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[Famassu]

The other part is to realize that the context is ambiguous as hell.

Surgeons touch their patients. Without the bill cosby line, there's no real reason to interpret it as sexual harassment or rape. But the third doctor might have caught the euphemism and added in the bill cosby line to lighten the mood. This is context that can't be perceived accurately without understanding the specific culture/humour of the team.

Should those doctors get some sensitivity training? Sure. But that's as far as it needs to go. Some people won't be satisfied until they see people been fired. But that's the kind of random whack-a-mole slacktivism that a lot of this shit has degenerated into lately.

Not sure if just some sensitivity training is enough. Lot's of people just view those kinds of things as jokes and a waste of time, learning nothing of it. A slap on the wrist if even that. There need to be some real consequences for that kind of behaviour for things to change. Not gonna say this particular case is grounds for a firing or that it's the first & only option in cases like this, but I'd at least consider it if I was their boss if there wasn't any kind of convincing explanation for their behaviour. At least let them simmer a little, worried about losing their job, that would probably be more effective than sensitivity training. Just because they are doctors shouldn't let their treatment be any different in such cases, when a lot of other people get fired for being vocal racists/sexist/homophobic morons all the time.

And I don't really see how those comments could be interpreted any differently. Sure, doctors touch patients every hour of every day, but I'd imagine if there was some actual medical/surgical/whatever reason to touch a patient, they'd be more specific in a kind of "hey, could you touch this thing (on her)?" instead of a creepy "anyone want to touch her" -> "I can" exchange between doctors followed by warnings of not ending up like Bill Cosby. It's the "anyone want to" and "I can" that make it fairly damning. If they were just treating her, someone HAS to touch her & do whatever surgical operations they have to, it's not some "hey, so anyone who's willing to cut her open, feel free to do so!" situation where they can be all "well, actually, I don't feel like touching any patients today".

 

[IchigoSharingan]

If you blow off stress by being a disgusting piece of shit, I think it says a lot about the kind of person you actually are when you're just no longer able to keep up appearances.

so

so

SO fucking true. What a win post.

 

[Game-Biz]

Seems like harmless jokes to me.

 

[Dr.Guru of Peru]

And I don't really see how those comments could be interpreted any differently. Sure, doctors touch patients every hour of every day, but I'd imagine if there was some actual medical/surgical/whatever reason to touch a patient, they'd be more specific in a kind of "hey, could you touch this thing (on her)?" instead of a creepy "anyone want to touch her" -> "I can" exchange between doctors followed by warnings of not ending up like Bill Cosby. It's the "anyone want to" and "I can" that make it fairly damning. If they were just treating her, someone HAS to touch her & do whatever surgical operations they have to, it's not some "hey, so anyone who's willing to cut her open, feel free to do so!" situation where they can be all "well, actually, I don't feel like touching any patients today".

We're only getting parts of quotes here, and the stuff you think making it "fairly damning" aren't even actual quotes. The question was "do you want me to touch her" followed by "I can touch her". To give you some context, "touch" often refers to the use of electrocautery in the OR.

It's easy to brush off any defence of the physicians here as knee jerk defense force, but the more I think about this the more it seems like this was the patient from hell. Anyone that's worked in health care knows what I'm talking about. It's not normal for a patient to go into the OR with a recording device. She was looking to make something out of this. The piecemeal quotes we're getting interwoven with her narrative don't convince me anything malicious happened in the OR. Half the quotes don't even make any sense on their own.

 

[Daft Punk]

The "boys will be boys" mentality that some of you are trying to defend in here is disturbing to say the least.

 

[The Doc]

The majority of physicians with a degree I've seen are incompetent. Never forget that the person who has the job to heal you also probably hasn't graduated on top of their class.

Care to elaborate, please?
Besides , 90% of med students actually graduate "at the top of their class" , it's not like arts or philosophy (at least in london and milan). And even if it wasn't (in your country), it wouldn't mean they are incompetent.

 

[Cybrwzrd]

Frankly if a Surgeon has me split open on the table and he needs to make any kind of joke, no matter how offensive it may be to keep his focus and deal with the stress to put me back together and live through the trauma of surgery, I wouldn't care.

