Few places leave you feeling as vulnerable as in a doctor’s office. You are frequently underdressed and sitting on a paper-covered table like a piece of deli meat waiting to be assessed. The least the person holding the clipboard can do is be professional about it. And yet…
Doctors spend years in medical school learning how the body works and apparently very little time learning how to talk to the person it belongs to. Netizens asked patients to share the worst things a doctor has ever said to them, and the responses are truly horrific, varying from dismissive to downright offensive. Some are so bizarre they suggest the doctor in question had a very interesting morning before arriving at work.
#1
An obgyn told me all my problems were in my head because I was a lesbian. Turns out, I had uterine cancer.
Image source: drhailey, katemangostar
#2
A surgeon refused me a hysterectomy directly after warning me of the reoccurrence rates and likelihood of the cancer returning because “my future husband will want kids.” Threads- I am a lesbian, was already married to my wife- and she was sitting next to me holding my hand.
Image source: ishaconde, Wavebreak Media
#3
I was trying to ween myself off of oxycodone after a back surgery and realized I couldn’t sleep if I didn’t take it. Went to my doc, he checked the chart and said, “ooooo yeah, I’ve had you on those for way too long. My bad.” Your bad?!?! SIR THIS IS HOW PEOPLE GET A******D.
Image source: rawlingseliza, pvproductions
he relationship between a doctor and a patient is only as good as the communication holding it together, and the numbers suggest that is not going well. A survey by Artera, covering over 2,000 patients, found that 43% report their health being negatively affected by communication problems with their provider.
Around 60% would consider switching doctors over a bad communication experience. And 81% of dissatisfied patients end up having to call the office directly because the official systems are too limited to actually help them. The appointments in the thread ahead represent the extreme end of this, but they are not anomalies.
#4
At a pediatrician visit with my newborn, the nurse took his diaper off and disposed of it during the exam (even though it was clean) and when I realized I didn’t have an extra with me she said, “no extra diapers? Bad mom!” EVEN THOUGH MY HUSBAND WAS SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO ME.
Image source: laurenmorrill, ching ping
#5
The pediatrician on duty when my son was born told my husband we shouldn’t name him because “something is obviously very wrong and he probably won’t make it.” Turns out the boy has a rare chromosome condition, but he turns 21 this month.
Image source: t.kennedy1978, gpointstudio
#6
After 6 months of chemotherapy for triple negative breast cancer, I had an appointment with a breast surgeon to discuss my upcoming double mastectomy. After I got up the courage to tell her I didn’t want any reconstruction (it’s a really hard decision to make) she blurted out “So you want to look WEIRD?!” and I immediately burst into tears. Definitely not the right reaction to someone’s very difficult and very personal decision. Oof.
Image source: juliacr99, magnific
Women make up a significant portion of the thread, and that is not a coincidence. Research on the gender pain gap is shocking, to say the least. More than half of women report negative healthcare encounters, including having their pain minimized or dismissed, compared to 39% of men presenting with identical symptoms.
A UK study found that 62% of women feel their pain complaints have been ignored by medical professionals, and that when women’s pain is acknowledged, doctors are significantly more likely to prescribe sedatives or refer them to psychiatric care rather than run physical diagnostic tests. And a shocking two-thirds of women report being told at some point that their physical symptoms were exaggerated or purely psychological. For heart attacks specifically, women are seven times more likely to be misdiagnosed and sent home. Disgusting.
#7
“Go ahead and tie her tubes. People like her don’t need to have kids.” (By the anesthesiologist to my OBGYN, in front of me)
I have dwarfism.
Image source: rebecca_a_cokley, user21155762
#8
I was in labor. I was young and crying. Nurse said, “Shut up! You’re not the first person to have a baby!” I stopped crying and then I said some things. When I finished, she was crying and no longer allowed in my room.
Image source: drangela1908, pch.vector
#9
I asked to get my tubes removed after I had my second kid and she responded with “well what if your entire family dies and you want to start a new one” …. I found a new doctor.
Image source: solobotoys, magnific
And if you carry a few extra inches around your waist, weight bias is another thing you need to worry about. Between 69% and 80% of adults with obesity report experiencing weight stigma directly from a healthcare provider, making doctors the second most common source of weight bias in their lives after family members.
A systematic review found that more than half of all health professionals carry explicit or implicit weight bias, with many subconsciously viewing higher-weight patients as lazy or noncompliant. Research from the UConn Rudd Center found that 53% of patients have received shaming comments about their weight from a doctor. When this happens, the actual problem stops being investigated, and early signs of unrelated conditions get missed entirely.
#10
Went to see a GI after my mom died from colorectal cancer to beg for a colonoscopy. He dismissively told me “She had to d*e from something.” That is horrible even if she’d died years ago, but it was only months prior, which he KNEW.
