We recently wrote a post where doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals revealed the “dark secrets” about their jobs that more people should know. In the comments, even more workers revealed what it’s actually like working in the medical field, and it’s eye-opening. Here’s what they had to say:
1.”I’m a pediatric surgeon. We’re human. We have up and down days. We have family stresses; our partners, kids, dogs, etc., get sick, our cars break down, things go awry for us like anyone else. We get sick. Yet I’m not allowed a ‘bad day’ at work, nor do I allow myself to have one. I am sometimes (often) very demanding. Not because I’m a prima donna, but because I’m frequently the first and last guardrail for a patient’s well-being. I have to fight hospital administrators and insurance companies constantly, and sometimes I use bad words in the process.”
“Funny thing is, not one parent of a patient thinks of me as a prima donna; they think of me as the guy doing what’s necessary for their kid’s life. Insurance companies and the medical industrial complex are ruining the health of America. Kennedy should worry less about vaccines, which save lives, and more about the insurance companies, which do not.”
—Anonymous, 64
2.”I work in anesthesia. I was told that because of Texas law, I am not required to have lunch…or any breaks at all. If I do by chance have someone give me lunch or a break, I’d better do it fast because people are more likely to give you a break if you’re fast. Meanwhile, I have to come in early even if I’ve been up all night just to ‘help’ and make sure all the CRNAs get their morning breaks on time. It makes me feel bitter and less than human.”
—Anonymous, 41, Texas
3.”RN here. I don’t think patients and families realize how disgusting hospitals are. You’d think they’re squeaky clean because it’s a hospital. Could not be farther from the truth. I cringe when I see patients walking around with no socks, especially in the bathroom. We are so critically short-staffed that our housekeepers just mop the floors as quickly as possible in order to finish their workload — oftentimes after urine, poop, blood, and other bodily fluids have been on the floor for hours — and I truly mean a quick mop up. Same thing with the blankets they give you.”
“Again, yes, they are washed, but hospitals try to minimize costs wherever possible. This also means short linen wash times, the number of times I’ve found dried poop, and gunk-soaked dressings stuck on those blankets. So, if you know there’s a possibility of you being admitted, please take slippers and your own blanket!”
—Anonymous, 29, California
4.”As a hospital pharmacist, I cannot tell you how many medication mistakes the doctors make per shift that I work. Without us, some of you might have been dead. The same with retail pharmacists. They work hard every shift to make sure that you have the correct medication and the correct dose. So next time, when you are at the pharmacy or meet a pharmacist, show some respect and appreciation instead of acting all entitled and displaying ‘the customers are always right’ attitude.”
“If your insurance refused to cover the cost of your medicine, that is because you bought a cheap insurance policy; therefore, blame yourself, your employer, or your doctor who prescribed an expensive medicine for you, NOT the pharmacist!”
5.”During the height of Covid, we had family members showing up in the hospital parking lot with AR-15s to shoot us because we ‘created the COVID hoax and had no right to tell anyone to wear a mask; they could take bleach or ivermectin for COVID.’ Our security started wearing bulletproof vests, and we were regularly calling the city police to come out and arrest family members.”
—Anonymous, 72, Arizona
6.”Case Management and Utilization Review are two parts of the non-bedside clinical side of medicine. When I started nursing, families would drop off grandma or grandpa at the ER, be hovering/concerned, and explain their issues and complaints. They would be admitted and, lo and behold, the family would be gone on a 10–14 day vacation. No contact, just bye. Now, there are controls which everyone complains about, but which are significant tools to ensure that if you are truly ill and need care, there is a bed for you.”
“Lots of people complain about Utilization Review and Case Management, but they add value and help to ensure you get the right level of care for your issues and that there is availability of beds, staff, and resources to help you.”
—Anonymous, 60, Illinois
7.”We have an entire program staffed with multiple people just for the wealthy at my hospital. They are called patient navigators, and they literally harass the nurses, doctors, radiology team, and bed coordinators to bend over backwards to provide quicker service and medical care to the wealthy patients. Their job is to expedite care, such as speeding up results if testing, X-rays, CAT scans, and such, and ensure patients are in rooms in the ER, never the hallway, and if admitted, they will get the wealthy people and donors private rooms. It seems unethical to do this, but we are a very well-known and reputable hospital constantly advertising our awards and accolades.”
