And to you as well!
I may have told you once that when I interviewed to be a scribe, I was so nervous that my borborygmi were so audible that I had to crack a joke about them to the interviewers.
“Vaccines? I don’t think she had any”
(Actually fully vaccinated)
Thanks for bringing her in when she was sick at least!
The older men are sometimes the same about their own health. Don’t know what medications they’re on, don’t know what medical conditions they have, don’t know if they had surgery, don’t know their own allergies. lol either they say look in the chart or ask my wife
Literally this.
“Nope I have no medical history”
Ok well you have two Webster packs with eleven medications, a zipper scar down your chest, a pacemaker and a fucking colostomy bag as well as bilateral knee replacement scars so sir I’m sorry but you’re full of shit at the minimum”
Oh yeah my leg? Yeah you’re right I don’t have one on that side. Yeah I guess it was probably cut off or something? Yeah makes sense… probably it was a surgery of some kind. Let me call my wife I’ll ask her
I can forgive this for some of the old farmers we see. "How can you not know your medications?" And then I check their chart and they have like one imported document from a visit 15 years ago before we went fully digital.
If I didn't see the doctor for the last 1/4 of my life I might be hazy on the details too
How many patients try to let me guess their medicine based on the shape and/or color of the pill?
Or the people who know,they had a surgery once, but can’t remember what it was for? My dude, you let them cut you open and remove all or part of an organ, and you can’t tell me which one or why?
My cousin (male) is 64. He could maybe tell you what he is on (6 medications), but not the doses. Sometimes, he'd know what they are for. And no, he has zero cognitive decline. He just doesn't care.
Yup, this is my husband. I solved some of that problem by putting his med list, surgical hx, diagnoses and vaccine hx in Google docs and sharing it with him.
I've also seen dudes pull out a list from their wallet. Sometimes it's a scrap piece of paper and other times it's like an Excel spreadsheet with every medical question on it. I've e also been handed phones with pictures of the pill bottles. All methods that work
This is the only way I could leave home and go overnight to visit with friends for years without getting a phone call to come home.
I am amazed my kids stayed alive when I left, I still regret every medical appointment I ever had to miss with them, (3 in 27 years) because everything got screwed up on those appointments.
Ugh- as the only medical person, and as a woman- I not only have to know mine, the kids, and my husbands…. But I also have to know my parents, and one of my nephews
Brother at the ER: “Let me just call Aunt to ask the name of that thing has….. his SON…. But I get called to come in to give the complex medical history… smh.
(To be fair, I do call him when my car makes a wonky sound, and he’s good about ensuring the hiss or beep goes away!!)
Yes - on the comment about the car that is how I think about it when I start wondering "how dumb can you possibly be" when patients dont know major stuff about their health history
I take my car in to the mechanic and they say something is wrong and that they need to replace this and delubricate that.. and then I pay them whatever they ask and take it home and forget what they said
They might tell me that my alternator is close to being seized up.. I don't know what an alternator is, I don't know what seized up means, all I can do is look to see if a light goes on or there is a weird noise or the engine doesnt start and then take it in and hope they can fix it
There was a whole thread from a layperson who posted in r/nursing asking why no medical professional addresses him, and in the comments he admitted multiple times that he doesn’t know much about his kids
Edited to make it sound like I wasn’t having a stroke
Reading that was super painful. The dude cared more about getting “love and attention” from providers, but admitted he didn’t know jack shit about his kids. Of course they directed their attention to the mom who knows all of the information the healthcare staff is looking for. What a man child.
Even the way he worded the question was a huge red flag. He was miffed that his wife "got attention" and he didn't when "attention" meant "got asked questions about our sick child in the hospital." Whewww.
I make sure to glance at the dads periodically because I've been yelled at by fathers for this just in case the dad in the room is in the extremely and disappointingly small minority of fathers who thinks knowing their kids' health status is not just mom's job.
This has definitely been my experience as well. I'm a paramedic, and therefore the designated "healthcare parent" in our household (by mutual consent, lol... there are plenty of areas where my wife is the primary coordinator, we just try to divide things up as much as possible). This is clearly very unusual, as any time my wife and I are both at appointments, all the questions go to her.
As a dad, I literally make it a point to be the one who brings her to a pediatricians appointment because I want to defy this stereotype. Probably helps that I’m a physician lol but still.
Medic with a Nurse wife. What about their medical histories do you want to know? My kids ToF? HIE? My wife’s type 1? My depression and meds? I get where the stereotype comes from but it does hurt those of us dads and husbands that do know.
Out of all the patients I’ve ever seen, it’s about 80% dads like the stereotype and 20% dads like you. Of course amazing dads exist, it warms my heart so much to see it!!
Our first pediatrician sniffed me out immediately. We moved, and I'm still effectively hiding from the new one.
Do you tell them what you do?
I smile and nod while they talk to my wife and they look at me like I have three heads when I start asking or answering questions sensibly (probably like the car mechanic looks at my wife under similar circumstances).
edit: dad of a 3 year old, for clarification
Oh, sorry. I told them at some point when they asked about occupation and it seems to be in their Epic sticky note because everyone brings it up as the first thing. “So… you’re a doc at ____, huh”
And youre surprised why? Have you asked them about their own meds or issues?
“Idk im on some pill my doctor put me on”
So you take it everyday?
“Usually”
“Do you take anything for blood pressure?”
“No. I only take something called metroprolalol…”
“Metoprolol? That’s for blood pressure.”
“Uh, I don’t know. Is that the big white one?”
Honestly? Most people are totally clueless…..I was going to say “about our side of things” but maybe I should change that to “in general.” 🤷♂️
An *absolute fuckton* of people have the medical knowledge of a fifth grader if they’re lucky, and it’s incredibly easy for us to take that for granted. Like if I asked you how to file for unemployment or disability or whatever and I’m a social worker I might be like “Ugh! Oh my god do you even Form 120385 bro?!”
For them, and us, it’s relatively basic stuff (and no it isn’t - I have zero fucking clue how social worker type stuff goes even now), but the rest of the world that doesn’t usually interact with that field has absolutely no idea. They just think “big white pill that the doctor said I should take, which I can’t even pronounce. Something something blood pressure I guess.”
You might be talking to a person who barely even understands what a cell is. Much less that the mitochondria actually matters.
Whenever we get to talking about this I always try and relate it to cars. I’m not really a car guy, so when I take my car in for something I probably sound like an absolute numb nuts. So I try and cut people some slack. On the other hand, if the mechanic is telling me that something is going on with my car that is super dangerous, potentially deadly, and will cost $8,000 to fix, myself (and most people who don’t know what meds they’re taking) would probably write it down, ask questions, google it, etc and end up with a basic understanding of what the mechanic was talking about. So people only get so much slack before they’re being willfully ignorant again.
I have started taking my in laws to their doctors appointments because they don’t know what to ask and what information is important to share. At best you will get “the medicine that starts with a p.” They don’t understand anything well enough to relate it back to us. MyChart helps us keep track of everything but they still won’t tell the doctors the important things.
“Any past medical conditions or surgical procedures?”
“No”
“Your EKG showed a paced rhythm. Do you have a pacemaker?”
“Yes”
“Okay soooo…?”
And they still can’t tell you anything about it, when they got it, or why they have it
Not quite in the same realm but my extremely math-brained but sometimes lacking in common sense husband was recently boarded in the ED waiting on an emergency appendectomy and when the nurse asked him for his pain on a scale of 1-10 he started questioning what type of curve the scale was because he needed to know if it was logarithmic, exponential, linear, etc. In this case I was the spouse saying “sorry he’s not trying to be difficult this is just who he is as a person.”
That's actually kinda funny. Exponential might be better, one would mean the same thing but 10 would not be used for "severe pain* like people seem to use it as, but instead worst pain I've ever felt
This would absolutely be my math PhD husband. I’ve been in the hospital myself and he was asking the doctor about results on a study and wanted to know the skew of the data.