Image source: sylv_in_sandiego, The Yuri Arcurs Collection
#11
An obgyn told me, after an ultrasound, that there was no fetal heartbeat. Technically, he didn’t even tell me, he just circled the words “no fetal heartbeat ” on his print out and handed it to me.
As I began crying he said, “Well…that’s life.”
Image source: kim_marie_36, aimenda123
#12
“You gained over 70 lbs in 4 months because you are middle aged and eat too much.” Friends, my thyroid had gave out. 5 doctors and 8 months later it was cancer.
Image source: midwest_express, DC Studio
The “it’s probably just anxiety” diagnosis has ended careers in its own way. A major study published in Rheumatology tracked over 3,400 patients with Systemic Autoimmune Rheumatic Diseases and found that nearly half had their early physical symptoms explicitly misattributed to anxiety or stress before receiving a correct diagnosis.
Endometriosis, which affects roughly one in ten women, carries an average diagnostic delay of 8.6 years, during which the majority of patients are told their severe pelvic pain is normal menstrual stress or general anxiety. Women presenting to emergency rooms with microvascular heart disease or atypical heart attack symptoms are twice as likely as men to be told they are having a panic attack. The anxiety label is not always wrong. It is, however, frequently deployed as a conversation-ender rather than a diagnosis.
#13
Nurse: Do you drink?
Me: Occasionally.
Nurse: Do you smoke?
Me: No.
Nurse: Are you s******y active?
Me: No.
Nurse: Well, you’re no fun.
Image source: _jasminethemasterpiece, Magic by Jelena
#14
2 instances –
1- my pap smear. They said they were “wearing me like a puppet” and then laughed when I tensed up through being uncomfortable and said they liked it.
Image source: jmjohnson_author, 123 Tahmid
#15
I accompanied my 9yo daughter to a new ENT visit. When he (old white guy) walked in, he said, “I see you’re here for your spanking.” She said no, she was not. He went on with the appointment. At the end, he came back to it, “Go up to the front desk and they’ll give you your spanking.” I reported him to the medical board and we will never return.
Image source: midwifebethany, Anna Tolipova
Just when we think there is no more bias to consider, racial bias enters the chat. One of its most disturbing drivers is a set of biological myths that have no scientific basis and should not exist in any medical training program. A landmark study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that 50% of white medical students and residents endorsed at least one false biological belief about Black patients.
Between 40% and 60% believed Black people have thicker skin and 12% believed they have less sensitive nerve endings. Excuse me, what?! Trainees who held these beliefs consistently rated Black patients’ pain as lower and made less accurate treatment recommendations. These are current medical students, not uninformed quacks from the Middle Ages.
#16
I was extremely anxious my junior year of college, like couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, panic attacks every day. Especially surrounding driving. I told my mom who said she’ll schedule an appointment with her doctor while I was home on a break.
Show up to the appt, doc comes in, I explain what’s happening. She goes “… you’re afraid to drive a car? That’s pathetic. You need serious help, I can’t help you. What do you want, pills?”
I sat there and cried then passed out when they drew blood.
Image source: heyannalange, Camandona
#17
“Have you ever rear ended a car? Or gotten a ticket for distracted driving?”
“…no?”
“Well, IF you had ADHD, it would affect your entire life. So.”
Switched providers shortly afterwards.
Image source: unhinged.hr, New Africa
#18
The 4th time I came out of remission with a rare form of chordoma, my oncologist had retired so I saw his former partner. He said, “I don’t think you’ll survive this time. You should get your life in order.”
I left the office sobbing (they didn’t care) & bumped in my gastric bypass surgeon. He was furious. Walked me to the office of another oncologist (also furious) who sat me down & told me to show him the bottom of my foot so he could see my expiration date.
Spoiler alert: I didn’t die!
Image source: dianeljarrettlives, dikushin
The most frustrating part of all of this is how rarely it results in any formal consequence. According to data from the Federation of State Medical Boards, 69% of Americans do not even know that a state medical board is the correct place to report a doctor’s conduct, which means the vast majority of incidents never get filed at all.
Of those who are actively dissatisfied with their care, only 25% actually intend to file a formal complaint. In one large-scale tracking study covering nearly 750,000 patient consultations, only 484 resulted in formal complaint letters. That is 0.065% of all clinical encounters. There is a higher chance your complaint will end up on a Bored Panda list than it will actually end up on the desk of a board memeber.
#19
I went to the dr for chronic ear infections. Long story short, my birth control was causing the issues. My then husband asked about a vasectomy. The doctor turned to me and scolded me for making him ask for that because what if I died and he got remarried and wanted to have kids with that person but he wasted that opportunity on me.
We stopped seeing him immediately. Fun fact: we got divorced and he is remarried and still doesn’t want kids. Fancy that!