 

[seanoff]

I've had a couple of surgeries - one I have a distinct memory (through general anesthesia) of having muscles in by back sliced and ripped open - no pain just the sensation of slicing and pulling and ripping- and snatches of surgical conversation where it was evident I was a used car or a sack of meat.

Which is kind of what I assumed happened anyway but it was still startling.

They sort of have too. If anyone in a position where they have a life or lives in their hands they can't have that at front of mind. They'd go insane if they did.

They have to sort of disassociate from the danger. They have to confident in their ability and the process but they cannot be thinking if i slip here this person is dead. Air traffic controllers the same thing. They have thousands of lives in their hands at a time. They cannot be thinking that. They'd freeze solid or develop terrible stress very quickly.

 

[PeskyToaster]

I thought the Bill Cosby line was like a that's what she said joke.

 

[Wazzy]

The fuck is this. Since when should people expect doctors to make racist remarks about you and joke about "touching" and photographing you while you are under.

The fuck are you all smoking?



Humanity my ass, what part of joking to touch someone who is under, and making clearly racist comments about someone 'humanity'. FOH man.

Fucking thank you.

It's seriously disgusting seeing so many people in this thread defend such awful behavior.

 

[Suite Pee]

Those lines calling her "Precious" are garbage

Christ, people

 

[TheBryanJZX90]

Those lines calling her "Precious" are garbage

Christ, people

I don't even understand how you can tell that "precious" is referring to the patient. "Precious over here, precious over there"? What does that even mean?

Maybe if it was said like after he cut something out of her and did a half court shot with whatever giblet into a trash can across the room, then was palming her head and pointing it at her excavated body part and moving her jaw up and down as he said it. Is that what happened?

 

[Hoo-doo]

Those lines calling her "Precious" are garbage

Christ, people

Help me out here, what does it even mean? I'm not a native english speaker, so 'precious' to me just sounds like a derogatory word used for the stereotype of spoiled valley girls with daddy's creditcard who cry when they get the wrong colour Mercedes-Benz for their 16th birthday.

Are there other associations with the term? Genuinely don't know.

 

[Boss Doggie]

Yes doctors aren't supposed to make racial slurs at people.

But at the same time you're unconscious. That's the whole point. Ten to one none of you people wouldn't even make an outrage out of it had it not been for that super secret recorder.

There's a reason why the doctor who talks to you operates differently once they are under pressure, and you unconscious.

What's laughable though is as though people here don't have demeaning thoughts towards another person but they keep it inside rather than spilling it out. Some would post it in their blogs and may remain anonymous.

Frankly if a Surgeon has me split open on the table and he needs to make any kind of joke, no matter how offensive it may be to keep his focus and deal with the stress to put me back together and live through the trauma of surgery, I wouldn't care.

And this one gets it.

 

[Particle Physicist]

I'm not going to comment on much here other than to say that we do not know for sure if she had an allergic reaction as this is coming from the patient and not actually from her medical records. She may have heard the recording about getting the antibiotic and had a panic attack, or was just going through normal recovery from surgery, we don't know. I've had patients come in saying that they know 100% they were previously diagnosed with X and when I look in their medical record it says otherwise. Patients get confused all the time about things as doctors are not always clear unfortunately.

 

[Lagamorph]

Help me out here, what does it even mean? I'm not a native english speaker, so 'precious' to me just sounds like a derogatory word used for the stereotype of spoiled valley girls with daddy's creditcard who cry when they get the wrong colour Mercedes-Benz for their 16th birthday.

Are there other associations with the term? Genuinely don't know.

That's exactly the meaning I took it as, especially when taken in the context of her seemingly insisting on allergies she has no medical evidence of and, as others have pointed out, she seemed to be something of a problem patient.

There was nothing racist about any of their comments. Some people, and certain parts of GAF, need to stop trying to make everything about race.

 

[The Doc]

I don't even understand how you can tell that "precious" is referring to the patient. "Precious over here, precious over there"? What does that even mean?

Maybe if it was said like after he cut something out of her and did a half court shot with whatever giblet into a trash can across the room, then was palming her head and pointing it at her excavated body part and moving her jaw up and down as he said it. Is that what happened?

wtf, man

Help me out here, what does it even mean? I'm not a native english speaker, so 'precious' to me just sounds like a derogatory word used for the stereotype of spoiled valley girls with daddy's creditcard who cry when they get the wrong colour Mercedes-Benz for their 16th birthday.

