The hashtag #DoctorsAreDickheads is trending on Twitter, after a YouTube presenter made the remark in a video.
Stevie Boebi shared the story of her diagnosis with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), a tissue disorder, which causes pain in the joints and muscles, as well as sensitive skin which can take a long time to heal.
After suffering for eight years, and in her words, being “gaslit by doctors and nurses”, Boebi was diagnosed. She ended the 11 minute video with the words: “Doctors are dickheads”.
The phrase was then adopted by many women who have struggled with chronic pain conditions historically dismissed by the medical profession, like fibromyalgia, PCOS, and endometriosis.
One user wrote: “I discovered that I most likely have PCOS. My doctor basically said ‘you don’t want to get pregnant so it doesn’t matter if we diagnose you or not’. NOT LIKE PCOS can cause diabetes, depression and anxiety, and endometrial cancer or anything :) #DoctorsAreDickheads”.
Other tweets included:
The grievances shared by patients failed by the medical system are insightful and valid.
We know that there is a lack of research behind ‘women’s issues’ like endometriosis, which can be crippling for the person suffering.
Some doctors have perpetuated myths about pregnancy being a cure, which not only fails to address the problem, but can cause more harm to the patient.
But two things can be true at the same time.
There are, of course, doctors who make the wrong calls. Doctors who dismiss women’s health issues. Doctors who misdiagnose and prescribe the wrong medication and shame patients who are at their most vulnerable.
But there are also doctors who call patients on their days off. Who comfort the person who has just received a life-threatening diagnosis. Who go above and beyond what is expected of them – because they are there, first and foremost, to do good.
It’s interesting that this hashtag has emerged in the same week that three Jewish doctors tended to Robert Bowers, the man who yelled “I want to kill at the Jews” as he attacked the Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh.
Bowers murdered 11 worshippers.
But those doctors, who knew their patient had shot innocent people simply because they were Jewish, upheld their Hippocratic oath.
Despite the circumstances, they did their job.
Sure, some doctors are dickheads.
But most – we ought to remember – are not.
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Top Comments
I've mentioned it before, but I was born with barely formed hip joints. It took 20+ years to get doctors to admit they were never looking for solutions because under their current definition I'm too young. Anyone who is under 50 or has a 25 year life expectancy is considered too young for joint replacement surgery.
At least then we knew where we stand, but it's bloody infuriating to spend 20+ years going from doctor to doctor to doctor (in NSW, SA, VIC, QLD...) trying to find someone who would help with the pain to find out you were being fobbed off.
One doctor, highly regarded in Adelaide from the reading I've done, returned from a panel in Switzerland with other orthopaedic surgeons where they described my hips as "the most deformed the panel have ever seen." Then gave me the super helpful advice to help manage the pain of "learn to deal with it."
Some doctors a dead set pricks.
Don't agree with your last sentence, but I can see that it's valid for you via your experiences.
I actually typo'd in that last sentence. It should be "Some doctors are dead set pricks" not "a dead set pricks."
I think broadly making it "all doctors" is obviously not correct. But the idea that someone shouldn't be challenged because they're a doctor is ludicrous to me.
There are a few exceptional Doctors that "prove the rule" about the others.