Image source: drjencaudle, Drazen Zigic
#20
I’ve had a OBGYN start my appointment off (regular check up) telling me the person before me had 5 abortions and she doesn’t understand why, her husbands rich. I asked the doctor “have you screened for DV?” She stood there shocked. I never saw her again.
Image source: therealtayonce, magnific
#21
At my med check up with my physciatrist. Told him I was very upset about the election (the first time he was won). He took out an iPad and started showing me conspiracy videos about Hillary Clinton. I found a new doctor.
Image source: amyhegel, DC Studio
The practical advice for anyone who has experienced a genuinely harmful or dismissive medical interaction is to know that the complaint mechanism exists even if it is underused. State medical boards handle physician conduct. Hospital patient advocacy offices handle in-facility complaints.
A second opinion is always a legal right, and asking for one is not confrontational. It is self-preservation. If you stay quiet, that doctor is free to traumatise more people, people who will most likely also not raise the alarm. It is a toxic cycle fuelled by the fear of looking like a whining sissy.
#22
A new pediatrician (we’d just moved to a new state) asked my 9 year old daughter if she knew how adults had s*x. When she hesitated, he said “have you ever seen dogs have s*x?” My daughter and I were so stunned we were silent and said nothing. I sent a letter to the head of the practice the next day.
Image source: _patricia_britton, magnific
#23
Dr: Let’s just remove your autism diagnosis.
Me:…. Uh, no. I’m autistic. I was diagnosed as a kid.
Dr: Well it just seems like you have a lot going on and it’s be nice to have less.
Me: That’s not how diagnoses work?
Dr: But it seems stressful.
Me: Leave my chart alone. I’m here for dysmenorrhea. Just give me tranexamic acid and go away.
Image source: alexserthes, stefamerpik
#24
While having my cervix checked during labor, I swore. The nurse scolded me and when I said it hurt, she replied that ‘a lot of people here are in pain and dont swear’
My momma then proceeded to track her down in the hall and advocate on my behalf very sternly to this nurse.
Image source: april_had_the_runs, peoplecreations
The Hippocratic Oath has been the moral backbone of medicine for over two thousand years. Dating back to ancient Greece, it established the foundational principle that a doctor’s primary obligation is to the patient in front of them, not to their own assumptions, biases, or impatience. The phrase most people associate with it, “first, do no harm,” does not actually appear in the original text, but the principle is embedded throughout.
What it asks of doctors is not perfection. It asks for care, for honesty, and for the basic commitment to treat a patient as a person whose suffering is real until proven otherwise. These posts all suggest that commitment is being broken, consistently, in consulting rooms across the world, every single day.
#25
Pharmacist here: I was told to “leave medicine to those who are trained for it.”
Confused me a bit because medicine is literally my entire training.
Image source: dramandaataei, senivpetro
#26
When I said I thought my husband’s red, tight, warm, and hugely swollen leg could be a blood clot/DVT, I was told I “watched too much House ” and it was clearly a bug bite. Spoiler alert: it was a huge blood clot caused by an abdominal tumor pressing on the vein. That tumor was metastatic from lung cancer. He lived another ten months.
Image source: damnedfallacy, prostock-studio
#27
A peripartum mental health provider once tried to tell me that certain medications would “scramble up” my baby’s “neurons and brain cells”. At the time I had just earned my PhD in neurocognitive development and immediately filed a complaint against her.
Image source: dr.mrs.folan, topntp26
#28
A GP nurse told me my toddler son didn’t have an ear infection and that the discharge from his ear was “the heat from teething melting the wax”. I told her to get me a doctor immediately. Son got antibiotics for his raging infection and the last I heard the nurse is now a nail technician.
Image source: one_mrs_k, freepic.diller
#29
I was having a CT scan to check the nature of a weird lump in my abdomen. Provider thought lipoma, so sent me to radiology to get more data. I was *still in the scanner cradle* when the radiologist came out, and snarled at me, “who told you you have a lipoma? Because that’s a liposarcoma and those things f*****g k**l you.” and then he turned around and walked out of the room.
So that’s how I found out I had cancer.
Image source: elementalgrrl, user7003113
#30
A doctor in the ER smiling as he pat me on the shoulder and told me “the issue is between your two ears, my dear” about two hours before I was wheeled into surgery to fix the actual problem.
I saw him again, years later. I said, “I remember you. You missed my ruptured gallbladder in the ER and chalked it up to anxiety.”
Image source: cocktailstraw, The Yuri Arcurs Collection
#31
My dad was in end stage Alzheimer’s. The internist in the ER looked me straight in the eyes and told me Alzheimer’s isn’t fatal but chronic and manageable. They moved moved him without my permission to a SNF in the middle of the night and he was d**d by breakfast. I’ll never f*****g forgive her or the hospital.
