4

I Also Google Your Illness

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People expect doctors to know everything. We go to school for years more than most people, we seem to make a ton of money, and a lot of us have nerdy-looking glasses. So it would make sense that we are bottomless wells of knowledge, and shows like House and Grey's Anatomy don't do anything to dispel that notion.

ABC StudiosAmong other misconceptions about what happens in a hospital.

3

We Have to Find Time to Relax While Other People Are Dying

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Patients (and their families) don't like to see doctors relaxing at the hospital. I understand that -- if your husband is having a heart attack, you don't want to see me laughing with my colleagues about the crazy ending of The Walking Dead the other night ("I cheered when Daryl smashed that zombie's head in the car door!"). Or if I just put a breathing tube down your mother's throat because she had a massive stroke, you really don't want to see me sitting at my computer a minute later, eating gummy bears and texting my boyfriend about what's for dinner. On an intellectual level, you know doctors lead normal lives outside of the ER. But on an emotional level your loved one is sick and I'm blithely popping candy in the next room like some sort of sociopath.

Nathan Allred/iStock/Getty Images"These are ... um ... lozenges. I'm testing them for potency."

2

We Notice Some Weird (Cynical) Trends

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Mondays are the worst.

About 5 percent of what I see in the Emergency Room are actual emergencies, 10 percent are urgent cases, and the rest of the people who come into an ER could probably have waited for a normal doctor. And a huge number of those non-emergency, non-urgent cases flood us on Monday. Why? Well, if someone pulls their back on a Friday, they're not going to waste weekend time in the hospital. They're going to come in Monday -- to get their minor injury seen to and a doctor's excuse for their work absence.

There are a lot of things like that we start to notice over time. Another one: the patients most likely to pass out while getting stitches are young guys with tattoos -- women and old people do so much better. I make the young guys lie down before we even start. They're going to pass out anyway, and anticipating that makes less work for me.

Ryan McVay/Stockbyte/Getty ImagesAlthough it is remarkably satisfying to watch a man named Roadhog faint like a Southern belle.

1

Yes, I'm Judging You

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I said above that only a small percentage of what I see are actually urgent cases. Well, everything about the whole ER experience -- from the long wait to the annoyed look on a nurse's face -- makes more sense if you keep that in mind.

As for me, it takes only a few minutes to know if I like you or not. It's not going to affect your standard of care, because I'm a professional. But it might affect if I remember to tell your nurse you asked for a blanket, or if I go out of my way to offer you a written work excuse. Petty? Maybe. But this is what you're going to get until they finally staff hospitals with robots: ER doctors are human beings and compassion fatigue is an actual thing. Once you see enough gunshot wounds and car wreck victims, it gets difficult to care about someone who declares their chronic back pain to be an emergency.

LuckyBusiness/iStock/Getty Images"Sir, despite what the cereal mascot told you, you are not suffering an emergency deficiency of vitamin D-Licious."

If you think it's callous to be annoyed by someone who is truly in pain, you have to keep the context in mind. Everyone who walks in thinks their situation is an emergency -- it's right there on the sign -- but only some of those people are right. And there is no correlation between how much people complain/make demands and how urgently they need help. The person screaming for pain pills for their pulled muscle is going to have to wait behind the guy who is quietly hemorrhaging. And the person who has to wait is not going to like it.

Comstock/Stockbyte/Getty Images"I'm behind him?! If I'd known a wound from a .22 would get you to the front of the line I'd have shot myself on the way here."

Things that will earn my wrath: boasting that you have a "high pain tolerance" (if you've had that thought, it's almost certainly not true), not having any idea what medications you take, not having tried anything for your pain at home (you are young and healthy, it's OK to take a Tylenol for your toothache before coming into the ER), being above the age of 10 and bringing a stuffed animal in with you, the list goes on. Doctors are human, and we definitely do not have an endless amount of patience. And nothing in medical school taught me how to be forgiving of someone who, for instance, claims they couldn't afford the antibiotics that were prescribed for their child, but show up with cigarettes in hand.

If you're worried about pissing off your ER doc, remember: it's not hard to avoid. Just be honest about your symptoms, and don't be offended if we aren't always as sympathetic as you'd like. You have no idea what we saw 10 minutes before walking into your exam room.

For more insider perspectives, check out 5 Harsh Truths You Learn as a Doctor in the Third World and 5 Things Your Doctor Really Wants to Say to You (But Won't).

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