What was your worst experience at a doctor’s office?

Was 17, had an infected ingrown toe nail. My pediatrician tried cutting and digging it out with what looked like pliers and bracing his leg against the table. After fucking around for a bit he realized he wasn’t going to get it. No numbing gel or anything. Hurt like a mofo. Scheduled an appointment with a podiatrist, he numbed it, had it removed in about two minutes and told me to never see that dr. Again.

Friday Morning

Me: My stomach is really hurting, I can’t stand up straight it hurts so bad, I feel like I’m going to puke and/or shit my pants and the pants of everyone in a 4 yard radius.

four hours later

Dr: here’s a prescription for ibuprofen, take some pepto. peace out.

Sunday Morning

Me: My stomach is still hurting really bad, I haven’t slept at all since Thursday, I haven’t eaten at all, yet I still feel like I’m going to be spraying from both ends.

two hours later

Dr: cool lets get an scan done.

an hour later

Dr: yeah, looks like your appendix is about to burst, you will need surgery immediately

2 hours later:

Dr: the surgeon will be coming in an a few hours

3 hours later:

Dr: yeah, the surgeon will be coming in Tomorrow afternoon

1 hour later

Me: I just left this other hospital because my appendix is about to burst and they can’t help until tomorrow

45 minutes later

Better Dr: ok, we got your scan results let cut you open

2 hours, 1 surgery and $84,000 dollars later

nurse: your insurance will cover most of this but for some reason even though our hospital is covered your anesthesiologist isn’t so another $3,000 will need to come out of pocket.

6 months, dozens of phone calls, hours and hours on hold, and calling one insurance agent a cunt later

insurance: turns out you were covered, we just filed the claim wrong.

The ENT doctor removed a skin cancer from my nose, leaving an ugly scar. Turns out he excised the wrong area and I went to a different doctor to actually remove the cancer.

I thought I had a broken nose. The doc was showing me, on a heavy glass x-ray plate, that my nose was not broken. But as I was looking up, he dropped the plate on my nose and broke it.

I went to a clinic to see a doctor about a fever and body aches and informed him I was allergic to NSAIDs.. he said he’d give me something and it was not an NSAID

Went home, swallowed the pill, immediate allergic reaction starts.. rushed to the A&E of a hospital where they pumped me full of drugs to stop the allergic reaction.. and the doc there asked me why I took the NSAID

I think the A&E doc reported the clinic doctor because he was never seen again

Laid on my side with my back to the door for a prostate exam. Heard people walk by talking while a finger was in my butt and realized the door was open.

I was getting a bone density scan for some odd reason, and the doc came in a while later and told me I had Osteoporosis. This was not why I was there in the first place and was completely surprised. I asked him if I could see the chart, and it was for a 70 year old woman. I was a 30 something man, and he had the wrong chart! Turns out I did not have any issues at all, well, bone density related…

If an emergency room counts:

Walked in with chest pains and severe pain area around left shoulder blade. Here, fill this out. Wait over here. Walk back here. Go back to waiting room. Walk back here again.

Doctor walks up, first time I saw him, hands me discharge papers. “Follow up with your doctor in a few days.”

Wife drove me 40 miles to another hospital. They freak. Rush me to the cath lab. In the Nick of Time.

Had 200% blockage of coronary LAD. Also known as the widow maker heart attack.

At a hospital.

A little context. I am white. My wife is African-American.

We were checking in for the birth of our child. It was after normal business hours so we were checking in through the emergency room. A woman (white) was there in front of us. She had a bad accident and cut off a toe. Me and my wife were waiting patiently next to each other because the woman was definitely the priority. They check her in and we walk up to check-in. They ask my wife some questions and take her back for vitals before we are to go to maternity.

A few minutes later a nurse indicates that they are done and I can join my wife. I start to walk to her when a security guard (late fifties white male) stops me and yells at me. He puts his hand on his firearm. He then insists I join my wife. I step forward towards my wife and he grabs the handle again and orders me into a room. I step into it where I see the woman with her toe cut off. He steps in and continues to yell at me (and the woman) for not listening to him. He berated her for having an ‘idiot’ for a husband. It took another security guard and a nurse to stop his shouting and tell him my wife was the African-American woman.

He didn’t finish his shift before he was terminated but it didn’t make the experience any less bad.

I have two:

1. I was taken back to an examination room and got really thirsty, while waiting for the dermatologist. I went to the front to ask for water. On my way back I walked into the wrong room and saw the doctor and another patient. He was holding the guy’s dick. I said “I am SO SORRY” and the guy mumbled “it’s ok” as I raced off. I still feel awful. I mentioned, to my bf, that I didn’t realize dermatologists inspect dicks and he was like “contrary to popular belief, scientists have found that dicks are in fact covered in skin.”