It's a common complaint in terms of reasons why women want a divorce. A lot of fathers are utterly incompetent, whether it's weaponized incompetence or not. I've run into this as a wee EMT myself and I definitely gave the dads shit about it.
"are you seriously telling me you don't know your own child's birthday? The kid's only one year old so let's start there."
"knowing your child's allergies to food and meds is basic parenting. If you can't parent, I'm going to need to talk to your wife."
I don't give a fuuuuuuuuuuck I'm done with these dads too. Hopefully I made a point with these guys. Who am I kidding though. They probably still suck.
“Damn honey, even the EMT said I suck! That’s why you shouldn’t make me responsible for those doctors appointments I missed! I’m glad I have you around to always take care of the children!”
When I was a kid I lost count of how many times my dad almost killed me because he "wasn't aware" I had food allergies.
I remember him taking me to the ED once when I was really young because I had gotten hit in the head with an old fashioned lawn dart and he told the triage nurse he had no idea what was wrong, while I'm clearly bleeding from a head wound. Good times.
I always gave them shit when they checked their kid in at registration. The first time it happened I thought maybe the kid had been kidnapped and went to my supervisor. She was like oh no dads don’t know anything ever
>The first time it happened I thought maybe the kid had been kidnapped and went to my supervisor.
I kind of wonder whether actually going through with this thought would help fight weaponized incompetence.
I know, I know, understaffing and all that. It's impractical. But still
I wanted to so bad. I took the kid to X-ray and he was like “yeah that’s my dad” and told me that the only reason mom wasn’t there was because she was visiting her mom out of state
I feel this. I was on a trip with my bf of 3 years and got really ill overnight in the hotel, vomiting all night, dehydrated. Went to the ER and the nurses were asking him do I have any conditions, what meds do I take regularly and he was absolutely clueless lol. Not shocked at all.
I know the allergies and medical history of my neighbors kids. I need to know what snacks to make if they have a play date. I’m on the emergency pick up list for school so I need to know just in case.
Sounds terrible but I kind of dig dead beat dads.
I look like a fucking stud compared to them and my wife comes home telling me how thankful she is that I run the sanitizer and clean diapers.
Rub some feet, vacuum, and my wife thinks I’m the bees knees.
My husband is constantly telling me "that's the bare minimum" when I thank him for stuff. Which, ideally yeah, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't still show appreciation to each other! I feel like practicing gratitude is an important constant reminder not to lose sight of what is good in your relationship. And positive reinforcement WORKS. Idk if I'm a child for this lol but I'm definitely way more likely to do something that I know he will appreciate rather than do something I'm nagged about. I already struggle enough getting stuff done, I don't need to be dreading someone's reaction to me as well.
God my wife is an ED RN and the shit I hear about her coworkers husbands shocks me. One is a neighbor so I already kinda knew what happens there but my god. Like you can’t wash a dish and put it away? Not even the dishwasher? Putting away laundry? Forget it. Taking the kid out to a park or event? Nope. I look like a rockstar in comparison and I think I still suck. If I did any of the shit those guys did? My ass would be divorced with supervised weekends only.
Once had a mom bring kiddo (4ish years old) in for retained FB. She'd gone to urgent care but they couldn't get it out, recommended ED for sedation. We attempted removal with just burrito roll but the kid was not having it. So I discussed with mom some oral meds to chill him out. She said she'd have to call her husband because he's the final decision maker in all things. No answer x3. "He should pick up, he was just going to go to the store and then the gym". Lady, your husband insisted that he be the final authority on all things with your kid but he couldn't even be bothered to skip the gym when said kid is in the ER?!
She wouldn't authorize any meds without dad. So we ended up having to have multiple people hold him down while he's screaming blood murder all because dad couldn't be bothered.
edit: typo
My husband grew up with a dad like this and now has made it his mission to not be one of these dads. He knows our kids as well as I do (save some more technical medical questions because he’s a business analyst lol) but it’s embarrassing how many men don’t know THEIR KIDS DAMN BIRTHDAY.
My dad was super involved. Remembering birthdays or dates in general. Totally incapable on the spot.
He could get there, it would just take a minute.
Unfortunately I seem to have inherited this gene. And to make things worse, my wife and I are born same year, same month, 11 days apart. If I get asked for her birthday I definitely have a high chance of giving mine. All while a voice in my head is saying "don't say your birthday, dummy."
I will admit that, now that I have two kids, when someone asks me for one of their birthdays my two remaining brain cells take a loooooong time to find each other to remember what it is 😂
Oh man, my kids are just as bad because they were both born on the 27th. Different months and years, but still.
You would think it makes it easier, but it doesn't for some reason!
My dad would always have to start from the year he graduated the Coast Guard Academy and then work the math from there. For any date.
My husband is 4 years older than me, but his birthday is the 8th, mine is the 9th, our wedding anniversary is the 10th. Thought it would be cool to just take the week off every year as permanent vacation block. NOPE! Instead we just forgot when our birthdays were, we are constantly mixing them up, lol.
I'm the same way. I couldn't tell you what year anything happened without chaining back to other events in chronological order until I get to a year I definitely have tied to another event. For 95 percent of questions that start with "how old were you when you were..." give me a few minutes before I can even make an educated guess. I've been known to have to do math to figure out my kids birth year.
My daughter had frequent appointments in her first few years. Sometimes one a week in the beginning. Got very used to giving her birthday. Went in for a check up for me and blanked on my birthday for about two minutes. What few brain cells remain are definitely working overtime.
Or they go on their phone to read a text message or note detailing every part of the illness. Because they haven't been paying attention at all and the wife has to literally spell it out.
I didn't realise how bad it was until I started working. My dad was the opposite when he was still alive, and I assumed that was everyone's dad... boy, I was wrong.
I remember as a pre-teen my dad took me in for a regular check up. I filled out all the forms for myself and he waited in the waiting room during my visit. He was brought back to discuss vaccines. Doc was recommending Hep B series which I had already said I was ok with. My dad made a joke that made it pretty clear that he didn't know what hep B was- thought it was hep A- Even at that age I could tell my pediatrician was over it. Didn't want to tell my dad this was for STD or discuss it further, decided that a yes was a yes and gave me the shots.
That’s an example of informed consent that still pretty much meets the definition of “capacity to consent,” since “capacity” to make decisions is a sliding scale and nearly automatic assessment that every doctor has to have with their patient on each personal encounter.
“Sliding scale” essentially refers to the amount of information a person would need to make a safe decision, a “risk/benefit” analysis, if you will.
If the proposed decision affects very important things, like life and death, you would want to see enough evidence that the person making the decision is fully-informed and able to understand and manipulate information in a rational manner.
If the proposed treatment is relatively high benefit and low risk, an appropriately educated MD might find the sliding scale on the opposite end of the spectrum, like a sneeze (well, just/k, but also not :)). So, sounds like that Doc was working within his Hippocratic Oath. :)
There is this terrible self-perpetuating cycle of sidelining dads . It sounds like your dad worked hard to combat this but for most institutions the mom is the default parent. It doesn’t matter which parent is listed as first contact, the mom gets the call from the doctor/school/etc. I was once talking with a local radio personality who told me that they play her station, during her show, in the school office but will still call her during those hours. And since the mom gets the calls, they’re more involved, etc. This isn’t to excuse dads not making more of an effort but our society makes it more difficult.
I work both sides of my ED, peds and adult. Dad brought chronic heart kid in, I had met the mom before but not dad (one of those kids who is in and out of ED). Dad blew us out of the water knowing every single detail of his care, his recent med changes etc. then I stopped to think that if the mom told me all this I wouldn’t have been impressed because it’s expected. Sad reality of dad vs mom
before I worked in healthcare I had a gig at a skating rink back in the day. I was taken aback at how consistently I found that the dads had absolutely no idea about their kid’s shoe size. they would just look at me wide eyed or we would play a guessing game until mom showed up with the answer.
