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?

Yeah you were out of order. You could tell her she was being an idiot (or stronger). You didn't have to bring her womb into it and it was weird to do that

I agree that doctors need to be calm. But how does it help to point that out in that specific moment? How does it help to paint the parent as irrational when they’re seeing their child soaked in blood?

with kindness just because you are mum it doesn’t mean you know how to be a paeds doctor.
This doctor really doesn’t need your thoughts on how she can improve her professionalism.

I think you both sound patronising

Hmm I think I’d prefer a Dr who remained calm in the presence of upset children & worried parents. What did you want her to do? I doubt it would have helped if she had become emotional or hysterical!!

It sounds like you are projecting your past experience here tbh.

When everyone is panicking, you want the Doctor who is calm.

No I don’t because I don’t think I’m better than anyone. I have knowledge and skills yes but I am human and fallible.

And it isn’t about being unconcerned, it is about managing stress and emotions in sometimes the worst situations imaginable.

She said basically she remains calm in these situations which is exactly what you expect a DR to do . You patronised her . Totally out of order.

If Doctors allowed the emotional state of their patients to overwhelm them they wouldn't be fit to practice. They need to build a bit of a buffer for self protection and to remain effective.

She’s newly graduated which means she’s not actually a doctor yet. Where she works she will be the lowest tier on the ladder. She will be faced with all the crappy jobs, bad hours and trodden all over just like all the other new graduate doctors. That makes people behave badly. People outside of the field are the only people that they can push a senior view to. So you got a smug response to a situation. You retaliated. It’s fine. Just avoid her till she’s less green.

If someone has an injury, the first thing is to keep calm and assess the situation!
Your comment wasride and patronising.

A doctor should be calm without being patronising. She was patronising and got a patronising response.

If you do see her again I would follow up with her if it was me and say you're sorry if your comment came across as rude, but you think it's really important doctors understand the emotions involved in your child being hurt and are able to feed your knowledge and experience of your child into their medical approach, whilst maintaining a necessary clinical detachment. I do think for your emotional well-being as a medical professional you need to be able to maintain a level of detachment, but equally people who are emotionally burnt out and so detached they lose empathy and insight is a real problem. A dying friend was treated very cruelly by a nurse who refused to call the on call doctor to administer pain medication despite her being in agony, due to a clear lack of empathy. that is just horrifying and should never happen. So I do think it is worth following up in case she's just a bit clueless rather than actively lacking in empathy.

She was stupid to say that in this context.
You may have overstepped a little.
But what was said, was said. I'd leave it alone.

Primary caregivers, whether parent, spouse, or a full-time nanny etc, always have the best understanding of a person's day-to-day baseline. Because they are always present. They catch sudden changes much faster than a doctor could as a result and so are utilised in these things.

But there are downsides as well, which they wouldn’t have been focussed on during this terrible time for you obviously. Constant exposure also causes 'change blindness,' where slow, gradual symptoms go unnoticed but are actually instantly obvious to someone who only visits occasionally or rarely sees the child/person. And deep emotional attachment can sometimes cloud whatever caregiver in questions objective judgement is, on any given situation.

It sounds like she was boasting about being calm under pressure/immune to the noise, which I can see might be annoying of her, but it's not your place to tell her that she's wrong to tune out the chaos and focus on her job—or that she'll be somehow 'better' if she ever becomes a mother.

Just let this go. What she said has nothing to do with you, really. If she truly does need to be more sensitive, she'll probably learn that in time, but definitely don't bring it up again.

Seriously, you behaved like a total asshole and now you want to double down by criticising her unreasonably further?

What you should do if you see her again is apologise, and if you don't see her again ask your neighbour to pass on your apologies. You're lucky she is able to ignore overly anxious adults and ignore your rude behaviour in the moment, it obviously would not have helped the situation if she'd got upset and responded to you the way you deserved.

Not so calm on deck then.

Months adding up to years long experience of kids hospital. Majority attending are anxious parents, some are hysterical at times / suffering from mental ill health.

Studies show 30% of kids shouldn’t get to A&E ….” up to 30% of children access the Pediatric Accident and Emergency Department (A&E) for non-urgent health care that should normally follow other health care paths.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1755599X21000914

So she’s right - in a lot of cases she needs to discount the parents decision making.

Where a child has childhood cancer - 0.2% of kids - yes during assessment and treatment parents are likely to be more attuned to their child’s needs and behaviour. So in very ill kids parents views need to be heard and reacted to.

Her job is to ignore the heightened stress response in parents & assess risk & medical need. Good for her. She’ll be better at it than most people who have had a child. Breeding isn’t a cure all.

Absolutely. As someone who now works in healthcare I always listen to the patents

when the parents say to me I’m worried this isn’t normal….we can just tell

i always trust a mothers instinct.

Good for you. You're not allowed to make obviously true statements that might offend childless women on this site wihout people getting weird about it, but you're right of course.

She cannot hope to understand why parents react as they do because she's not a parent. It's not complex, and since she made the shitty comment having a dig at people for having normal and perfectly understandable feelings FIRST you had every right to put her back in her box.

However, there's nothing to be gained from you bringing it up again, and you will only push her further into her uncaring bubble if you do. Glad you said something, but now just leave it.

my friends who are doctors have said it's totally different with one's own child and one is every bit as much a nervous parent as the non-doctor parents.

I’m not a mother and I do think there are feelings and emotions non parents can’t understand. But this woman is not there in a capacity as a parent, rather a doctor, so surely it’s a moot point? You want her to be detached.

So you are saying the only doctors who should treat injured children should be parents themselves?

If she has graduated with a degree in medicine, then she is already a doctor.

Same... The parents who let their 4 year old out to ride a bike without being anywhere nearby is the thing that stood out for me more than anything else! And it took a while for the mother to be found? That's far worse than a doctor who may or may not have said something insensitive... I think you're focusing on the wrong thing.