2. According to my mom, some friend of a friend went to the gyno and gave a urine sample only to find there was no tp; so she pulled a tissue out of her purse and used that instead. When she got on the table for her checkup the doctor peeled a US priority stamp from her labia and gave her a curious look. It had come from her purse.

My family practitioner referred me to the therapist connected to their office. Before our session, I made sure to ask about patient confidentiality. The therapist assured me that it was all private, locked behind a different level of access, so only she would be able to see this part of my records. I was struggling a lot with my mental health at the time and really needed the help, so I was brutally honest about what I was going through during the session.

At my next appointment with my FP, the nurse doing my pre-assessment started going down the list of all the very private things I had told the therapist, asking me for updates for the record. There was no extra layer of privacy, the therapist had simply entered it into my patient notes that the entire office staff could see.

I ended up walking out. Never went back to that office.

When I got the news I had stage 4 cancer 🫠 after being told by a Dr. That I was “too young for cancer” (I’m 29)

Not me, but a close friend:

She was having debilitating migraines, to the point she couldn’t work or function. She waited nearly a month to see a neurologist. Upon a brief examination, he said:

“You don’t have anything wrong with you. Just exercise and try not having headaches.”

Three months later, he finally relented and did an MRI. She had massive lesions on her brain. She was diagnosed with MS. The smug bastard was somehow irritated she had a positive diagnosis. Her health wasn’t as important as his ego.

It took me 13 years to find out my gall bladder was dead. I went to my doctor repeatedly, then another, then another. Seven different doctors. I had excruciating pain that never moved, always flared when I ate. It would last for hours. If I felt the pain coming on, it would stick around for about 6-9 hours before it abated. Solid 10 on the pain scale. If I ate anything other than toast the next day, it would come back. Impossible to sit, stand, move, lie down, exist.

Went to the ER a few times. They’d give me ultrasound after ultrasound—and because they saw NO GALL STONES they always wrote it off.

You’re probably constipated.

You’re just overweight.

After begging for a referral to another specialist, they gave me a full body MRI and several hours of testing to watch the minute-by-minute function of my organs. Turns out my gallbladder had 93% non-function. Just a mostly dead organ. They had me scheduled for surgery the next week. I had it out and it was life changing.

It was only AFTER having it out that I realized how fucking common the surgery is, and how any doctor who’d given me even vague consideration might have realized a gall bladder can malfunction WITHOUT stones.

I did not know how to advocate for myself because I kept being dismissed. I wish I’d been more assertive, because I suffered A LOT.

I was in my early 20’s and very naive. I began having gyn problems and started seeing a gynecologist at the county hospital. I knew his exams were weird and I hated them because he would be doing things that didn’t seem necessary. One day I was in the exam room waiting to see him when I heard the lady in the next room yelling at him to “stop rubbing my clit you fucking pervert!” This was back in 1984, Dr.’s examined you without a nurse in the room. I ran out and never went back.

I had a brown recluse bite under my nose, and it began to open up. I went to the urgent care, the doctor told me to lay down and prepare myself. Now, I work in healthcare so I already knew this wouldn’t feel good because he told me he was going to scrape out what was going on, pack it and send me on my way. He comes in, doesn’t give me any warning and shoves a needle in my face with lidocaine, doesn’t wait for it to localize, and began to scrape out the wound. I gave birth NATURALLY and would rather do that again than have to go through that horror ever again. I was in shock, just uncontrollably shaking after from the pain.

Months after a breast lump removal my breast was still numb. I had the surgeon recheck it for the reason why. He said he didn’t cut any nerves, flicked my nipple and said “You’re fine.”

Hands down, my IUD insertion. No warning. No numbing. Just spread on a table and an evil lady shoving a barb up in my cervix.
Swear to God I screamed at the top of my lungs, threw up, then blacked out for 2 mins. Then spent the next hour in the fetal position in the bathroom crying and throwing up. THEN drove myself home in the fetal position shaking from the pain. Fuck that lady doctor!

I had pinched my syatic nerve pushing carts at work. He accused me of having very kinky sex while my gf was in the room. I told him it was at work, and he assured me he would not judge me if it was from sex. He then gave me OxyContin and told me when ever I needed a refill I should call him and he’d make sure I had plenty. Very weird.

The other is super mild but he kept farting. Like the whole time he’d fart every few minutes.

Was sent to a rhumetologist for test and medicine for lupus. The doctor told me they had medicine to help but she wasn’t going to give it to me because I was in the “prime birthing age range”