Are there other associations with the term? Genuinely don't know.

It's a ghetto name. The way he uses it is particularly vicious, disgusting.

 

[Moff]

the penicillin allergy aside

I always kind of understood the phenomena that surgeons make disgusting jokes all the time, I can't imagine the pressure they are facing, cutting up and stitching people with great precision, their lives literally in their hands. yeah, maybe they are just disgusting people, but I always could relate a little bit if that is how they deal with their pressure.

 

[Fafnir]

I don't even understand how you can tell that "precious" is referring to the patient. "Precious over here, precious over there"? What does that even mean?

Maybe if it was said like after he cut something out of her and did a half court shot with whatever giblet into a trash can across the room, then was palming her head and pointing it at her excavated body part and moving her jaw up and down as he said it. Is that what happened?

Help me out here, what does it even mean? I'm not a native english speaker, so 'precious' to me just sounds like a derogatory word used for the stereotype of spoiled valley girls with daddy's creditcard who cry when they get the wrong colour Mercedes-Benz for their 16th birthday.

Are there other associations with the term? Genuinely don't know.

They are referring to this movie:

 

[EloquentM]

Deal with your shit in other ways that don't make you seem like a rapey sociopath please.

 

[m0dus]

Couple things.

1) cross reactivity between cephalosporins and penicillins are exceedingly rare. Still, if there was even a whiff of an allergic reaction possible, they should've used an alternative agent. A dose of vancomycin would've been just fine, there's no need to perform a random drug trial in the OR.

2) I don't care if you think a person is snowed, or if the person is a righteous asshole-- you never, never, ever snipe at someone under anesthesia. Crack as many stupid jokes as you like, of course, but it's best to leave the patient out of them. It's not only tastless, that person, whomever they are, is depending on you, and for even a minor procedure has put their life in your hands.

Personal policy. I don't do procedures under general anesthesia, but if I ever had to go under I'd want my doc to afford me the same consideration.

 

[TheBryanJZX90]

They are referring to this movie:

Is "precious over here precious over there" a quote from the movie or something? If so then yeah it was fucked up to say that. If not I still don't understand how you can know it even refers to her. Like, there are at least two subjects to that quote. I can think up some scenarios where it would refer to the patient, but I can think of some where it wouldn't.

 

[Stilton Disco]

A friend of my Brothers is an anaesthetist, some of the stories he has of shit he and his colleagues joke about and get up to during surgery are terrifying. He even warned his friends not to have surgery at his hospital because he would do unspecified things to them while they were under.

But let's be fair, these are people who are overworked, often underpaid (in the UK at least), who have to deal with ridiculously harrowing shit on a daily basis, including people dying directly because of their not being able or good enough to save them. If that's not going to give you a bizarre outlook on life and a macabre sense of humour, nothing will.

 

[Claude Augario]

Calling a black woman Precious (notice the capitalized P) when her name is most definitely not Precious (her name is Ethel, for the people that didn't bother to read the article in the OP) is, the simplest way I can put it, the equivalent of calling her ghetto trash.

Not that I'm at all surprised that people with little knowledge of race relations in America (or at least feigning ignorance) would race to overlook this or even complain about making everything about race!1! in response to blatant racial remarks. I will admit that the explanation that surgeons can't do their jobs properly unless they are racially abusing minorities is a new defense. And yet my face resembles Kristen Stewart's while riding Space Mountain - dark and unfeeling. That's how surprised I am by this behavior. This forum is famous for assembling defense forces for literally anything. The Racism Defense Force assembles with lightning speed like a wall of Tetris blocks with the same old tired arguments: "That's not real racism!" "Stop making everything about race!" "Like you've never said disgusting racist things in private!" "How can he learn if you punish him for his actions!?" "He needs empathy and healing!"

But one tried and true tactic of the defense force is a continued Olympic feat of mental gymnastics that always blames the victim of racism for being racially abused, and somehow suggesting that anything otherwise is against the natural order of the world. You're telling me surgeons are going to fuck up if they can't treat her like ghetto trash? Are you serious with this nonsense? That argument is bursting at the seams with horseshit. I relieve stress and continue to function as an adult everyday without treating people like shit for any variety of reasons because my heart isn't two sizes too small.

