I’m a medical student and I’m currently at home for vacation. My dad had been complaining of this weird painful lump near his anus for sometime and told me to take a look at it, you know for clinical purposes.
I refused and offered to take him to a doctor. He’s been angry at me ever since and yells at me even if I breathe too loud. My parents live in a pretty remote hilly region and the nearest hospital is about an hour away but the road is a bit difficult to drive through.
The pain got a bit more severe and my dad started complaining about not being able to walk so I told him to take the day off and went to work in his stead. (my parents run two restaurants for hikers and tourists) He has faked many illnesses before so me and my mum thought that he was being dramatic and obnoxious as usual. The slightest headache or scratch is the end of the world for him.
Today I finally got fed up of his mooning and drove him to a big fancy hospital that was two hours away in the city. Turns out it was a perianal abscess and they had to take him for surgery. It was minor and the surgery was done in like 40 minutes but they’re keeping him under observation for two days. I’m staying at the hospital with him and everything is covered by our insurance.
But ever since then he’s been complaining about everything non stop and scolding me by saying that if I had looked at it before then it wouldn’t have come to this and he wouldn’t be in so much pain. He’s been complaining to all the nurses and ward boys about how his useless child who is a medical student but couldn’t help him. I don’t really think I could’ve even if I looked at it but I feel a bit guilty. Am I the asshole?
NTA. Even if you had looked at it the result would be the same. Or did he want you to do surgery in the kitchen?
Exactly! He’d still have needed surgery, probably also ignored op, then been angry when it turned out he was right.
NTA He still would have needed treatment, regardless of when you looked at it.
NTA. Even if you’d looked, then what? There’s nothing you could do other than tell him to go to a doctor for treatment. Which you did.
NTA – you offered immediately to take him to the hospital. You set a completely reasonable and respectable boundary and he got butt hurt over it…quite literally. Im glad he is okay and recovering now. He is your parent while its important to care about him he is a big boy and is capable of making decisions for himself and should have said hey i have this weird bump can you take me to the hospital now please. If my dad ever asked me to look at his butt id crashout
NTA. People in the medical field are generally encouraged to not treat or diagnose their family members due to multiple potential issues that could arise from it. Also you’re a medical student not a doctor and have no business offering serious medical recommendations yet.
NTA – if you had looked I feel like he wouldnt have cared for your opinion anyway. The only way to have delt with this was have it looked at in a hospital – adults need to take care of themselves. you did the most and offered to take him… Dont take in the guilt trip its not worth it
Good to set a boundary now. Tell him 1. You are not licensed yet to practice. 2. No ethical doctor treats family members except in an emergency.
NTA, but realize this is going to be a thing with you becoming a doctor. Friends and family will want free medical advice, and you MUST learn to set up hard boundaries on that from the start to avoid legal liability, which is hopefully something you’re being told along the way in your medical education. You may as well start setting that wall up now. Get advice from your instructors on how best to deflect these requests.
You did what was needed by taking him to the hospital, and I hope threats of more two-hour drives may help tamper down his tendency towards medically-based self-drama.
NTA Aside from not wanting to see your father’s naked butt, you are not yet a doctor and it would be practicing medicine without a license. He doesn’t seem to get that you are a STUDENT, not a doctor. You surely would not have performed surgery (and couldn’t have prescribed pain killers or antibiotics), so he would still have been in the same situation. He was in so much pain because HE wouldn’t seek proper medical treatment. Plus, if he’s like many parents, the “I wiped your A…, so you don’t really know anything syndrome” would have kicked in.
NTA. Even if you had looked,did he expect you to do surgery on the kitchen table? And,WTF is a ” ward boy?”
Former surgical nurse here. NTA. Even if you looked at it beforehand, he would have needed to be taken to the hospital. An abscess can be deceiving, you don’t know how deep in the tissue it is by looking at it, and debriding at home without proper sterilized gear could have become catastrophic. Not to mention, a med student performing a procedure at home is extremely irresponsible. Any complications that could have led to a hospital visit would have raised questions and you’d be the first one they would suspect.
Your dad just has a case of the old white coat syndrome.
You would have looked at it and told him to go to the hospital anyhow, and he would have said something like ‘You’re just a med student you don’t know anything!’ and the same sequence of events would have played out.
NTA
NTA. You are still a student anyway and may not have been able to give an accurate diagnosis and treatment. He is just being unreasonable. Just agree and go along with whatever he says in the most deadpan manner to get through it.