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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think that health professionals should not call me MUM

843 replies

Reallytired · 21/08/2009 19:34

DD had her jabs today and the nurse kept on calling me "Mum" even though I said to her that I did not want her to call me "Mum". I told her that it was a biological impossiblity that I was her mother.

I have two children and I am happy for me to call me Mum, but I do have a proper name and I think health professionals should use it.

OP posts:
LadyOfTheFlowers · 21/08/2009 22:08

YANBU imo. I find it patronising and irritating.

For some reason I find it even more annoying when DH gets called 'Dad'. Don't know why though! lol

AitchwonderswhoFruitCrumbleis · 21/08/2009 22:10

it doesn't offend me in the slightest when my children call me mum, in fact i find it delightful. it's just that i didn't give birth to those pesky doctors...

vinblanc · 21/08/2009 22:16

"Don't sweat the small stuff"

AitchwonderswhoFruitCrumbleis · 21/08/2009 22:20

at the relevance of that site.

nanninurse · 21/08/2009 22:21

FFS... i cannot remember all my patients names... please lay off, i hate this silly nit picking, you try walking in my shoes for a day!

smallwhitecat · 21/08/2009 22:25

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AitchwonderswhoFruitCrumbleis · 21/08/2009 22:26

ffs. no one's asking you to remember them, you pompous twit. just don't call us anything at all.

chichichien · 21/08/2009 22:26

I'd imagine it would be a nightmare trying to call patients by their name. First name, surname, Ms/Mrs/Dr, use married name officially but maiden name in all day to day situations, whole first name, nickname, middle name.

There is a huge element of simplicity involved in this. It is most definitely not all about power.

AitchwonderswhoFruitCrumbleis · 21/08/2009 22:27

also, might i direct your attention to this, nanninurse? "in the last thread i emailed a very, very senior doctor in the country where i live and he totally said it was a power thing, and not to believe any hcp who said different."

do you see what you did there, with your 'walk in my shoes' and 'silly nit-picking'? power grab, plain as the nose on your oh so professional face. lol.

LadyOfTheFlowers · 21/08/2009 22:28

The last nurse I saw for DS's preschool booster just said things like 'Could you hold him tightly please?' and it was blatantly obv. she was speaking to me.
She didn't need to call me anything,not once.

chichichien · 21/08/2009 22:28

how many clients you got, whitecat? How long is a single appointment? How long do you get to gether your thoughts in between each appointment? How often are you dealing with a child's case with a child in the room but you have to speak to their parents?

smallwhitecat · 21/08/2009 22:28

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chichichien · 21/08/2009 22:30

You're really not sounding too profesisonal yourself, whitecat

AitchwonderswhoFruitCrumbleis · 21/08/2009 22:30

why do they need to say anything at all, chichi? no reason, really. it's even confusing for the child, in a way that 'your mum' isn't. as in 'hello little freddie, you sit here and i'll ask your mum to sit there'. makes sense.

whereas 'hello little freddie, you sit here and mum can you sit there' doesn't. unless you're freddie's grandma, that is.

smallwhitecat · 21/08/2009 22:31

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chichichien · 21/08/2009 22:32

And who provides you with the information on their names?

beckysharp · 21/08/2009 22:32

I just don't get this. Patient is in room. Notes are in front of you, either on paper, or on screen. If it's a child's injection the person with the child will have just signed their name! How hard, exactly, is it, to remember that the woman in front of you is called Mrs Bloggs?

Or as someone else said, just say nothing.

There are plenty of us who find going to the doctor or nurse a fairly tricky experience. This kind of stuff - not being addressed in a formal way, being bossed around - just makes it even more uncomfortable.

ilovemydogandmrobama · 21/08/2009 22:33

smallwhite should call her clients: claimant, defendant Unless she's prosecuting...

AitchwonderswhoFruitCrumbleis · 21/08/2009 22:33

and it's designed to, becky.

chichichien · 21/08/2009 22:34

My children have never found it confusing, aitch.

JemL · 21/08/2009 22:34

It might have been a power thing for that particular Dr Aitch but that doesn't make it true for everyone.

It genuinely doesn't bother me in the slightest, although if I were a regular visitor to hospitals / doctors, maybe it would.

beckysharp · 21/08/2009 22:35

Quite.

I, too, work in a field where I might meet 50 people in the space of a few hours. If they tell me their name, or I have it in front of me or need to know it, I jolly well remember it!

Apologies to ellie above though - I misread her post.

AitchwonderswhoFruitCrumbleis · 21/08/2009 22:35

mind you, it's a kicking-downwards thing as well. nurses get spoken to like SHIT by doctors, i found the hierarchy in hospital absolutely horrifying when i was in having dd2.

MillyR · 21/08/2009 22:36

I don't know why SWC needs to sound professional; she isn't at work.

Obviously none of us can possibly imagine what it is like to be a HCP, because their jobs are so much more demanding than everyone else's. The rest of the population doesn't really work at all; we just chat to our colleagues and eat cake all day. I mean being a lawyer can't be hard; it isn't as if someone will lose custody of their child or be sent to prison unjustly if the lawyer makes a mistake.

chichichien · 21/08/2009 22:36

but becky, the notes will be for the child. How would you really know with any certainty (unless you saw the patient a lot) if it was Mrs/Ms, which surname she used, if it had changed recently, if s/he was known by first name/surname etc.