Yesterday, I took my fiancé into the emergency room. He was lightheaded, short of breath, his muscles were tense, his upper body was burning up and his legs were freezing.
From the moment we got there, I was completely ignored. When I tried to speak up to his doctor and inform him of the history of heart problems in his family, he turned to me and said that I should just let my fiancé do the talking.
Now, you may be thinking that this was just an asshole doctor – just because he was a jerk to me doesn’t mean he was a misogynist. It just means he was an asshole.
Oh, but there’s more. So much more. His dad came into the room shortly after the incident, and the doctor was perfectly friendly to him. He asked him if there was a history of any kind of heart problems in his family. Pissed yet? Because it’s still not over.
I’m not the type to sit back and take this kind of thing, so I spoke up. I pointed out that I had just told him about the history of heart problems. He turned to me and said that if I wasn’t immediate family, I shouldn’t be in the room (which isn’t true – he wasn’t in the intensive care unit, just he ER.) Before I could reply, his mother walked in. He completely ignored her and turned back to his father and talked to him like nothing was happening and it was just the guys in the room. His dad is a feminist, too, so he told the doctor that he owed me and his mother an apology. At this, I said thanks, but no thanks. What you can do is get the hell out of this room and send in a different doctor.
“The other doctor is in a trauma right now,” he said, addressing my fiancé, as if I hadn’t even been talking.
Brandon looked him dead in the eye and said he would wait – that he would rather be there for another six hours than be treated by a mysoginist.
The next doctor who came in was a woman, and she apologized for his behavior and said that we weren’t the first patients to complain about him.
Once again, we have prove that feminism is still needed.
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I applaud you for standing up to the doctor.
I would also like to point out how incredibly lucky you are that both your fiancé and his father stood up for you. While my boyfriend is trying to understand feminism (and in many ways agrees, just thinks we're too "radical"), he doesn't see these types of situations for what they are. My father would just tell me to shut up, this is serious business. I'm madly jealous of your fiancé's and his father's outlook.
great job standing up to the doc!
your fiance and his dad are awesome. yay for feminist men!
Because of the actions of your fiance and father in law, this is actually a rather heart warming story!
good job for all of you in drawing the line. There's a blog that's somewhat relevant... some of it is funny, some of it is terrible. It's called tales from labour and delivery. http://itsababynotbrainsurgery.blogspot.com/
Brandon and his dad are totally getting virtual high-fives from me.
see guys? THAT is what being a feminist ally looks like.
I was going to suggest that perhaps he had jsut wanted to hear the information from the patient and that was not totally unreasonable.
But then I read the rest. What an asshole. I'm so glad you all said something and that everything turned out okay in the end. People who feel the need to ignore information in a possible life-threatening situation do not deserve to be doctors.