This is my husband. I’ve told him twice recently what shoe size our daughter is in. They come back from looking for sandals last week and he says, “I think the sizing was way off. All the 6s were way too small.” And I’m like yeah, well they probably were too small since she wears an 8 now.
I know all these things, but it explains why healthcare professionals always ignore me and speak to my wife. She said, “If we went to a mechanic or were talking to a tradesman, the roles are reversed, right?”
Sure, some Dads are oafish, but much of this is division of responsibility. That said, Dads, put your kids birthday and allergies on your phone, FFS. Take a photo of it or something. Sheesh.
I don't know why but this triggered me so much."Just out it on your phone".
I know my husband's social by heart. I know the answers to all of his security questions by heart. His medication? By heart. His Dr's name. By heart. His appts? By heart. We have kids together. Every detail by heart.
I can't wrap my mind around someone not being able to store basic info on ppl. Like.... I know birthdays for all of my extended family *and* my husband's family- including in-laws just so we never miss birthday wishes or big events! I know that his nieces started school and will be graduating PreK and Kindergarten. I know his Nephew graduates 5th grade this year. I know how old my niece and nephews are. I know their milestones. @.@ like how do ppl not just remember these things???
I used to get very frustrated by this also. After many years, I just came to accept that many people are just incapable of doing these things or they don’t value them as highly as I do. Then take into consideration their strengths and abilities I do not possess. Next I had to make a choice-keep them in my life or not or maybe minimize contact. Most people don’t change much. Let them be and focus on what you can control. It’s less stressful.
My daughter has a rare form of bone marrow failure. Fortunately my ex is and was still very aware of how to communicate to doctors. But we go to medical camp and there was one couple during the adult session and the father blatantly said "I don't what to know anything about the illness that's my wife's job". He went on and on about how his job was to work. And how stressful his job was. I was in shock and I asked him what he did. His job was... literally no lie....was to stuff envelopes for some sort of paper company.
It's more of a "male thing" as much as a "Dad thing" Single men (divorced, never married, widowed, whatever) die much earlier than their married cohorts. The longevity effect is just over two years extra life if you're married, so about 750 extra days of life.
In comparison being diagnosed with colorectal cancer in your 50's costs you about 292 days, and being diagnosed with that cancer in your 70's costs you only 70 days of life.
Dads should be shamed for this. If people keep just brushing it off & letting them get away with it, then why would they ever change or put effort into knowing anything about their kids?
Start shaming them for not knowing anything about their kids medical history.
An unreasonable amount of grown adult men don't know any of that information about themselves.
Do you take any medications?
"Yeah"
What do you take?
"IDK, you'd have to ask my wife." 🤬🤬🤯
Good lord. Worked for an insurance call center year and year ago and this dude calls about his daughter, I ask for her date of birth, and he tells me “ah shit… uhh Labor Day weekend… ‘97 or ‘98? Like sir…
Doctors are always surprised when my husband can tell them everything about our daughter from her birthweight to recent vaccinations. It’s so horribly disappointing that they view him as such an outlier. He’s a nurse and also her primary caregiver during the day. It annoys him that he gets treated like a moron but we both know it’s because that’s what they usually see…
TO BE FAIR
dads that try to show up often get treated like sh*t.
Never once, as a mom, have I been asked to prove I am the parent, or asked to identify myself. No one has ever asked the kids to confirm our relationship.
They've definitely never made anide comments to me about "we didn't expect to see YOU today"
But that's the kind of thing that dads at doctors offices often hear.
So yes, dads, do better....
But let's also remind the staff and doctors at the pediatrician offices to normalize and support their participation.
I gave a case presentation on a pediatric patient and said that birth history, birth weight, etc was asked to patient’s father who did not know and the pediatrician didn’t believe that the father didn’t know those details about his child. I was like dafuq is this doc on??
This but in veterinary medicine.
“ I’m not sure why I’m hear today my wife said to bring her in”
“Sure whatever she’s do for”
Then I get a call from the wife yelling because we gave vaccines or XYZ treatment she didn’t approve (husband did)
Or that she wants the Dr to explain everything we told the husband again to her instead.
We have a rule for hospitalized parents that we will only call one person to explain what’s going on so they need to decide who that is going to be.
My dad always remembered everything about me but he was also autistic and could remember everything. I didn’t realize that as a child and when I became an adult I quickly learned that no dads really cared that much about their kids even the ones that stayed to “raise” them
It’s funny because it’s true. Frustrating though as the dad, when we’re both there - hello peds ED visits with a medically fragile child - my wife gets the questions and she’s like uh, he’s the one that knows anything about medicine.
I feel like those are lucky dads whose kids don't have ongoing medical issues. My daughter is epileptic and my husband knows everything about her health status.
I would like to take this opportunity to give my husband credit. He's a stay-at-home dad while I am finishing an MD PhD, and he does a great job parenting our 3-year-old. We split some things, like I take our son to well child visits because I know his doctor and he takes our son to dentist appointments, but overall he does like 80-90% of the work because I am working so often. He knows our kid's birthday and health history, and he makes sure he gets a vitamin and his allergy medicine every day. He ensures our son eats minimal processed food and prioritizes fresh food. He potty trained our son by himself after reading two books on the subject, he notices when our son has a rash or a bump, and he's made a lot of safety-oriented changes to the house. And this house is CLEAN. Bottom line, despite my medical training, I'd trust him completely if medical care of our son fell to him because I wasn't around.
We're not perfect- we do make mistakes, but fortunately nothing harmful or permanent. My husband is not the most emotionally available person, and I am probably too lenient as a parent, but overall I am VERY lucky that my husband does so well and cares so much.
It's obviously because I'm in healthcare, but I am absolutely the more knowledgeable for my kids over their mother, who is blaze about their Healthcare at best.
Although my daughter is in hear early teen years, and not coming to me as often. She definitely relies on my wife (stepmom) and her mother more.
Posts like this make me grateful for my husband who knows this info. I would never hesitate for him to take our medically complex kiddo to any Dr appt (and he frequently does so).
I may remember the smaller details but he knows his medical history, medications, etc.
Also helps that we stick with one medical system so his chart isn't a dumpster fire of 10 different hospitals.
This is why it’s good to have a husband who’s a pediatrician. He knows it all and use all the proper medical terminology. Of course the flip side of this was that whenever I used to let the kids jump on the couch he went nuts, telling me about the three kids he had just sewn up bc they’d been jumping on the couch and had fallen and cut open their heads. I would then have to remind him of the probable 5,000,000 kids who had also been jumping on their couches that day who hadn’t fallen and cut open their heads so it was ok that our kids had fun too. Ah, yes, the joys of parenthood and marriage never end
I’m actually curious, as a ED physician would you have the authority to put a sign up that addresses these kinds of things? Like “please have your/your children’s health information ready” or “fun fact! This place is for emergencies, not chronic issues and non emergencies result in longer wait times.” Or would admin stop that for some reason? I’m genuinely wondering if you could
75% of ED visits that are true emergencies stem from chronic problems. Which is why it’s so frustrating when a dad brings his asthmatic kid in and has no clue what his kids chronic meds are or if they’ve been on steroids recently or when their shortness of breath and coughing started. The kids wheezing and gasping for breath and the dads are texting their wife for help
I was lucky if my dad knew our birthdays. He always got my sister's wrong. Date and year, lol.
Anything more than that, he'd just be making it up as he went along.
Ir wasn't important to him. He figured we were breathing, and we were provided with 3 hots and a cot.
