There is no shortage of health horror stories, from doctors removing the wrong limb to doctors prescribing a potentially deadly drug.
While medical errors harm 1.2 million Americans and cause the deaths of 250,000 patients each year, millions more suffer from poor medical advice and uncomfortable encounters with doctors.
Reddit user u/FragmentedTungsten asked the community for the ‘most affordable thing your doctor told you’.
And Redditors didn’t hold back.
Nearly 6,000 people responded, describing how they had been targeted with expletive-filled exams, inappropriate sexual innuendos, rude and offensive questions and instances of doctors delivering devastating news in an insensitive manner.
Reddit users detailed cases of doctors ignoring symptoms and misdiagnosing them (file image)
One user said she started seeing a new doctor when she was suffering from pneumonia. During her exam, the doctor asked her if she was on birth control, when she replied “no” because she and her husband were planning to have a baby, the doctor replied, “You should be on birth control. No one has babies on purpose.”
When the patient replied that she had already planned two previous pregnancies, the doctor replied: “Oh, you already have two? So you don’t have time for intimacy. You could just read a book and let your husband tell you all about it for 10 minutes.”
Another user was told by his doctor that he probably wouldn’t be able to operate before the patient’s appendix ruptured, a potentially life-threatening complication. The man asked: “When your appendix ruptures, don’t you die?”
To which the doctor replied, “Oh, that’s a very good possibility.”
User u/straight_blanchin described when her boyfriend accompanied her to a doctor’s appointment to get her breasts reduced.
The doctor ignored the patient and asked her boyfriend if he was “okay with me getting a reduction.” The doctor denied the surgery because he said she “might regret it,” since most people prefer the look of larger breasts.
Another Redditor described a time she visited a gynecologist at age 13 and told the doctor she wasn’t sexually active.
The doctor’s response was: “I don’t believe you.”
When the patient’s mother started arguing with the doctor, she replied: “Your daughter is a very pretty girl. I doubt she knows what she’s doing.”
The doctor then proceeded to tell the girl and her mother that she had herpes, despite not having performed any tests.
User u/SkrodLaDa posted: ‘I got fingered deep inside me during a routine checkup, (the doctor) said “Yes! It’s a girl,” referring to me.’
Another described a time when his doctor left the room to “look it up on YouTube” while he was putting a cast on a patient’s arm.
User u/cafeconpanna wrote: “When I was 14 I had a fungal infection. An older doctor told me to stop putting things like hairbrushes in my vagina.”
However, there were some users who said they appreciated the direct and honest approach from their doctor.
User u/Old-Chapter-7431 said he appreciated that when he told his dentist he’d neglected his teeth, the doctor responded, “Well, I guess you screwed up, huh?”
The poster added: “I laughed because he wasn’t wrong and I can appreciate his candor.”
Another wrote that he had cursed while being examined by his doctor and the doctor asked him, “Wait, don’t I have to watch my language with you?”
When the patient said no, the doctor visibly relaxed and loudly proclaimed, “THANK GOD,” and began to speak frankly about my health, but with enough profanity to make a sailor blush.
‘My all-time favorite (doctor). He made sure I saw him every year until he left the office.’