CALL 911! I've got a cold!

Doctors train for a very long time: four years of undergraduate, four years of medical school, at least three years of residency.  Doctors train to bring people back from the brink of death- working tirelessly to not only know how to save a life, but to learn the intricate details of every aspect of medicine.

So why, you ask, do many doctors seem like callous, skeptical, resentful jerks?  To be honest, I wondered the same thing before I started school.  I often asked myself, do physicians take a class during med school, or do people with a propensity for jerkness tend to choose medicine more often than warm, empathetic people? I worried because I didn't feel like I was a jerk beforehand, and didn't want to become one either.

Well, it took almost three years for me to figure out the answer.  I've literally poured blood, sweat and tears into my career with the goal of saving lives.  I am now coming face-to-face with pure disillusionment with regards to my original picture of what I thought being a doctor meant.

This is honestly meant to be humorous, but enlightening.  Next time you go to a doctor and you feel like you've been "brushed off," put it into perspective.  Have you gone to the ER for a sprained ankle?  It's painful, and you can barely walk, but to an ER doctor trained for gunshot wounds and rollover car accidents.  Now I am in NO way discouraging you from seeking medical care for an injury or other concern, but I'm just trying to give the other side of the story here.

Some examples of ER/office visits that doctors did NOT go to medical school for (these are all examples I've seen THIS year):

• Chipped baby tooth
• Swollen toe
• Common cold (by far the most frequent complaint)*
• Runny nose in child
• Stomach bugs
• Toothaches
• Gas pain (it can be horrible, but it's quite embarrassing to leave with this diagnosis)
• Cuts, scrapes and bruises (paper cuts are a pet peeve)
• Babies spitting up milk after eating
• Mild headache
• Chronic problems (in ER): last week I saw a patient who'd had the complaint for over a YEAR
• Going to the ER because you don't have insurance/primary doctor/don't plan on paying
• Insect bites or stings (except for anaphylactic reactions of course)
• "I thought I'd be seen quicker at the ER than by my doctor"
• To get a medical report after an incident you plan to sue for even though you weren't hurt
• Stomach soreness after doing crunches (no joke, transported this to the hospital as a paramedic several years ago)
• Going to the ER for medication refills, to sober up or for retrieval of an object from a child's ear/nose

*Speaking of common cold, ANTIBIOTICS DON'T CURE COLDS!  Antibiotics kill BACTERIA like those that cause skin infections (cellulitis), ear infections, pneumonia, bladder infections, etc.  COLDS are VIRUSES!  It's funny because people will argue that "last time" a doctor gave them an antibiotic for a cold and it went away.  Well, viruses last 5-10 days.  If you go to the doctor, it's usually around day 3 or 4. You start the antibiotic and the virus has almost been cleared, and viola!  Patients think the antibiotic cured their cold.  Unfortunately, busy doctors often find it easier to write the prescription than to discuss this with their patients.  Just remember, there are lots of downsides to using antibiotics for no reason (c-diff diarrhea, organism resistance, etc) so think twice when you're handed that scrip.