tigger
Well-Known Member
So I often see articles on here about the top 10 idiotic things normal people say about diabetes and they can be thoroughly irritating. However my pet peeve is when doctors, particularly endocrinologists come out with wonderful statements. Does anyone else have this experience or is it just me? Here are some of my recent and favourite examples.
5 year qualified registrar endocrinologist in London teaching hospital
Me: I was diagnosed in 1983.
Him: So is your diabetes established?
Me mentally No it's ***** temporary and will go away when I feel like it.
I explain to him how to inject two insulins at once.
Me: You take a syringe and a vial you draw up the long acting insulin then you put the syringe in the next vial draw up the short acting and inject.
Him: so you need 2 syringes?
Me: No, (I repeat previous sentence 2 more times with same response)
Various registrars
Him: I've never heard of animal insulin.
Me (on one occasion): I suggest you go look it up in your text book then.
Opthamologist at retinopathy clinic
Her: So how many years have you had type 1?
Me: 28
Her: and how many of those have you been on insulin for?
Me: 28
Her: Really?
Me (mentally) if only they'd stuck to calling it insulin dependent diabetes ...........
And the best of all... receiving an invitation to attend a glucose tolerance test when pregnant. Unfortunately I had just discovered I'd miscarried as well but still remain intrigued by the hospital that managed to send me an invitation for a test for the one condition I'm guaranteed not to get while pregnant! (For those who don't know the glucose tolerance test involves drinking lots of lucozade and testing your blood sugar after to see if you're at risk of gestational diabetes)
My general attitude to registrars now is give me the information I need (my hba1c and any other results) and let's politely cut this short. Also I tend to find the men are worse than the women as the women are more likely to have social skills and more likely to admit when they don't know something.
Does anyone else have similar experiences? Is this a feature of teaching hospitals?
5 year qualified registrar endocrinologist in London teaching hospital
Me: I was diagnosed in 1983.
Him: So is your diabetes established?
Me mentally No it's ***** temporary and will go away when I feel like it.
I explain to him how to inject two insulins at once.
Me: You take a syringe and a vial you draw up the long acting insulin then you put the syringe in the next vial draw up the short acting and inject.
Him: so you need 2 syringes?
Me: No, (I repeat previous sentence 2 more times with same response)
Various registrars
Him: I've never heard of animal insulin.
Me (on one occasion): I suggest you go look it up in your text book then.
Opthamologist at retinopathy clinic
Her: So how many years have you had type 1?
Me: 28
Her: and how many of those have you been on insulin for?
Me: 28
Her: Really?
Me (mentally) if only they'd stuck to calling it insulin dependent diabetes ...........
And the best of all... receiving an invitation to attend a glucose tolerance test when pregnant. Unfortunately I had just discovered I'd miscarried as well but still remain intrigued by the hospital that managed to send me an invitation for a test for the one condition I'm guaranteed not to get while pregnant! (For those who don't know the glucose tolerance test involves drinking lots of lucozade and testing your blood sugar after to see if you're at risk of gestational diabetes)
My general attitude to registrars now is give me the information I need (my hba1c and any other results) and let's politely cut this short. Also I tend to find the men are worse than the women as the women are more likely to have social skills and more likely to admit when they don't know something.
Does anyone else have similar experiences? Is this a feature of teaching hospitals?