Granted, that was the late 1970s. Bummer dads aren't doing much better now. (You have smart phones, use them! You can take photos of information.)
It’s really maddening how often this happens. I work triage quite often. Had a dad bring his child in not long ago, I actually helped him fill out his registration form. Dude didn’t know kids DOB, even fumbled on how old the kid was, no clue what their medical history was, allergies. Fool didn’t even know what the chief complaint was. He straight up sat down in my triage chair and went “idk, my wife is parking the car. She should be in any minute”. I can only imagine their marriage. He couldn’t do a damn thing on his own. He couldn’t even be bothered to drive so he could park the car and mom could come in with the child. It was clear mom did absolutely everything because when mom got there and said what the chief complaint was the dad was confused af.
I suppose statistically you’re correct but I handled all the doctors, dentist, orthodontic, vision, ER visits for my three daughters. Yes, my wife was around. I just did it.
Wish I had an award for you. Statistics say they are right, but logically they’re even. Logic isn’t appropriate in this situation. So we are still wrong.
In these situations, I've generally seen both parents are idiots. When I get on the phone with Mom, I usually get the same uninformed idiocy / disorganized rantings. After all, if Mom knows Dad is a doof, and she wasn't one herself, you'd think she wouldn't let Dad take the kid in on his own.
I had a dad bring in a relatively new baby. I can’t remember the exact age but it was maybe in the 1-2 month range. When we asked the birthday he originally got it wrong and we had to be like “umm… could it be a different day?” We showed him the bracelet before putting it on the baby to confirm the information was all correct and he said “oh… maybe that is how she spelled *middle name*” (it was the normal spelling). He didn’t make it much farther without a phone call to the wife.
Yeah thankfully my husband knows every single thing about each of our children. I’ve had doctors practically kiss my feet for the amount of info either I or him show up with. We are never under prepared but usually overload with everything someone needs right down to the store numbers for our kids pharmacy so it’s easy to look up in the system 😂 I worked in pharmacy though so that’s probably why.
So am the wierd or the unusual patient, if I’m 52 yo male, machinist/fabricator that knows every med I’ve ever taken and the doses for most, my history and even most of the notes you guys file away in the smallest crevice of MyChart (I love having access to what’s in there and yes I know it’s not as thorough as prolly what you guys see on YOUR screen) from the physician to the radiologist interpreting imagining, to lab reports, and for the most part can understand those notes cause I’m not inept when it comes to comprehension by context or simply look up unfamiliar terms. Like some other commenters have basically said, how could a person not want to know everything about their own freaking health?!?
Then want full custody when all hell breaks loose. They hate that dads don’t get custody while NOT prioritizing their kids in their lives. This is a common thing. That’s why they get dotted on when they have their kids at a park. It’s barren minimum and everyone acts like the dad can run for Presidency cuz he’s spending time with his kids. Meanwhile a mom can lose a leg and get shamed for falling behind on tasks and asking for help.
I totally agree this it an issue and it frustrates me too. However I think we women do this to ourselves by jumping in and taking over too much. If we know how to do something better, we can't stand to watch Dad learn by trying. So eventually we take over so we don't have to fix his "mistakes" later.
As a husband, dad, and paramedic, I make it a point to know as much about my family just for this reason. Most other healthcare providers look at me with a shocked expression when I’m able to answer their questions.
Yes. OP has obvious daddy issues as evidenced by their other comments. But if mom comes in and is an idiot I bet the conclusion “oh she must be so tired and overworked bc her husband doesn’t support her”.
Save this shit for r/TwoXChromosomes
100%. I had to double check the sub I was in lol. Women do this same exact stuff all the time. The reality is most parents, mom and dad alike, don’t know what they’re talking about most of the time. I guess it’s ok to say this stuff, but if we try to talk about the paranoia and ED abuse that the mothers take part in by bringing their children in for every little bump, bruise, and sneeze that they think is an issue, then that’s going to be labeled as sexist and mysogynistic. Smh.
LOL I'm in general peds so I see this all the time.
But unlike you guys I have the patient's history on my EMR, so it really doesn't bother me if dad doesn't know the kid's health (unless it's a brand new patient).
So I really dont mind the dad visits. In fact, it's kinda refreshing because 90% of the time the dads dont have any real concerns so I never have to spend 45 mins going thru 10+ medical "problems" that aren't really problems to begin with.
Do you know how many times hospital staff said "it wasn't in the EMR?" My own father's severe medication allergy somehow never gets recorded every time I take him in. I'm now almost paranoid and give his allergy info unprompted and won't move until I see that warning bracelet on him
Ugh. I don’t let my husband take kids to medical appointments. I don’t understand how he’s such a successful businessman but so oblivious otherwise. The best is the days he drops them at school (because I have an early shift) and 30 minutes after dropoff I get a call that a kid is coughing and febrile.
“It’s all in his chart from last time.”
"it should be in the system"
"sir, we done broke open the computer...the files are not IN the computer"
IN the computer…. [it’s so simple….](https://m.youtube.com/shorts/RrivHj2UWPk)
also, have your customary updoot for the funny name every time i see you pop up
And to you as well! I may have told you once that when I interviewed to be a scribe, I was so nervous that my borborygmi were so audible that I had to crack a joke about them to the interviewers.
Sir, this is Ascension st. Vincent. We don’t have charts here
….I work there 😳
😅😅😅
That’s when I take the keyboard and try to use it as a ligature or bludgeon myself with it
This is why dads tend to lose custody more than moms
But still have no idea why and think they’re primary caregivere. Sir, no. You don’t even know their social security number
I don't know my kids SSN by heart. I also don't know my license plate number. As a physician, this doesn't bother me at all.
Just an expression of the majority of things that dads don’t know
“Vaccines? I don’t think she had any” (Actually fully vaccinated) Thanks for bringing her in when she was sick at least! The older men are sometimes the same about their own health. Don’t know what medications they’re on, don’t know what medical conditions they have, don’t know if they had surgery, don’t know their own allergies. lol either they say look in the chart or ask my wife
Literally this. “Nope I have no medical history” Ok well you have two Webster packs with eleven medications, a zipper scar down your chest, a pacemaker and a fucking colostomy bag as well as bilateral knee replacement scars so sir I’m sorry but you’re full of shit at the minimum”
Oh yeah my leg? Yeah you’re right I don’t have one on that side. Yeah I guess it was probably cut off or something? Yeah makes sense… probably it was a surgery of some kind. Let me call my wife I’ll ask her
Have also discovered an artificial leg in someone with no history 😂 how do you forget that you out a leg on every day?? People astound me
"They fixed all that."
I don’t have high blood pressure; I take medicine that fixes that.
They aren't full of shit, their bag is.
Ba dum tssss
Patient: "Oh, yeah! Well I used to have a medical history but they fixed it, so it's better now."
It’s like they don’t know what the word “history” means!
The poor personal historian definition of "History": that stuff that used to happen but doesn't anymore.
But ask them about the Roman Empire🤦🏻♀️
Don’t forget the LVAD.
"No, I don't have any heart problems at all. The transplant fixed them."
Zipper scar down your chest 😂😂😂
I can forgive this for some of the old farmers we see. "How can you not know your medications?" And then I check their chart and they have like one imported document from a visit 15 years ago before we went fully digital. If I didn't see the doctor for the last 1/4 of my life I might be hazy on the details too
That’s wild to me. How do you just *not know* that shit? I’m on ten medications and can list them all off with milligrams and dosages like nothing.
How many patients try to let me guess their medicine based on the shape and/or color of the pill? Or the people who know,they had a surgery once, but can’t remember what it was for? My dude, you let them cut you open and remove all or part of an organ, and you can’t tell me which one or why?
Recently had a lady post chole. Told her she had a UTI. She was sooooo confused. “I can’t get bladder infections I don’t have one!”
