indeed wear her ability to block out the noise in order to see the underlying medical problem more clearly, as a matter of pride.

She clearly needs training on her bedside manner, or just generally live a little more to learn when to say what to whom. Or not.

YANBU to have said what you said in the jest of the moment, especially given your past. But I wouldn’t repeat it and especially not to her. She’s young, she’ll learn (hopefully).

Kind of more worried about this 4 year old zooming about on a bike without their mum around?!

I sense the OP will not be coming back but I did wonder how she knew this woman wasn't a mum?

I have children but I really hate it when women comment to other women that they can't possibly understand children or what real love feels like etc. because they haven't got any (yet). She might've had miscarriages for all you know. It's potentially a cruel thing to say. We all know children to some extent because we've all been one.

I once had this said to me. Entirely different context ( I’m not a Dr) but still incredibly rude, thoughtless and patronising.

Lots of doctors are annoying, especially young ones; patronising women for being childless is a bit annoying too.

I wondered that too. And I'm not a mum either. Wonder why one of these incredible "you'll understand when you're a mum" supermums wasn't watching their child which led to the accident in the first place...surely that's what OP should be focusing on!

More to the point, why didn’t the 4 year old not have an adult with her?

I would be more concerned with the idea that doctors who are mothers are expected to be dramatic and emotional instead of professional. She doesn't sound like a particularly good doctor but what you said was not nice either.

You were being unreasonable .. and rude.
I think she meant she could stay calm and focused despite any stress and anxiety from the patient and family.
I also can’t imagine the injury was so bad that 2 of you were completely soaked in blood 🤨 Heads bleed a lot, even from a tiny cut. It doesn’t mean it’s an horrendous injury.

I think your comment was patronising and twatty. Crass too.

It sounds to me like she was, perhaps a bit clumsily, describing one of her strategies for keeping her cool under pressure. Surely it is better than her being a screaming, hysterical mess.

You should never have commented on whether or not she ever becomes a mother. As I said, patronising at best, crass at worst. You don't know whether or not you might be speaking to someone who is infertile, or what her obstetric history might be.

Maybe you will understand when/if you become a doctor. The last thing an injured child needs is an hysterical doctor.

I’d want a dispassionate doctor who could ignore anxious vibes and assess the situation, personally. As someone who has walked through infertility I’d also ask you why you feel assumptions/judgements regarding another woman’s reproductive status are necessary. Perhaps ask yourself the hard questions instead of focusing on this woman. For example, do you really believe that you are inherently superior and your judgement is better purely because unprotected sex led to a pregnancy for you?

That's not what she said, she said she ignored the inevitable noise etc and got on with the job of treating the injury.

This reminds me of a minor altercation between a friend’s sister - a junior doctor and their mum. Friend’s sister came home from her shift ( first week) on paediatric ward. On describing her night to her mum ( mother of four) she described an ‘annoying’ five year old ( parents not there) very distressed at his drip as it was ‘a needle going into his arm’. She said with impatient scorn that she’d told him there was no needle but ‘he howled on and on’.

Friend’s mum tore a strip off her telling her that she’d be a useless doc if she lacked the imagination to put herself in the shoes of a distressed kid and the patience to try to think about how best to reach them. When doc later became mum she admitted that she’d been a ‘hard hearted Hannah’.

Doctors need to understand that they can make a patient feel much worse or better through their interactions with a patient alone - this tenfold when dealing with the very young or very old.

I'm a doctor, she sounds a bit over confident for a newly qualified one. It's written into the guidelines now to take the parents concerns seriously as it's been proven to predict a deteriorating child, separate to objective data. Listening to Mums' instincts has paid off a lot in my career.

Quite.

My baby had an injury when she was 6 weeks old. We rushed her to children’s A&E. Doctor checked her out and said she seems fine but would get senior doctor to come in and check.

Senior doctor came in and agreed that she looked fine but felt I knew my baby best. I said that I didn’t think she was behaving normally. Senior doctor said that’s good enough reason for her to order a CT scan and it turns out she had a serious fracture.