If you're okay with racial abuse and treating people like shit then just come out and say it, don't frame this as a life or death situation where the surgeons become comically inept if they can't get a Precious or Sharkeisha in against every black woman on their table. If that's the best you can do to mask your true feelings you might as well go back to PoliGAF and continue spending pages arguing that Donald Trump can't possibly be racist because Mexicans aren't a race.

 

[Huff]

Is precious a well known movie.

 

[DontBeThatGuy]

The women has every right to be pissed off and disturbed about those comments. She's entirely in their hands, knocked out, and these incredibly well compensated for people are acting like a bunch of idiot fratboys.

 

[Kenshin001]

Calling a black woman Precious (notice the capitalized P) when her name is most definitely not Precious (her name is Ethel, for the people that didn't bother to read the article in the OP) is, the simplest way I can put it, the equivalent of calling her ghetto trash.

Not that I'm at all surprised that people with little knowledge of race relations in America (or at least feigning ignorance) would race to overlook this or even complain about making everything about race!1! in response to blatant racial remarks. I will admit that the explanation that surgeons can't do their jobs properly unless they are racially abusing minorities is a new defense. And yet my face resembles Kristen Stewart riding Space Mountain - dark and unfeeling. That's how surprised I am by this behavior. This forum is famous for assembling defense forces for literally anything. The Racism Defense Force assembles with lightning speed like a wall of Tetris blocks with the same old tired arguments: "That's not real racism!" "Stop making everything about race!" "Like you've never said disgusting racist things in private!" "How can he learn if you punish him for his actions!?" "He needs empathy and healing!"

But one tried and true tactic of the defense force is a continued Olympic feat of mental gymnastics that always blames the victim of racism for being racially abused, and somehow suggesting that anything otherwise is against the natural order of the world. You're telling me surgeons are going to fuck up if they can't treat her like ghetto trash? Are you serious with this nonsense? That argument is bursting at the seams with horseshit. I relieve stress and continue to function as an adult everyday without treating people like shit for any variety of reasons because my heart isn't two sizes too small.

If you're okay with racial abuse and treating people like shit then just come out and say it, don't frame this as a life or death situation where the surgeons become comically inept if they can't get a Precious or Sharkeisha in against every black woman on their table. If that's the best you can do to mask your true feelings you might as well go back to PoliGAF and continue spending pages arguing that Donald Trump can't possibly be racist because Mexicans aren't a race.

“Precious, yes, this is Precious over here, saying hi to Precious over there,” he can be heard saying in the recording, though it is unclear whom he is addressing.

I still don't get who the other Precious is though.

Personally I think every operation should be recorded. I had a medical procedure the other day and had the option of a general anesthetic but ended up with a local, so I was aware what was going on all the whole time. I've heard stories before where doctors have made fun of the patient but I'd be more worried about them screwing up,

 

[ThatCrazyGuy]

A friend of my Brothers is an anaesthetist, some of the stories he has of shit he and his colleagues joke about and get up to during surgery are terrifying. He even warned his friends not to have surgery at his hospital because he would do unspecified things to them while they were under.

But let's be fair, these are people who are overworked, often underpaid (in the UK at least), who have to deal with ridiculously harrowing shit on a daily basis, including people dying directly because of their not being able or good enough to save them. If that's not going to give you a bizarre outlook on life and a macabre sense of humour, nothing will.

Why. Like. I don't get it. Why are they doing shit to people.

 

[DeathyBoy]

Why. Like. I don't get it. Why are they doing shit to people.

They shouldn't. But I work in a hospital as a Ward Clerk in a general medicine area, and even there the job gets to you and messes you up some. What they did isn't defendable, but I can see how they'd get to that level. People just cannot understand how stressful working at a hospital is, even if the workers therein need to find ways to channel it that aren't disgusting. A fallow humour is fine, racism and implications of molestation are not.

Hell, I had surgery not long ago. Jokes about my penis wouldn't bother me, but being touched inappropriately.? I'd whistle blow on that shit so quickly I'd get knighted.

 

[Stinkles]

They sort of have too. If anyone in a position where they have a life or lives in their hands they can't have that at front of mind. They'd go insane if they did.