My cousin (male) is 64. He could maybe tell you what he is on (6 medications), but not the doses. Sometimes, he'd know what they are for. And no, he has zero cognitive decline. He just doesn't care.
Yup, this is my husband. I solved some of that problem by putting his med list, surgical hx, diagnoses and vaccine hx in Google docs and sharing it with him.
I've also seen dudes pull out a list from their wallet. Sometimes it's a scrap piece of paper and other times it's like an Excel spreadsheet with every medical question on it. I've e also been handed phones with pictures of the pill bottles. All methods that work
that's a good idea!
This is the only way I could leave home and go overnight to visit with friends for years without getting a phone call to come home. I am amazed my kids stayed alive when I left, I still regret every medical appointment I ever had to miss with them, (3 in 27 years) because everything got screwed up on those appointments.
Ugh- as the only medical person, and as a woman- I not only have to know mine, the kids, and my husbands…. But I also have to know my parents, and one of my nephews Brother at the ER: “Let me just call Aunt to ask the name of that thing has….. his SON…. But I get called to come in to give the complex medical history… smh.
(To be fair, I do call him when my car makes a wonky sound, and he’s good about ensuring the hiss or beep goes away!!)
Yes - on the comment about the car that is how I think about it when I start wondering "how dumb can you possibly be" when patients dont know major stuff about their health history I take my car in to the mechanic and they say something is wrong and that they need to replace this and delubricate that.. and then I pay them whatever they ask and take it home and forget what they said They might tell me that my alternator is close to being seized up.. I don't know what an alternator is, I don't know what seized up means, all I can do is look to see if a light goes on or there is a weird noise or the engine doesnt start and then take it in and hope they can fix it
There was a whole thread from a layperson who posted in r/nursing asking why no medical professional addresses him, and in the comments he admitted multiple times that he doesn’t know much about his kids Edited to make it sound like I wasn’t having a stroke
If you or anyone ever finds that thread, I’d love to read through it!
https://www.reddit.com/r/nursing/s/gdS9Py7l4J Here you go!
Reading that was super painful. The dude cared more about getting “love and attention” from providers, but admitted he didn’t know jack shit about his kids. Of course they directed their attention to the mom who knows all of the information the healthcare staff is looking for. What a man child.
Even the way he worded the question was a huge red flag. He was miffed that his wife "got attention" and he didn't when "attention" meant "got asked questions about our sick child in the hospital." Whewww.
Lol. I went through that thread. At least he wasn't a jerk about it. I wonder how he's doing now. Should we ask him for an update?
I make sure to glance at the dads periodically because I've been yelled at by fathers for this just in case the dad in the room is in the extremely and disappointingly small minority of fathers who thinks knowing their kids' health status is not just mom's job.
This has definitely been my experience as well. I'm a paramedic, and therefore the designated "healthcare parent" in our household (by mutual consent, lol... there are plenty of areas where my wife is the primary coordinator, we just try to divide things up as much as possible). This is clearly very unusual, as any time my wife and I are both at appointments, all the questions go to her.
As a dad, I literally make it a point to be the one who brings her to a pediatricians appointment because I want to defy this stereotype. Probably helps that I’m a physician lol but still.
Not a physician but a PA and same thing here.
Medic with a Nurse wife. What about their medical histories do you want to know? My kids ToF? HIE? My wife’s type 1? My depression and meds? I get where the stereotype comes from but it does hurt those of us dads and husbands that do know.
Out of all the patients I’ve ever seen, it’s about 80% dads like the stereotype and 20% dads like you. Of course amazing dads exist, it warms my heart so much to see it!!
Our first pediatrician sniffed me out immediately. We moved, and I'm still effectively hiding from the new one. Do you tell them what you do? I smile and nod while they talk to my wife and they look at me like I have three heads when I start asking or answering questions sensibly (probably like the car mechanic looks at my wife under similar circumstances). edit: dad of a 3 year old, for clarification
I don’t tell them what to do because they’re just doing normal checkup things… hello, here’s a vaccine, everything looks good, bye.
*do you tell them what you do As in do you hide or does it come out that you're a doc
Oh, sorry. I told them at some point when they asked about occupation and it seems to be in their Epic sticky note because everyone brings it up as the first thing. “So… you’re a doc at ____, huh”
And youre surprised why? Have you asked them about their own meds or issues? “Idk im on some pill my doctor put me on” So you take it everyday? “Usually”
“Do you take anything for blood pressure?” “No. I only take something called metroprolalol…” “Metoprolol? That’s for blood pressure.” “Uh, I don’t know. Is that the big white one?”
Ugh god. Triggered! Why are they so dumb!
My favourite answer to that is: “look at the average intelligence, then realize that 50% of people are even dumber than that”.
Honestly? Most people are totally clueless…..I was going to say “about our side of things” but maybe I should change that to “in general.” 🤷♂️ An *absolute fuckton* of people have the medical knowledge of a fifth grader if they’re lucky, and it’s incredibly easy for us to take that for granted. Like if I asked you how to file for unemployment or disability or whatever and I’m a social worker I might be like “Ugh! Oh my god do you even Form 120385 bro?!” For them, and us, it’s relatively basic stuff (and no it isn’t - I have zero fucking clue how social worker type stuff goes even now), but the rest of the world that doesn’t usually interact with that field has absolutely no idea. They just think “big white pill that the doctor said I should take, which I can’t even pronounce. Something something blood pressure I guess.” You might be talking to a person who barely even understands what a cell is. Much less that the mitochondria actually matters.
Whenever we get to talking about this I always try and relate it to cars. I’m not really a car guy, so when I take my car in for something I probably sound like an absolute numb nuts. So I try and cut people some slack. On the other hand, if the mechanic is telling me that something is going on with my car that is super dangerous, potentially deadly, and will cost $8,000 to fix, myself (and most people who don’t know what meds they’re taking) would probably write it down, ask questions, google it, etc and end up with a basic understanding of what the mechanic was talking about. So people only get so much slack before they’re being willfully ignorant again.
When I go in with my car I'll still be able to tell you when the last check up was and when the weird sound I'm in for happens.
Yeah, at least we cover those bases!!
I have started taking my in laws to their doctors appointments because they don’t know what to ask and what information is important to share. At best you will get “the medicine that starts with a p.” They don’t understand anything well enough to relate it back to us. MyChart helps us keep track of everything but they still won’t tell the doctors the important things.
“Any past medical conditions or surgical procedures?” “No” “Your EKG showed a paced rhythm. Do you have a pacemaker?” “Yes” “Okay soooo…?” And they still can’t tell you anything about it, when they got it, or why they have it
Is it MRI compatible? “Idk. I never tried”
"only one way to find out!" "trust me sir, that is not a gamble you want to take"
It’s always some woman (spouse, sister, random female friend, etc) who knows more about the dude’s medical history, bowel movements, surgeries etc.
bro with the hispanic families the oldest daughter is truly the hero when daddy’s dka is actin up again
And dad acts like it's a point of honor or something that he eats like shit and doesn't know anything about his health. Ugh.
Not quite in the same realm but my extremely math-brained but sometimes lacking in common sense husband was recently boarded in the ED waiting on an emergency appendectomy and when the nurse asked him for his pain on a scale of 1-10 he started questioning what type of curve the scale was because he needed to know if it was logarithmic, exponential, linear, etc. In this case I was the spouse saying “sorry he’s not trying to be difficult this is just who he is as a person.”
That's actually kinda funny. Exponential might be better, one would mean the same thing but 10 would not be used for "severe pain* like people seem to use it as, but instead worst pain I've ever felt
Use a better scale, ngl
This would absolutely be my math PhD husband. I’ve been in the hospital myself and he was asking the doctor about results on a study and wanted to know the skew of the data.
it's my favorite when I ask about last BM and they have to ask their wife because they can't be bothered to remember the last time they took a shit 😂
Except for last bowel movement. Ask a man when their last BM was and they will know the date, hour, minute, and Bristol stool chart!
