It is time for my periodic medical exam, so I call the clinic to make an appointment for the preliminary laboratory work. I dial the lab’s number and hear the usual introductory information.

AutoAnswer: “You have reached [Clinic]. Press one for English, two for Spanish, [etc.]. If this is a medical emergency, dial 911 now.”

I press one.

AutoAnswer: “If this is a medical emergency, dial 911 now. Otherwise, press one to make an appointment [and lots of numbers for other choices].”

I press one.

Auto Answer: “Your call may be recorded to improve service to you.”

There’s some boring music.

Eventually, the music stops, and I can hear voices talking in the background and what sounds like somebody fumbling with their headset mic.

Me: “Hello, hello?”

The voices stop.

Me: “Hello, hello?”

There is silence.

Me: “Can I make an appointment for some lab work?”

Phone: “Y—” *buzz* “Snurd… aailsfd, zot, eeee…”

Me: “I cannot hear you. Please adjust your headset and tell me if I can make an appointment.”

Phone: “Can… asdfox… kiklweh… arjhdb…”

Me: “I still cannot hear you. Please repeat.”

Phone: “Adfsia… you hear me now? Fsasi garble…”

Me: “Not really. Just say one word — ‘yes’ or ‘no’ — if I can or cannot make an appointment.”

Phone: “Aeiujfn bunkum poffff ayrhbqwuj opa.” *Click*

I try several more times over the following days, getting the same incomprehensible replies to my questions.

Eventually, I contact a different lab, complete my blood work, and visit my doctor at his main clinic.

Doctor: “I understand you tried to contact [Clinic Lab #1] to get your bloodwork but eventually went to [Clinic Lab #2]. [Clinic Lab #1] was closed since their staff quit. I don’t know who answered the phone.”

Apparently, the “vampire lady” and some other staff at [Clinic Lab #1] quit for some reason. Maybe I should have waited for the full moon or other times when vampires are abundant. BUT, what were the ghostly voices in the background before the gibberish started?

I’ve been a professional computer programmer since 1978. I did programs for the first IBM PCs when they came out.

Around 1986, my wife got a job as a Gal Friday for a chiropractor. He was quite proud of his office computer for managing his practice. Since he knew I was a computer professional, he asked for my help with something.

When I sat at the computer to help, I noticed that there was a numbered menu on the screen and a standard DOS prompt to enter a command. I realized immediately that his “fantastic” office management program was just a collection of hastily-written little batch files, each of which would do its thing and then clear the screen and show a new list of numbered commands to use.

I typed “DIR” to see what was on his computer first. The doctor suddenly freaked out.

Doctor: “What did you do?! It’s all messed up now! You’d better get that back to normal.”

I patiently ran the initial batch file and the screen cleared up.

Doctor: *Suddenly quiet* “Oh.”

Me: “Just let me do my job, okay?”

I take my daughter to the doctor for her seven-year-old check-up. A nurse takes her vitals, and while he’s entering them on her chart, my daughter starts to get bored and wiggly. She needs a distraction. She’s wearing knee socks with pandas on them, as well as a shirt and a hat with pandas. You get three guesses about what her favorite animal is, and the first two don’t count.

Me: “Can you count how many pandas are on one of your socks?”

She twists her leg around to get an accurate count.

Daughter: “One, two…” *a bit later* “…sixteen, seventeen!

Me: “So many pandas are on both socks? What’s seventeen plus seventeen?”

We have a bit of back and forth as she figures out that she needs to carry the one, finally resulting in the correct answer of thirty-four rather than her initial answer of twenty-four.

Me: “Now add the ones on your shirt and hat.”

Daughter: “Thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven!”

Me: “Wow, thirty-seven! pandas!”

She then looks at me, very serious, and speaks in somber tones.

Daughter: “But Mom. There are more. There are millions of pandas in my heart.”

As an OB/GYN, I often have my nurses come to me with questions from patients that have called them. One day, I got a rather unusual one.