They have to sort of disassociate from the danger. They have to confident in their ability and the process but they cannot be thinking if i slip here this person is dead. Air traffic controllers the same thing. They have thousands of lives in their hands at a time. They cannot be thinking that. They'd freeze solid or develop terrible stress very quickly.

Totally.

 

[Maxim726X]

A 5th gen? Are you an actual physician, because what you're saying makes no sense. The USA may be a litigious society, but even then I refuse to believe there are hospitals that are so concerned over a rash that they're going to be shelling out for a 5th gen cephalosporin for surgical prophylaxis. And that's not even getting into the aneurysm infectious disease would blow when they found out about this.

We wouldn't use a ceph at all in this case... We would use Vanco or Clinda.

But if a ceph were to be used, it would be later generation. Just used as an example.

 

[Tarkus]

Just to be clear about about the perceived defiance of allergies ITT.....I've worked in the OR at 5 different hospitals. If a patient claimed to have a PCN allergy, then they received vancomycin or even clindamycin. It's not a widespread issue of giving the patient something they're allergic to, even though the crossover reactivity of cephalosporins is something like <1%. Same goes for latex allergies, and that's even more of a BS allergy. All supplies and gloves are converted to non-latex.

 

[Huff]

Sure just increase the rates of resistance and AKIs for a garbage allergy

Good medicine

 

[Huff]

But if a ceph were to be used, it would be later generation. Just used as an example.

Screaming internally

 

[Nipo]

Would rather my life be saved by a doctor who is a horrible person than have the nicest doctor in the world and die.

 

[Subpar Scrub]

. People just cannot understand how stressful working at a hospital is, even if the workers therein need to find ways to channel it that aren't disgusting.

I was once in a hospital getting antibiotics for blood poisoning (my dog accidentally bit me while playing and I didn't clean it well enough) and I had a nurse vent to me about the patients she had dealt with that day.

Holy shit, she looked so composed yet was stressing to no end. The worst one, she said she had to argue with a guy for literally hours to have a cathider given to him, because the strain of standing up could cause his heart to fail. But no. He didn't want a nurse going near his junk, so he wasted everyone's time until a doctor told him it would be life-threatening to ignore it.

My mother used to talk about how the surgeons at the hospital she did nursing at would make jokes likening surgery to car repair, but when one minute you're on break eating lunch, and the literal next you have someone screaming at you to get to surgery, with some guy getting sprinted down a hallway on a bed, organs visible, arteries possibly lacerated and a whole leg in a paramedics hands from a motorbike accident...

Well shit. Who can blame the guys for distancing themselves from that crap. Disassociation from the brutal reality of their work allows many of them to work better.

 

[KillGore]

Boys will be boys

Am I doing it right, GAF? I bet the majority of female doctors dont have this dark humor while operating and still have succesful operations.

 

[xandaca]

Christ, that's vile. At the very least, you'd think he'd respect his responsibilities as a doctor (aka not ignore her penicillin allergy) even if he was petty and cowardly enough to talk shit about her while she was unconscious. And the fact the hospital saw no grounds for action after he endangered her health is arguably even worse.

 

[Zoe]

Its in the article that was posted I did not go looking for it obviously the people at the Washington post thought it was similar enough to put a link to that case for the article in this case.

They put a made up diagnosis on his chart and made the jokes in the presence of others who might not have known they were jokes.

 

[Maxim726X]

Sure just increase the rates of resistance and AKIs for a garbage allergy

Good medicine

You can't assume it's bullshit... Didn't she specifically say that she had a serious reaction (or was told by her mother that she did?)

That's enough for a lawsuit of anything were to go wrong.

 

[poppabk]

Bonding with your colleagues & having a good team spirit doesn't have to include that kind of shit talk. Justifying their actions as "blowing off steam" just helps this kind of behaviour continue when we could condemn it and aim to have doctors improve their manners at work. The high stress (partly) EXPLAINS the behaviour. It doesn't justify it and there's nothing wrong in demanding these people to do better. I've been in prolonged high stress situations and I've never degraded to a borderline-rapist, sexist asshole.