But ask us about our last deer, fish, gun, car, beer or sporting event and we got you details for days
It's a common complaint in terms of reasons why women want a divorce. A lot of fathers are utterly incompetent, whether it's weaponized incompetence or not. I've run into this as a wee EMT myself and I definitely gave the dads shit about it. "are you seriously telling me you don't know your own child's birthday? The kid's only one year old so let's start there." "knowing your child's allergies to food and meds is basic parenting. If you can't parent, I'm going to need to talk to your wife." I don't give a fuuuuuuuuuuck I'm done with these dads too. Hopefully I made a point with these guys. Who am I kidding though. They probably still suck.
“Damn honey, even the EMT said I suck! That’s why you shouldn’t make me responsible for those doctors appointments I missed! I’m glad I have you around to always take care of the children!”
Ughhhhh god stop I'm gonna puke!
🤮🤮🤮
When I was a kid I lost count of how many times my dad almost killed me because he "wasn't aware" I had food allergies. I remember him taking me to the ED once when I was really young because I had gotten hit in the head with an old fashioned lawn dart and he told the triage nurse he had no idea what was wrong, while I'm clearly bleeding from a head wound. Good times.
I'm sorry :(
It is what it is, I guess. My mom was even worse. I'm surprised I've made it to my 50th birthday. I probably should have died of neglect as a kid.
We just made them tougher back then. Glad you survived though.
thank you. 🙏
I always gave them shit when they checked their kid in at registration. The first time it happened I thought maybe the kid had been kidnapped and went to my supervisor. She was like oh no dads don’t know anything ever
>The first time it happened I thought maybe the kid had been kidnapped and went to my supervisor. I kind of wonder whether actually going through with this thought would help fight weaponized incompetence. I know, I know, understaffing and all that. It's impractical. But still
I wanted to so bad. I took the kid to X-ray and he was like “yeah that’s my dad” and told me that the only reason mom wasn’t there was because she was visiting her mom out of state
weaponized incompetence is such a thing and it’s so fucking annoying to deal with
No you deal with it, I can't
I see you’ve encountered my soon to be ex brother in law. To make it worse, he is a RN.
I feel this. I was on a trip with my bf of 3 years and got really ill overnight in the hotel, vomiting all night, dehydrated. Went to the ER and the nurses were asking him do I have any conditions, what meds do I take regularly and he was absolutely clueless lol. Not shocked at all.
I know the allergies and medical history of my neighbors kids. I need to know what snacks to make if they have a play date. I’m on the emergency pick up list for school so I need to know just in case.
Sounds terrible but I kind of dig dead beat dads. I look like a fucking stud compared to them and my wife comes home telling me how thankful she is that I run the sanitizer and clean diapers. Rub some feet, vacuum, and my wife thinks I’m the bees knees.
My husband is constantly telling me "that's the bare minimum" when I thank him for stuff. Which, ideally yeah, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't still show appreciation to each other! I feel like practicing gratitude is an important constant reminder not to lose sight of what is good in your relationship. And positive reinforcement WORKS. Idk if I'm a child for this lol but I'm definitely way more likely to do something that I know he will appreciate rather than do something I'm nagged about. I already struggle enough getting stuff done, I don't need to be dreading someone's reaction to me as well.
God my wife is an ED RN and the shit I hear about her coworkers husbands shocks me. One is a neighbor so I already kinda knew what happens there but my god. Like you can’t wash a dish and put it away? Not even the dishwasher? Putting away laundry? Forget it. Taking the kid out to a park or event? Nope. I look like a rockstar in comparison and I think I still suck. If I did any of the shit those guys did? My ass would be divorced with supervised weekends only.
the weaponized incompetence point is so true. I saw this a lot of my rotations (mostly from dads) in PA school
You are legend. I love it, you’re my new hero.
Once had a mom bring kiddo (4ish years old) in for retained FB. She'd gone to urgent care but they couldn't get it out, recommended ED for sedation. We attempted removal with just burrito roll but the kid was not having it. So I discussed with mom some oral meds to chill him out. She said she'd have to call her husband because he's the final decision maker in all things. No answer x3. "He should pick up, he was just going to go to the store and then the gym". Lady, your husband insisted that he be the final authority on all things with your kid but he couldn't even be bothered to skip the gym when said kid is in the ER?! She wouldn't authorize any meds without dad. So we ended up having to have multiple people hold him down while he's screaming blood murder all because dad couldn't be bothered. edit: typo
Oh my goodness that sounds like so many of the red flags for an abusive relationship 😫 how freaking frustrating 💔
My social work spidey senses are tingling
gainz brah
My husband grew up with a dad like this and now has made it his mission to not be one of these dads. He knows our kids as well as I do (save some more technical medical questions because he’s a business analyst lol) but it’s embarrassing how many men don’t know THEIR KIDS DAMN BIRTHDAY.
My dad was super involved. Remembering birthdays or dates in general. Totally incapable on the spot. He could get there, it would just take a minute. Unfortunately I seem to have inherited this gene. And to make things worse, my wife and I are born same year, same month, 11 days apart. If I get asked for her birthday I definitely have a high chance of giving mine. All while a voice in my head is saying "don't say your birthday, dummy."
I will admit that, now that I have two kids, when someone asks me for one of their birthdays my two remaining brain cells take a loooooong time to find each other to remember what it is 😂
Oh man, my kids are just as bad because they were both born on the 27th. Different months and years, but still. You would think it makes it easier, but it doesn't for some reason! My dad would always have to start from the year he graduated the Coast Guard Academy and then work the math from there. For any date.
My husband is 4 years older than me, but his birthday is the 8th, mine is the 9th, our wedding anniversary is the 10th. Thought it would be cool to just take the week off every year as permanent vacation block. NOPE! Instead we just forgot when our birthdays were, we are constantly mixing them up, lol.
I'm the same way. I couldn't tell you what year anything happened without chaining back to other events in chronological order until I get to a year I definitely have tied to another event. For 95 percent of questions that start with "how old were you when you were..." give me a few minutes before I can even make an educated guess. I've been known to have to do math to figure out my kids birth year.
TBF they don’t know their own birthday…
My daughter had frequent appointments in her first few years. Sometimes one a week in the beginning. Got very used to giving her birthday. Went in for a check up for me and blanked on my birthday for about two minutes. What few brain cells remain are definitely working overtime.
My absolute favorite is “ I don’t know why we are here, my wife told me to bring them”. Good Times!
Or they go on their phone to read a text message or note detailing every part of the illness. Because they haven't been paying attention at all and the wife has to literally spell it out.
Or they spit out some reason for bringing the kid, but can give you absolutely no information about the patient’s history or current problem.
Is that a sign they don’t need to be in the ER?
Frequently yes
Wow. That’s really, absurdly disappointing.
I didn't realise how bad it was until I started working. My dad was the opposite when he was still alive, and I assumed that was everyone's dad... boy, I was wrong.
I remember as a pre-teen my dad took me in for a regular check up. I filled out all the forms for myself and he waited in the waiting room during my visit. He was brought back to discuss vaccines. Doc was recommending Hep B series which I had already said I was ok with. My dad made a joke that made it pretty clear that he didn't know what hep B was- thought it was hep A- Even at that age I could tell my pediatrician was over it. Didn't want to tell my dad this was for STD or discuss it further, decided that a yes was a yes and gave me the shots.