Image source: jojoinoc
#32
A provider accused my daughter of faking seizures – I had to cause a total scene in the doctor’s office for a referral to pediatric neurology. She was diagnosed with epilepsy.
Image source: jenkostera
#33
Speaking to a neurologist, and out my husbands declining health. Begging him to do another MRI. I told him, “my husband is dying” and he laughed and said, “Mrs. Wilson your husband is 30 years old! He’s not dying.” We got a second opinion and he was in fact….dying from a brain tumor. He was dead 7 months later. That man called me apologizing.
Image source: rachielynn79
#34
When my mom was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s, she walked into the office and her new neurologist said, enjoy it now because you won’t be walking in a few years. I wasn’t there but my mom walked out and we found her a new neurologist immediately. 17 years later, my mom goes to the gym every day, enjoys a very full life and walks very well.
Image source: arocanuck
#35
A white male OBGYN suggesting I get a hysterectomy at 33 for fibroids, without asking if I have children or want them.
Image source: jessicanabongo
#36
A nurse yelled at me on the OR table during a c-section that if I didn’t stop shaking she was going to have to strap me down. Turns out that is how my body responds to anesthesia and a KIND nurse realized and starting laying warmed blankets on me. I immediately relaxed and asked that the other nurse be removed.
Image source: sizeinclusivecollective
#37
I had a miscarriage at 18 weeks on superbowl Sunday. Went the ER. They called my OB and he came in the angry and hostile. I just lost my baby, I’m hemorrhaging and distraught. He looks at me and angrily and yells at me we can’t be meeting like this. Before he could continue my husband jumped up in my defense and said don’t you ever disrespect my wife again-we just lost our baby.
Image source: _teejay93_
#38
Male OBGYN: “For your age, you’re unbelievably tight! Like a teenager. Your husband is a lucky man.”
Image source: heatherkpurdy
#39
A licensed psychologist told me I didn’t “look” depressed.
Image source: jessicanabongo
#40
“You’re too young to have cancer.” After pushing for diagnostic testing for SIX MONTHS they finally figured out that thirty year old do get breast cancer.
Image source: ellecheshire
#41
He, a doctor in his 30’s, decided to call me, a woman in my 50’s “girl”. Believe me, he regretted it.
Image source: ameliaransom
#42
From my OB/GYN as he examined my nipples during a breast exam said they would’ve been good for breast-feeding, it’s too bad I’ll never get to use them.
Image source: paintedhandfarm
#43
I had a miscarriage and the doctor told me “to toughen up because most women will experience a miscarriage in their life.” He then told me to go home and try again.
Image source: meli_mali_mel
#44
I was in immense pain during labor. My epidural wore off and the pitocin made every contraction and push feel like I was being ripped apart from the inside. My nurse called the male doctor about alternative solutions. The nurse shared her suggestions and he said none were options. I was essentially pleading for something and he said, “well if you can’t do it…but you just need to try”.
Image source: bvmcnulty
#45
Depression screening confirmed I’d been depressed. She said, “you’re just 32, what could you possibly be depressed about?”
Image source: amy__knopf
#46
Had bowel investigation under GA. They wouldn’t tell me what they found and told me to wait until I saw the Doctor in a few weeks time and to ask him.
I went to the hospital appointment, it was running almost 2 hours over by the time I got in. 
He barked at me “why are you here?”
And I said I’ve been told I’ve got to ask you what was found in the investigations.
Image source: minilunabelly
#47
“You’re too young to have cancer, it’s probably just chron’s or maybe an intolerance but I guess we can have a look since you came this far.”
Thriends, it was an 8cm tumour and it was cancerous.
Image source: ceerinn
#48
I answered a question knowledgeably about my own health, and the medical assistant responded with “I see someone has been googling.“ I’m an RN and at that point had been working in a high risk unit for 25 years.
Image source: nonconsumer
#49
I was pregnant and having abdominal pain, and come find out I having internal bleeding in a ectopic pregnancy. But at the time, I didn’t know that. A white male doctor kept me in the ER for eight hours, never gave me IV, and said I was med seeking. At midnight, a black doctor came on, gave me a ultrasound, and it was realized that I had had severe internal bleeding for over eight hours and needed to be rushed into emergency surgery.
Image source: lisanic227
#50
My PCP said I should get pregnant in order to prevent breast cancer, regardless of my gender identity or sexuality.
Image source: lowbarluka
#51
I’m in a wheelchair. Left my assistant in the waiting room while I had my OB/GYN appointment. After having a normal seeming appointment, where I answer all her health questions in detail and asked plenty of my own, we moved to schedule the next appointment. She asks “do you know your schedule or do you want me to ask your caregiver in the lobby?”
Image source: jadedcomic
#52
I’ve been a type 1 diabetic for 40+ years. I saw a nephrologist who suggested I wasn’t. And told me it was my fault for what was happening to me.
Image source: jkm5843
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