“If other patients and family members knew this, I’m sure our reputation would go down the hill. It certainly puts the healthcare workers at odds with our core values and oath we take to provide the same care to everyone equally.”
—Anonymous, New York
8.”It is still shocking the level of disrespect given to physicians of color by patients. Patients can be in dire need of true medical care and still want to be treated only by white physicians. As a black physician, I see this situation monthly.”
—Anonymous, 41, Ohio
9.”I am an eye doctor, and I’ve been in the field in muliptle different capacities for about 20 years. The not-so-secret secret: People are lazy and apprehensive of change. Many are so lazy, they can’t even care about themselves enough to take simple steps to improve their own health. I’ve watched people go blind and even die because they didn’t want to do something simple, for example, change their diet. Example: I can’t count the number of times I’ve told people they will go blind if they don’t get their blood sugar under control with medicines or even improve their diet. The numerous negative responses range from a flat ‘diabetes is a hoax’ to ‘I can’t change my diet; that’s too difficult’ or ‘I love my (insert food here).’ Instead, they spend hours scouring the internet to find some information that gives them some ‘cure-all’ or magical thing that acts as an ‘out.’”
“Then, they come back and present it to me, asking if it will work instead. If only people would spend that time researching how to live a healthier lifestyle. A healthier lifestyle isn’t difficult — it just requires dedication and self-control. I spend hours a day delivering thorough patient education on patients’ conditions, prognosis, treatment options, and my recommendations personalized to each patient based on the most recent clinically applicable information. So many times a day, I get patients asking if there is a simple fix for their problem that is non-invasive. To answer this, it is emphatically NO. If it were that simple, trust me, we would do it every time. That would be far simpler than all of us bashing our heads against a wall trying to coax patients and family members to accept baseline information and our expert recommendations.”
—Anonymous, 39, California
10.”For one, no one ever dies in the OR. They can’t; it would hurt the surgeon’s numbers (success percentages), and the hospital that the surgeon is affiliated with will lose funding. The OR team will push a patient down the hall to the ICU, knowing that they are deceased, only to ‘pronounce them’ upon entering that ICU bed. Second, working for years as a CVICU nurse, I have assisted many patients during their last breaths on this earth; some of those moments I cannot shake from my memory. If I seem distant upon returning home, I’m trying to process the loss I just experienced.”
“Third, after your loved one passes away, the nurses and techs provide post-mortem care (aka, prepare the body). They don’t teach you about this in nursing school. You find out on the job what you are expected to do, whether you are emotionally equipped to handle such a procedure or not. I now make it a point to teach my nurses and techs about this reverent and almost spiritual moment. At first, it seems eerie because you can almost feel the presence of that patient in the room still after they pass away. But standing by any human as they exit this world should be treated with respect and dignity, and it is an honor and a privilege to simply be by their side holding their hands.”
—Anonymous, 41, Pennsylvania
11.”Very few medical professions are actually regulated by accrediting agencies and protected by law. Nursing and respiratory are a couple that are. The rest is that the hospital has no laws protecting our jobs. My example is that I’m a laboratory scientist. No laws say an accredited, educated laboratory specialist even has to be in the lab. In the US, hospitals are placing lab testing on nurses and CNAs while closing labs for financial gain.”
“New laws are starting to emerge where blood banking is necessary, but it’s disgusting. It’s not illegal in the US for anyone with a high school degree to take a patient’s blood and do testing on it, which took me four years to learn how to do. It also adds more onto nursing and floor staff, and US companies wonder why there’s such a medical staffing shortage.”
—Anonymous, 43, Kansas
12.”Resident physicians and fellow physicians don’t get to choose where to work. They rank which places they liked on interviews, and those places rank them, and then one day, they get told — often in front of all their classmates — where they ‘matched’ (aka, where they are contractually bound to go for training for X many years). They cannot say no or quit midway during training unless they want to jeopardize their entire career, which most cannot do because of the enormous debt (upwards of $300k, with 7% interest accruing constantly the minute loans are taken out).”
“Programs can essentially change any part of their training and what responsibilities and work hours residents and fellows have, knowing they have no choice but to stay. No one on the outside understands either. It can be a very abusive system and an isolating experience.”