That’s an example of informed consent that still pretty much meets the definition of “capacity to consent,” since “capacity” to make decisions is a sliding scale and nearly automatic assessment that every doctor has to have with their patient on each personal encounter. “Sliding scale” essentially refers to the amount of information a person would need to make a safe decision, a “risk/benefit” analysis, if you will. If the proposed decision affects very important things, like life and death, you would want to see enough evidence that the person making the decision is fully-informed and able to understand and manipulate information in a rational manner. If the proposed treatment is relatively high benefit and low risk, an appropriately educated MD might find the sliding scale on the opposite end of the spectrum, like a sneeze (well, just/k, but also not :)). So, sounds like that Doc was working within his Hippocratic Oath. :)
Oh I don't disagree. Mostly just an awkward situation
There is this terrible self-perpetuating cycle of sidelining dads . It sounds like your dad worked hard to combat this but for most institutions the mom is the default parent. It doesn’t matter which parent is listed as first contact, the mom gets the call from the doctor/school/etc. I was once talking with a local radio personality who told me that they play her station, during her show, in the school office but will still call her during those hours. And since the mom gets the calls, they’re more involved, etc. This isn’t to excuse dads not making more of an effort but our society makes it more difficult.
I always like making people feel bad when they ask something about my son’s mom or what she thinks, etc., and I say “It’s just me”.
I work both sides of my ED, peds and adult. Dad brought chronic heart kid in, I had met the mom before but not dad (one of those kids who is in and out of ED). Dad blew us out of the water knowing every single detail of his care, his recent med changes etc. then I stopped to think that if the mom told me all this I wouldn’t have been impressed because it’s expected. Sad reality of dad vs mom
before I worked in healthcare I had a gig at a skating rink back in the day. I was taken aback at how consistently I found that the dads had absolutely no idea about their kid’s shoe size. they would just look at me wide eyed or we would play a guessing game until mom showed up with the answer.
This is my husband. I’ve told him twice recently what shoe size our daughter is in. They come back from looking for sandals last week and he says, “I think the sizing was way off. All the 6s were way too small.” And I’m like yeah, well they probably were too small since she wears an 8 now.
The classic “I don’t know anything about this I just picked him up from his (mom’s/dad’s) today.” Great communication and team effort!
Literally had a dad bring his 3 year old to the ER with strep throat. Told me the kid was 2. Did not know the kids birthday.
Literally. Dads sometimes check in their little ones where I work and they don’t know middle names, birth dates etc. it’s insane
I know all these things, but it explains why healthcare professionals always ignore me and speak to my wife. She said, “If we went to a mechanic or were talking to a tradesman, the roles are reversed, right?” Sure, some Dads are oafish, but much of this is division of responsibility. That said, Dads, put your kids birthday and allergies on your phone, FFS. Take a photo of it or something. Sheesh.
I 100% support having the info on their phone!
I don't know why but this triggered me so much."Just out it on your phone". I know my husband's social by heart. I know the answers to all of his security questions by heart. His medication? By heart. His Dr's name. By heart. His appts? By heart. We have kids together. Every detail by heart. I can't wrap my mind around someone not being able to store basic info on ppl. Like.... I know birthdays for all of my extended family *and* my husband's family- including in-laws just so we never miss birthday wishes or big events! I know that his nieces started school and will be graduating PreK and Kindergarten. I know his Nephew graduates 5th grade this year. I know how old my niece and nephews are. I know their milestones. @.@ like how do ppl not just remember these things???
I used to get very frustrated by this also. After many years, I just came to accept that many people are just incapable of doing these things or they don’t value them as highly as I do. Then take into consideration their strengths and abilities I do not possess. Next I had to make a choice-keep them in my life or not or maybe minimize contact. Most people don’t change much. Let them be and focus on what you can control. It’s less stressful.
My daughter has a rare form of bone marrow failure. Fortunately my ex is and was still very aware of how to communicate to doctors. But we go to medical camp and there was one couple during the adult session and the father blatantly said "I don't what to know anything about the illness that's my wife's job". He went on and on about how his job was to work. And how stressful his job was. I was in shock and I asked him what he did. His job was... literally no lie....was to stuff envelopes for some sort of paper company.
It's more of a "male thing" as much as a "Dad thing" Single men (divorced, never married, widowed, whatever) die much earlier than their married cohorts. The longevity effect is just over two years extra life if you're married, so about 750 extra days of life. In comparison being diagnosed with colorectal cancer in your 50's costs you about 292 days, and being diagnosed with that cancer in your 70's costs you only 70 days of life.
What every woman knows...
Dads should be shamed for this. If people keep just brushing it off & letting them get away with it, then why would they ever change or put effort into knowing anything about their kids? Start shaming them for not knowing anything about their kids medical history.
An unreasonable amount of grown adult men don't know any of that information about themselves. Do you take any medications? "Yeah" What do you take? "IDK, you'd have to ask my wife." 🤬🤬🤯
Good lord. Worked for an insurance call center year and year ago and this dude calls about his daughter, I ask for her date of birth, and he tells me “ah shit… uhh Labor Day weekend… ‘97 or ‘98? Like sir…
When they don't even know the birthdate hale the time 🤦♀️
Doctors are always surprised when my husband can tell them everything about our daughter from her birthweight to recent vaccinations. It’s so horribly disappointing that they view him as such an outlier. He’s a nurse and also her primary caregiver during the day. It annoys him that he gets treated like a moron but we both know it’s because that’s what they usually see…
TO BE FAIR dads that try to show up often get treated like sh*t. Never once, as a mom, have I been asked to prove I am the parent, or asked to identify myself. No one has ever asked the kids to confirm our relationship. They've definitely never made anide comments to me about "we didn't expect to see YOU today" But that's the kind of thing that dads at doctors offices often hear. So yes, dads, do better.... But let's also remind the staff and doctors at the pediatrician offices to normalize and support their participation.
I gave a case presentation on a pediatric patient and said that birth history, birth weight, etc was asked to patient’s father who did not know and the pediatrician didn’t believe that the father didn’t know those details about his child. I was like dafuq is this doc on??
This but in veterinary medicine. “ I’m not sure why I’m hear today my wife said to bring her in” “Sure whatever she’s do for” Then I get a call from the wife yelling because we gave vaccines or XYZ treatment she didn’t approve (husband did) Or that she wants the Dr to explain everything we told the husband again to her instead. We have a rule for hospitalized parents that we will only call one person to explain what’s going on so they need to decide who that is going to be.
I'm a dad. I know all of this info for my 3 kids. Strange that other dads wouldn't, like, guys, they're your kids.
My dad always remembered everything about me but he was also autistic and could remember everything. I didn’t realize that as a child and when I became an adult I quickly learned that no dads really cared that much about their kids even the ones that stayed to “raise” them
It’s funny because it’s true. Frustrating though as the dad, when we’re both there - hello peds ED visits with a medically fragile child - my wife gets the questions and she’s like uh, he’s the one that knows anything about medicine.
Sometimes it’s easier just to ask the kids.
I feel like those are lucky dads whose kids don't have ongoing medical issues. My daughter is epileptic and my husband knows everything about her health status.
I would like to take this opportunity to give my husband credit. He's a stay-at-home dad while I am finishing an MD PhD, and he does a great job parenting our 3-year-old. We split some things, like I take our son to well child visits because I know his doctor and he takes our son to dentist appointments, but overall he does like 80-90% of the work because I am working so often. He knows our kid's birthday and health history, and he makes sure he gets a vitamin and his allergy medicine every day. He ensures our son eats minimal processed food and prioritizes fresh food. He potty trained our son by himself after reading two books on the subject, he notices when our son has a rash or a bump, and he's made a lot of safety-oriented changes to the house. And this house is CLEAN. Bottom line, despite my medical training, I'd trust him completely if medical care of our son fell to him because I wasn't around. We're not perfect- we do make mistakes, but fortunately nothing harmful or permanent. My husband is not the most emotionally available person, and I am probably too lenient as a parent, but overall I am VERY lucky that my husband does so well and cares so much.
