Paranoia

I used to spend a good portion of well child checks inwardly rolling my eyes at the parents. I love kids. I think that well child visits are a great way to get the families in to the office to talk about prevention and screen for serious stuff that goes on behind closed doors.

What always killed me was the questions. Mom will have heard from her sister/mother/neighbor/appallingly inaccurate Internet source of an outbreak of listeriosis/autism/influenza/bubonic plague and they are now convinced that little Jimmy (OK, these days it's more likely to be little Jayvon) has contracted said disease. It doesn't matter that Jayvon has never been ill a day in his life/missed a developmental milestone/sneezed twice in a row/been a serf in medieval England. Nothing I can say at this point can trump Aunt Tilly/Mom/Ms. Jones/www.wrongdiagnosis.com (Sweet Jesus, save me from wrongdiagnosis.com!). Which brings up the intriguing, but ultimately irrelevant question of, "If I can't convince you otherwise, why are we even having this conversation?"

Then, the inevitable happened. I popped out one of my own. At various points in the past two years, I have been convinced that my child had measles, pyloric stenosis, Kawasaki disease, and a tail. Granted, that last one was before she was born.

None of this can beat the things that my husband, also a physician, can come up with when pressed. The same man who has repeatedly talked me out of emergent trips to the hospital readily acknowledges that he performs an extensive abdominal exam on our daughter every time he bathes her, just to make sure that no tumors have snuck in under the radar overnight.

When I was twenty weeks pregnant, we both managed to get out of work at the same time for our prenatal ultrasound- a feat that has yet to be repeated. Seriously, I delivered the baby on a weekend that he just happened to not be on call.

We debated beforehand whether or not to tell the technician that we were medical personnel. There are a number of studies that show that if you get treated as a VIP, you are more likely to received sub-standard care in the name of respecting your privacy or honoring your wishes. Our cover was probably already blown by the scrubs covered in mystery fluid that the father of my fetus was wearing. Any residual doubt was eliminated by his first words upon seeing his first-born:

"Oh, good. It has a brain."

Maybe my imagination is sub-standard, but nature has certainly invented fates that are infinitely more terrifying than anything I could have come up with on my own. Having studied embryology, pathophysiology and pediatrics gives those fears the power of realism and crystal clarity. What I underestimated was the extent to which I would worry about this soft, breakable creature with half of my genes.

So, part of me understands why parents are scouring the neighborhood, the Web and my office looking for The Answer, that horrible answer that makes all their kids' symptoms fit into the puzzle and delivers the crushing blow that they really are losing their soft, breakable little creature after all.

And part of me wants to shake those parents. I want to say, "Look. I'm stuck with this knowledge. My kid gets poked and prodded far more than necessary because of this knowledge. Relax. Let me worry for you. That's why I'm here." When I think that way, I start planning my charge on Congress to form a moratorium against all information on the Internet and a gag order for Aunt Tilly.

Here's the thing:

I've never been a feminine woman.I cringe when I think about the extent that I went to in college to fit in with the Southern girls. I spent money on clothes. I lost weight in entirely unsafe ways. I flirted and primped and practiced my walk. I, oh God, joined a sorority. Granted, it was the agriculture sorority and not exactly filled with fashion plates, but still. I wonder now what people must have thought of me. I figure that it was somewhere along the lines of, "Who is that drag queen and where did she buy that awful lipstick?"
And after all that, it didn't stick. As soon as I got into medical school, I got bsy and the backslide began until I find myself here. All I have to show for those years is a cringe-inducing set of memories and a tendency to avoid Wranglers.
In the course of a day, I frequently get mistaken for a nurse, social worker or the girl who brings lunch. Seriously? I'm wearing a white coat, stethoscope and patently not carrying a tray of food. I just asked you intimate details about your bowel movements- which, by the by, you answered. Somehow, these social cues escape most people's attention.
Interestingly, it's usually the women, and not necessarily older women, who assume that I cannot possibly have made it through the requisite schooling to be their physician. The breasts, you know- they prevent your arms from moving far enough toward midline to dissect things or read books.
Not that I disagree. I frequently wonder how I ended up with other people's life or death decisions on my hands. I have trouble getting dressed and making to my car without a near-fatal accident. I almost brained myself on the coffee table this morning because I tripped over the hem of the pants that I just bought on sale and swore that I would shorten before wearing them to work.
It's a never-ending gauntlet to be a woman doctor. Especially one who's hair resolutely refuses to go grey. Not that I want to get old, but it would be nice not to have the following conversation four times a day:
Me: Good morning! I'm Dr. Smith.
Patient: Hi. When did you say the doctor was coming in?
Me: I am your doctor. Dr. Smith. It's on my badge and everything.
Patient: Oh! Sorry. You just look so young. How old are you?
Me: Older than I look.
Patient: They just keep getting younger, don't they Bob?
Bob: Yup. They just keep getting younger. How old did you say you are, sweetheart?
Me: Old enough to be your doctor. How about that rectal bleeding you've been having? That topic sounds significantly less uncomfortable than this conversation.
If there's one thing that I hate more than the joke about asking their grandson to prom, it's being called sweetheart. I don't look like a sweetheart. I don't act like a sweetheart. Calling me sweetheart is only acceptable when used ironically. Unfortunately, in this area of the country, there is apparently a rash of incurable ironopenia.
The truth of the matter is that people don't want to admit that they are sexist and assume without thinking that doctors are big, manly men and nurses are women. I thought, going into this whole thing, that my inability to dress myself and total lack of makeup or hairspray would cancel out that big, fat assumption.
I am proven wrong every day.