—Anonymous, 33, Illinois
13.”Pediatric speech-language pathologist here. Probably the biggest thing I run into is parents who want you to fix their kid for them. You’ll have a parent bring in a kid with a severe speech, language, cognitive, voice, or feeding disorder (yes, we treat all of that and more) and want you to fix them in two 30- to 60-minute sessions per week. When I explain that most of the work is done at home with me as the expert guiding home practice, many parents are angry (‘Isn’t that what I’m paying you for?’). Oh, and many of them ask if there’s some medication the child can take instead.”
“Unfortunately, for most of these kids, hard work over the years is the only solution, and even then, they may not reach milestones. But, on a positive note, they do have a one-up on so many of their peers: they know how to work hard.”
—Anonymous, 43, Pennsylvania
14.”RN here in long-term care. I’m icing my plantar fasciitis right now. Never had it before. I’m 64 years old. Twenty-four residents in my care. No breaks. Short on CNAs. Broken beds that get stuck. No hot water. Short on medications. Short on supplies. Putting out ‘fires’ every day. Staying late to complete charting. Work kills me. Let’s not forget the multiple times I’ve gotten COVID from work. Sad thing is…I cannot get decent care for myself, even though I’m a healthcare worker sacrificing my well-being and sanity.”
“Why a healthcare shortage? That’s why. The first thing to fix the problem is to care for those who render care. But, who cares anymore??????”
—Anonymous, 64, Colorado
15.”Medicare sets how much they pay us. On average, it’s now $70 per case, which includes documentation, lab review, physical exam, phone calls, decision-making, and after-hours work. Subtract 50% overhead in rent, staff, liability insurance, professional licensing, electricity, water, insurance, answering service, electronic medical records, gas, retirement plan, etc. Subtract 30–43% personal income tax, and you can do the math.”
“No wonder we can’t find good primary care doctors and rely on other providers. The future seems bleak if nothing changes. We are no longer the best medical system in the world.”
16.”For those of us providing mental health care, we often are managing our own past traumas, kids who may have their own diagnoses, and taking care of ourselves. We pour much of ourselves into serving you. At times, I feel like a punching bag. Despite world-class service, those we serve and their families often complain about how horrible they have been treated. There is a real lack of understanding in the medical field of the lengths that medical professionals go through to serve others. I wish people could be more understanding of the professionals who provide their care.”
“Please don’t get me started on parents/family members who think their children/loved ones need to be fixed, while the parent/family member refuses to do any work on themselves or their parenting style. In my work, I have to teach clinicians that they will be unappreciated and verbally attacked, and they need to just keep going. It is sad work.”
—Anonymous, 50, Virginia
17.”I was a labor and delivery nurse for 30 years. A reality is that if you are a midwife, you are not a real doctor. While technically this is true, the midwife is the professional ‘caught between a rock and a hard place.’ If they call on the obstetrician for every problem, the OBs are unhappy with the situation. If the midwife lets a potential problem persist until it becomes unmanageable, then they are liable, whereas the obstetrical physician could have used the exact same judgements and actions, not being required to ‘report’ to a higher authority.”
—Anonymous, 70, Georgia
18.”I’m still working at my age because there are not enough doctors in the pipeline to care for the patients I will leave behind. Fortunately, I’m in good health, but I have to stop working soon. The system is unforgiving, and standing between patients and the larger healthcare system is challenging. Current societal norms have created a narcissistic and entitled subset of patients who abuse nurses and doctors, even when everyone is trying to be professional and doing their best.”
“Some patients can be dangerous, and we have had to increase security for staff safety reasons. The medical system rewards procedures and testing and devalues talking and listening.”
—Anonymous, 73, Pennsylvania
And finally…
19.”Labor and delivery nurse here. When we tell people what we do, they are so happy and ask if we really love our job. And yes, some days, I do, but others not so much. Not all babies can be saved. So watching a mom perform skin-to-skin with her 20-week baby who has a heartbeat, but you can’t do anything to help keep them alive, is agony, especially if it wasn’t their first loss. Then, you have to go into your next patient’s room who is laboring a full-term baby and smile; the mental capacity we have to have for our job is extreme.”
“We also probably haven’t eaten, had any water, or been to the bathroom today, and it’s 8+ hours into the shift. That’s just one of many stories.”
—Anonymous, 38, Texas
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
Wow. Fellow medical professionals, what are some other “dark secrets” and “shocking realities” about your jobs that people don’t know? Tell us in the comments, or if you prefer to remain anonymous, you can use the form below.
Original source: us