Also posted in the colonoscopy thread - makes you wonder what the medical professionals discuss during such procedures…
Why does it matter what they discuss?
Would a false diagnosis matter to you?!
What they discuss reflects their respect and attitude to the patient, which definitely can affect quality of decision-making and nature of care.
Maybe this is what happens when it’s all about grades and perfection and nothing about empathy or emotions. Pretty nasty and awful-we have many docs, spouses, and parents of docs on CC-would be interested to hear what they say.
Shocking! What if he’s gay? Why put hemorrhoids in the chat when the patient doesn’t have them? She should lose her license.
I don’t get why this guy talked about his college with his GI doctor, let alone someone who seems to not like him. Do you tell your doctors what college you attended?
Don’t read the comments, to the news report.
I understand that medical professionals, use dark humor to cope with the pressure of the job. I’ve known several EMTs & firefighters, as well as ER nurses, and I can’t imagine they were anything but professional to the patient & their family.( unfortunately, I cannot say always same thing about the police officers involved)
But I didn’t have the impression that they said anything remotely like this dr did.
But a great bedside manner doesn’t come with being a skilled dr.
My mom used to tell me the story of how she met my pediatrician, that I had till I started going to Planned Parenthood when I was 18. I had been born one month early, maybe even more since it took me a month in the NICU to get to five lbs. He was what passed for a neonatologist at that time I guess, so he met with her after I was born to say that if I lived through the night, I probably would make it.
This gave her a shock, & since my grandparents were always worriers, it explains that when I had * my* first, ten weeks early, my grandpa was clutching the door frame, looking pale, when they came to visit in the hospital.
However, it isn’t that hard to treat the person in front of you with compassion & respect. Even when anesthetized, you hear what’s going on around you. Which is why I asked for my favorite music to be played when I had my knee replacement.
Luckily, I shared musical tastes with my surgeon!
You should have seen his eyes light up when I made my request!
This case goes beyond harmless kidding around, even tasteless (but harmless) kidding around. It’s too bad, because the result is likely to chill truly harmless banter.
If you read the article, there is more than just anti-patient banter. Faked medical records, for one.
As for faking compassion - people don’t become anesthesiologists (aka “gas monkeys”) so that they can interact in a meaningful way with patients. I too hope she loses her medical license.
Oh so it’s his own fault for engaging in conversation with his doctors? Okay.
And so what if he WAS an insufferable bore, blathering on about where he went to college. Does that make it okay for his doctor to place a false diagnosis on his chart? Really?
There was also a report years ago that patients sometimes hear during anesthesia, and if I’m remembering, had better outcomes if the talk during the procedure was positive.
Even without that, this doctor’s behavior was crude and crass, and the other doctor complicit. I feel sorry for the rest of the OR staff who had to put up with these jerks.
I can see where one went to college coming up in conversation with a doctor. My doctors will talk about all sorts of random stuff, just making conversation, often talking about our kids, jobs or hobbies. A college could easily come up in conversation if one was wearing a t-shirt, baseball cap, whatever. I think that’s pretty irrelevant to treating a patient with such total disrespect. I wouldn’t want anyone who loathed me that much, after barely knowing me, to be working on a medical procedure.
Thats why I wanted familar music. I was terrified of the surgery, but recovery went very well.
Most colonoscopies (the procedure being discussed, I believe) nowadays are done using general anesthesia (propofol), which is not the same as the “twilight sleep” that used to be SOP. Not likely to hear or remember anything. Some facilities continue to use IV conscious sedation, but not like back in the day. Some other procedures certainly do still use IV conscious sedation primarily. Those patients will sometimes remember every single thing that was said, while others can barely remember anything. Docs and anesthesia providers know this very well.
Nevertheless, most medical “professionals” know that even with propofol, the occasional patient will begin to wake during the procedure or will have an atypical response to the medication. You just never know.
It is not AT ALL strange that the medical staff would know the patient’s college. Patients tell us this kind of stuff all the time. What’s weird about it is the staff making fun of it. Unless it’s kind of tongue in cheek college rivalry stuff, I’ve never heard anyone make an issue out of a patient’s alma mater.
I’m an OR nurse part time and have also spent a good amount of time in the procedure room at my endoscopy facility. The number one topic of non medical related conversation which occurs: Sports. After working a surgery yesterday, I now know more about the US Open than I ever wanted to know.
I said this on the other thread: the anesthesia provider in particular is a huge jerk, and I won’t shed a tear for any negative consequence she experiences as a result of this incident.
Good luck finding patients after this. . .
(I’m overdue for my colonoscopy. Great. This makes me want to put it off longer.)
@atomom, come to my center. We are nice. And we keep you completely covered up the entire time. 
As someone married to a man who was diagnosed with stage III colon cancer after deliberately putting off his colonscopy, I really encourage you to go ahead and get it done. My DH still kicks himself to this day for putting off something so important for really no good reason. He is lucky to be alive.
Colon cancer is one of the few cancers we can actually prevent in susceptible individuals. But we can’t know if you are susceptible if we don’t see you before you have the chance to develop a tumor.
Thanks, Nrds-- jk, really. I do plan to get it this summer. It will be my 3rd one. The thing I hate is the prep. My doc is nice. It’s a little embarrassing since H knows him. We ran into him at an event recently and he “introduced” himself to me. (I’m sure he knows we met before. . .I was thinking, “Perhaps you don’t recognize this end of me?” He probably didn’t want to remind me that I was a patient of his right before dinner.) TBH, I don’t think I’d care that much if a doc made fun of my background or anatomy when I was under anesthesia. Yes, it is rude and tasteless, but I doubt I’d sue. I once overheard an OB talking crudely about his patients to a drug rep–I was waiting in the hallway and they didn’t know I was there. Unfortunately that particular doc was the one who showed up for my youngest D’s delivery.
Actually, my doctor is going towards conscious sedation for colonoscopy, and I had to ask for more as it was quite uncomfortable.