About a year and a half ago I made the transition from hospital nursing to office nursing. Specifically from Labor and Delivery to an OB GYN office. My primary function is what you would call phone triage (i.e. I answer questions on the phone and decide if/when the patient needs to be seen or if the problem can be solved over the phone). p.s. that's just the tiny tip of the ice berg.
Any how. Over the period of a few months I noticed that I got a large number of phone calls that started with the line "So, I was doing some research (on Google) and I think, based on my symptoms, that X (insert anything you'd like here) is the root cause of all my problems (in life).
I laughed it off the first few times because I used to do the same thing. The difference being that I am an educated health care professional and the majority of the people I talk with are not. And that's great.
No big deal.
Over the next year it happened on a regular basis and it started driving me bananas!! (And not the good Bananas like my dear friend over at The Japing Ape).
These are intelligent people who are convinced that they know more than a physician because they spent 15 minutes on some woman's blog from Arkansas who is convinced that all of her anecdotal information is true for everyone.
Now. Partaking in the blogosphere (is that a real word?) as I do. I realize that some people may take the musings of my brain... practice them in their own lives... and contrive some type of fact or insight (or pleasure) from the experience. Let's face it, I have a few good ideas now and then ;) That doesn't mean that my ideas have been studied, tested, and trialed by a large group of my peers who can determine that there's a correlation between what I've experienced and what most people will experience. Then again, that's not always important when dealing with things like VIBRATORS. Of matters relating to infertility, hormone replacement therapy, contraception, irregular menses, and a whole slew of other such issues, peer reviewed information and evidenced based practice are important.
(I may be on a soap box here... feel free to stop reading at any point) (And if you're wondering... yes, the picture above is me. I've had a full facial reconstruction, boobs, lipo, collagen, extensions, bleaching (asshole and hair) and colored contacts) (NO not really). (I could add a few more parentheses here if you'd like).
You either make the decision when you go to a western doctor that you are going to subscribe to that brand of bullshit or you're not. For my sake though, if you're going to call and question every little thing that your doctor tells you because DR. GOOGLE told you otherwise... don't waste my time. Please.
With that said... if I like you, if you're family, if you pose an intelligent question... then of course I'm happy to listen=)
Thank you and good night!
Mistress (Nurse) Auri