Besides, is this something that women do as well? Do female surgeons generally joke about sucking/touching someone's hung cock when they see one on an unconscious patient? If it's such a high stress job that it degrades everyone in it into horrible human scum levels of pathetic, it should affect women too, right? Or is this mostly a "man thing" and as such just another form of sexism that is let run rampant among these circle with weak arguments like yours because, hey, everybody does it and they are important people! ¯_(&#12484_/¯

The linked case where the man one $500k was mainly a woman anaethatologist using derogatory and defamatory language.

 

[Beef]

I'm a physician. The article accurately reflects many operating rooms I've scrubbed into. From my experience, this is not uncommon, especially with older surgeons. Smiley mask until the patient is anesthetized, then get down to business and get the job done, with some trash talk throughout. A common assumption with allergies is that unless the patient describes a serious allergic reaction, they don't really know what they're talking about, or the "allergy" is not significant enough to worry about.

 

[Aruarian Reflection]

Besides, is this something that women do as well? Do female surgeons generally joke about sucking/touching someone's hung cock when they see one on an unconscious patient? If it's such a high stress job that it degrades everyone in it into horrible human scum levels of pathetic, it should affect women too, right? Or is this mostly a "man thing" and as such just another form of sexism that is let run rampant among these circle with weak arguments like yours because, hey, everybody does it and they are important people! ¯\_(&#12484_/¯

Women can be even worse. And in particular, I have noticed that some obgyns (which is a female predominant specialty) have little sympathy for other women. Working with obgyns is a very unusual climate since the nurses, doctors, patients and staff are mostly all women and it can get very catty behind-the-scenes. In fact, if I were a woman I think I would prefer a male obgyn to be my doctor/potential surgeon

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

I can only speak from a paramedic's perspective but there isn't much empathy in the medical line of work in general from my experience, including paramedics.

Heck when I was trying out we went to some bleeding from the head homeless drunk and when he refused treatment we just up and left.

 

[Enter The 36 Chambers]

I dunno I'm kinda split on this.

I mean it's easy to condemn the guy because we have a recording of him. The allergic reaction seems to just be an on the spot call the doctor made. It didn't pan out obviously because she ended up back in hospital. But then I don't know if testing the reaction is standard procedure or not.

As for the comments, personally I wouldn't care what my surgeon says about me when I'm out once the job is done right. Same way I wouldn't care what a mechanic says when they're fixing my car. Or the guys making a pizza say when making my pizza. Once the jobs done right I'm happy. Surgeons are people too, even If they are assholes, being a good person is wayyyy further down the list than competence at the job for me anyways.

 

[Rabbi_Vole]

I would hate to hear what a surgeon would say about my naked body.

 

[M52B28]

I hope that there's more to this story than the non-news oneliner you quoted. There are plenty of jokes being cracked in a OR. It's a high pressure job with lives on the line and this is how some surgeons/anaesthesiologists cope with these situations. If they actually compromised patient care, then that's another matter entirely.

Always weirds me out when people think that just because someone is extremely good at their job, they have to leave any semblance of humanity at the door. It's not how the world works. Orthopedic surgeons are notorious for being a bunch of immature fratboys. Only these fratboys have had dozens of years of intense training and schooling which makes them qualified to wield a scalpel. That is what they do for a living.

Does anyone here joke around with their colleagues, ever? Sometimes people think dark humor is funny. It doesn't mean there's malicious intent, it could just be immature one-upmanship that's extremely common everywhere. Even in surgery.

100%% agreed.

 

[MrPressStart]

To be frank, as someone with family in the medical field who've always told me about this kind of stuff, I don't give a rats ass what they joke about while I'm on anesthetics as long as they perform the surgery well. I'll likely never see them again, nor them me.

Agree 100% and I am in the medical field.

 

[xandaca]

To clarify my earlier comment, him being disparging about her while she unconscious doesn't really bother me, although it's kind of tacky. It's more giving her an injection she said she'd previously had an allergic reaction to, and then the hospital apparently dismissing it out of hand. That seems completely unprofessional and unethical on both the doctor and the hospital's behalf to me.

 

[Nokagi]

Does not surprise me at all. In fact I'd say this kinda talk is extremely common and a lot worse than we what we heard here. My mother has a friend who quit her nursing job because she couldn't deal with what the doctors and nurses would say about people who were asleep. She said it so mean spirited and cruel to the point that she just couldn't handle working there anymore.