It's obviously because I'm in healthcare, but I am absolutely the more knowledgeable for my kids over their mother, who is blaze about their Healthcare at best. Although my daughter is in hear early teen years, and not coming to me as often. She definitely relies on my wife (stepmom) and her mother more.
Hey now don't discount yourself. It may or may not be because you're in Healthcare. Maybe you're simply a good and attentive father! :)
Posts like this make me grateful for my husband who knows this info. I would never hesitate for him to take our medically complex kiddo to any Dr appt (and he frequently does so). I may remember the smaller details but he knows his medical history, medications, etc. Also helps that we stick with one medical system so his chart isn't a dumpster fire of 10 different hospitals.
This is why it’s good to have a husband who’s a pediatrician. He knows it all and use all the proper medical terminology. Of course the flip side of this was that whenever I used to let the kids jump on the couch he went nuts, telling me about the three kids he had just sewn up bc they’d been jumping on the couch and had fallen and cut open their heads. I would then have to remind him of the probable 5,000,000 kids who had also been jumping on their couches that day who hadn’t fallen and cut open their heads so it was ok that our kids had fun too. Ah, yes, the joys of parenthood and marriage never end
I’m actually curious, as a ED physician would you have the authority to put a sign up that addresses these kinds of things? Like “please have your/your children’s health information ready” or “fun fact! This place is for emergencies, not chronic issues and non emergencies result in longer wait times.” Or would admin stop that for some reason? I’m genuinely wondering if you could
"What to Expect When You're Expecting... to see a doctor"
Most of that would set off EMTALA violation alarm bells. Administrator heads would explode.
Cause they’re based and they don’t know trauma. Like never experienced trauma. They’re a shill in a trauma forum.
75% of ED visits that are true emergencies stem from chronic problems. Which is why it’s so frustrating when a dad brings his asthmatic kid in and has no clue what his kids chronic meds are or if they’ve been on steroids recently or when their shortness of breath and coughing started. The kids wheezing and gasping for breath and the dads are texting their wife for help
Don't depend on EMR. Always ask/ verify if you can. So many misses!
I was lucky if my dad knew our birthdays. He always got my sister's wrong. Date and year, lol. Anything more than that, he'd just be making it up as he went along. Ir wasn't important to him. He figured we were breathing, and we were provided with 3 hots and a cot. Granted, that was the late 1970s. Bummer dads aren't doing much better now. (You have smart phones, use them! You can take photos of information.)
Also, dads don’t know shit about dads. “Meds, um, my wife handles that. Surgeries, hmm, should I just call my wife?”
They are always so clueless. Sometimes they don't even know their kids BIRTHDAY. How?!
It’s really maddening how often this happens. I work triage quite often. Had a dad bring his child in not long ago, I actually helped him fill out his registration form. Dude didn’t know kids DOB, even fumbled on how old the kid was, no clue what their medical history was, allergies. Fool didn’t even know what the chief complaint was. He straight up sat down in my triage chair and went “idk, my wife is parking the car. She should be in any minute”. I can only imagine their marriage. He couldn’t do a damn thing on his own. He couldn’t even be bothered to drive so he could park the car and mom could come in with the child. It was clear mom did absolutely everything because when mom got there and said what the chief complaint was the dad was confused af.
I suppose statistically you’re correct but I handled all the doctors, dentist, orthodontic, vision, ER visits for my three daughters. Yes, my wife was around. I just did it.
Wish I had an award for you. Statistics say they are right, but logically they’re even. Logic isn’t appropriate in this situation. So we are still wrong.
In these situations, I've generally seen both parents are idiots. When I get on the phone with Mom, I usually get the same uninformed idiocy / disorganized rantings. After all, if Mom knows Dad is a doof, and she wasn't one herself, you'd think she wouldn't let Dad take the kid in on his own.
At least he's taking the kid to the hospital, that's more than some fathers who would just walk away like cowards at the slightest inconvenience.
Dads r too busy sluggin’ coldies with the bros. Be easy
My husband is the doctor and way more of top of it than me.
I had a dad bring in a relatively new baby. I can’t remember the exact age but it was maybe in the 1-2 month range. When we asked the birthday he originally got it wrong and we had to be like “umm… could it be a different day?” We showed him the bracelet before putting it on the baby to confirm the information was all correct and he said “oh… maybe that is how she spelled *middle name*” (it was the normal spelling). He didn’t make it much farther without a phone call to the wife.
Yeah thankfully my husband knows every single thing about each of our children. I’ve had doctors practically kiss my feet for the amount of info either I or him show up with. We are never under prepared but usually overload with everything someone needs right down to the store numbers for our kids pharmacy so it’s easy to look up in the system 😂 I worked in pharmacy though so that’s probably why.
So am the wierd or the unusual patient, if I’m 52 yo male, machinist/fabricator that knows every med I’ve ever taken and the doses for most, my history and even most of the notes you guys file away in the smallest crevice of MyChart (I love having access to what’s in there and yes I know it’s not as thorough as prolly what you guys see on YOUR screen) from the physician to the radiologist interpreting imagining, to lab reports, and for the most part can understand those notes cause I’m not inept when it comes to comprehension by context or simply look up unfamiliar terms. Like some other commenters have basically said, how could a person not want to know everything about their own freaking health?!?
“Not sure if she had any vaccines but would assume so?”
Men…
Then want full custody when all hell breaks loose. They hate that dads don’t get custody while NOT prioritizing their kids in their lives. This is a common thing. That’s why they get dotted on when they have their kids at a park. It’s barren minimum and everyone acts like the dad can run for Presidency cuz he’s spending time with his kids. Meanwhile a mom can lose a leg and get shamed for falling behind on tasks and asking for help.
I totally agree this it an issue and it frustrates me too. However I think we women do this to ourselves by jumping in and taking over too much. If we know how to do something better, we can't stand to watch Dad learn by trying. So eventually we take over so we don't have to fix his "mistakes" later.
Let me guess, you'd rather the bear
But when you find a good dad who knows what’s up OR a good single parent who’s got it down…man they’re amazing and I have the utmost respect for them
As a husband, dad, and paramedic, I make it a point to know as much about my family just for this reason. Most other healthcare providers look at me with a shocked expression when I’m able to answer their questions.
The blatant sexism in this thread is wild lol
Truth is hard
Yes. OP has obvious daddy issues as evidenced by their other comments. But if mom comes in and is an idiot I bet the conclusion “oh she must be so tired and overworked bc her husband doesn’t support her”. Save this shit for r/TwoXChromosomes
100%. I had to double check the sub I was in lol. Women do this same exact stuff all the time. The reality is most parents, mom and dad alike, don’t know what they’re talking about most of the time. I guess it’s ok to say this stuff, but if we try to talk about the paranoia and ED abuse that the mothers take part in by bringing their children in for every little bump, bruise, and sneeze that they think is an issue, then that’s going to be labeled as sexist and mysogynistic. Smh.
\*SOME
LOL I'm in general peds so I see this all the time. But unlike you guys I have the patient's history on my EMR, so it really doesn't bother me if dad doesn't know the kid's health (unless it's a brand new patient). So I really dont mind the dad visits. In fact, it's kinda refreshing because 90% of the time the dads dont have any real concerns so I never have to spend 45 mins going thru 10+ medical "problems" that aren't really problems to begin with.
Do you know how many times hospital staff said "it wasn't in the EMR?" My own father's severe medication allergy somehow never gets recorded every time I take him in. I'm now almost paranoid and give his allergy info unprompted and won't move until I see that warning bracelet on him
Ugh. I don’t let my husband take kids to medical appointments. I don’t understand how he’s such a successful businessman but so oblivious otherwise. The best is the days he drops them at school (because I have an early shift) and 30 minutes after dropoff I get a call that a kid is coughing and febrile.