"You're a doctor?! But you're so..."

"...young!"

"How old ARE you!?"

"Are you old enough to be a doctor?!"

I'd say I get one of those comments at least once a week.

Worse, though, is what used to happen when I tried, in the beginning of intern year, to introduce myself as "Holly, the resident who will be taking care of you." I was trying to come across as a young, personable doctor. Don't stand on ceremony, don't worry about the title. Inevitably, I'd hear, "So when will I see the doctor?"

Or, "So you're my nurse?"

I put up with it on my medicine rotation; I let the little old men get away with calling me a nurse or being confused about what a resident is (granted, it IS confusing if you have no idea how the medical system works). But then I got to OB full-time, and when it's a 17-year-old, dropped-out-of-high-school-and-got-knocked-up, who is screaming at me that the cervical exam at 5 cm is excruciating and clamps her thighs down on my hand in the middle of the exam who refers to me as a nurse, I have very little patience for it. So I started introducing myself as "Dr."

Can I also mention that usually, the way the 17-year-old refers to me as a nurse is when she answers her cell phone, in the middle of while I am trying to talk to her or examine her, and says to the caller, "Hey, I can't talk right now, the nurse is in here talking to me, let me call you back." Drives me absolutely crazy.

So I switched from "Hi, my name is Holly and I'm one of the OB/Gyn residents" to "Hi, I'm Dr. Cummings, one of the OB/Gyn residents."

And as a result, since I'm emphasizing the "Doctor," I am met with:

"But you look so YOUNG!" (From the older patients. The younger patients don't react, which is what I want.)

And I always have the same response: "[Smile] Yes, I'm told I'll appreciate that one day."

(In reality, I don't get too terribly upset about it. After all, if I were to get carded at a bar, I'd think it was a good thing. I just have to reinforce that I am, in fact, a doctor, and perfectly qualified to treat the patient.)

But this weekend, I got a new comment.

"But you're so TINY!"

And I could do nothing but laugh. As though that were a criterion for entering medical school.

***

Last week, I encountered another version of the assumption game. It was assumption combined with stupidity. I was working at an outpatient office, and at lunch, a pharmaceutical rep brought lunch. I went to the break room, and was dismayed to find I was the only one there -- the nurses and office staff had already eaten and gone back to the front, and my attending (who the rep wanted to talk to) was still finishing up with his last patient of the morning. So I politely said hi and served myself some pasta. And the rep did her thing, introducing herself, and asking my name. (I just gave my first name.) And she said, "Are you one of the nurses? Or medical assistants?"

And I about flipped my lid. I was wearing professional office attire, and still had my stethoscope around my neck. She assumed I was a nurse based solely on the fact that I was a woman. Because if she had even the slightest powers of observation, she would have observed that all of the nurses and M.A.s who had just finished their lunch in front of her (and who had introduced THEMselves as nurses and M.A.s) were wearing scrubs. You know, nurse's scrubs. Fun colors, pretty prints. And I was not. (And can I mention there's also a female attending in that office, too? What if she had said that to the partner in the practice!?!?)

So I corrected her. "I'm one of the residents rotating here." This particular office has a fairly regular stream of drug reps, and they know the deal with residents (they usually ask what year I am, and when I -- one of the rare times I volunteer this -- say I'm an intern, they stop showing any interest in me, which is just what I want). So I told her I was a resident.

"Oh. [Smile. Pause. Nodding.] So when will you finish school?"

Misinformed patients, I can deal with. Rude patients, I can deal with. Patients who think it's acceptable to undermine my authority by telling me I look young/small/cute, I can deal with. Someone whose job it is to interact with medical professionals who doesn't know how to identify a doctor compared with a nurse and who doesn't know the medical hierarchy? I have zero tolerance for.

***

And the third part of this post, this disjointed, written-while-slouched-on-the-couch-half-watching-Olympics post, is a link to a Scutmonkey comic that makes me laugh.

How to Annoy a Resident