Nurse: “A teen girl called and said she’s one of your patients, but she refused to give her identity. She wanted birth control and wanted to know if you would be willing to prescribe some to her even if her parents opposed it. She also asked whether doctor-patient privacy included your not being able to tell her parents she was requesting birth control or why. She wanted us to email her with an answer.”

The email address was clearly made just for this question; it was something blatant like “GiveMeBirthControlPlease at [website]”.

Me: “Relay to the girl that my requirement for confidentiality means I can’t tell anyone, even her guardians, about anything she doesn’t authorize me to. However, I can’t prescribe anything without seeing her first, and without her parent’s insurance to cover the costs, anything I prescribe to her will likely be too expensive for her to use. If she tries to use her parent’s insurance, then the birth control will likely show up on a statement her parents will see.”

After some back and forth with my nurse, the girl gave her real name and told the nurse she would have her mother bring her in, but she wanted me to know her goal was getting birth control so she wouldn’t have to say that in front of her mother. I had to look into my state’s legal laws about the consent of minors and guardians to ensure I understood what I was legally allowed to do for her when she arrived.  

Sometime later, I had a mother and a sixteen-year-old daughter show up at my office because the daughter was complaining of heavy periods with severe cramping and PMS symptoms. However, both her chart and my nurse reminded me that this was the same girl from earlier. I eventually told the mother that I prefer to have these discussions privately and requested that she leave me and the teen alone. The mother didn’t seem to like that but eventually left us.

Teen: “I do believe that my cramping and PMS symptoms may be worse than others’, but the symptoms haven’t changed recently, and I mostly exaggerated them to have an excuse for my mother to bring me here. My real goal is to get birth control.”

I have to compliment her research, though; if she did have the symptoms she had claimed, hormonal birth control would have been a likely thing for me to prescribe to alleviate the symptoms.

Teen: “I’ve already had sex twice, both times using a condom provided by my boyfriend. We’ve been together for a long time. I intend to keep having sex, but I noticed that my boyfriend’s condoms were expired, and he hadn’t been storing them carefully. I’m worried they may break if I keep depending on them.”

Me: “Did you talk to your boyfriend about this?”

Teen: “I told him I was worried, and he promised to only use new condoms and to take good care of them, but he also thinks I’m being kind of paranoid. I’m worried that he’s not going to take this seriously. I thought about getting my own condoms, but I have no privacy at home, so I’m sure my parents would find them, and they’d respond really badly to that. I want to go on the pill and keep using the condoms so I have two forms of protection in case either one fails. But my mother would never agree to birth control for that, and I can’t afford to pay for it on my own, so my only option is to convince her I’m getting the pills to help regulate my cycle, instead.”

Eventually, I prescribed her an oral contraceptive. When I told her mother, she immediately said:

Mother: “There is no way I am letting my daughter be on birth control! She is not a slut!”

Her daughter, who turned out to be an excellent actor, told her mother how terrible her periods were and pleaded with her mom to let her do anything to stop the pain she was having.

Me: “This is the standard treatment for the sort of symptoms your daughter has described. Studies show that access to birth control does not increase the odds of premarital sex in teens.”

This is true; I’ve always been shocked at how negligible a factor access to birth control is in a teen’s decision to have sex.

Me: “Your daughter seems like a smart and responsible young lady, and I think you should trust your daughter to make responsible decisions rather than deprive her of medical care she needs.”

This too was true, though I think my and the mother’s definitions of “responsible decisions” when it came to sex may have been different.

I was very careful to make sure everything I told the mother was factually accurate, even if I may have intentionally omitted a few key details. Eventually, the mother relented, but only after telling her daughter:

Mother: “If I ever catch you having sex, I will disown you.”

As the daughter left, she thanked me, and the look in her eyes seemed to stress how sincere her thanks really were.

I’m sure some people would be shocked that I misled the mother like that, even if my lies were only through omission. However, the mother was not my patient; her daughter was. My job was to get the daughter the care she needed, not to worry about her mother’s failure to recognize that vilifying sex did not change the odds of teens being sexually active.

I was very careful to meet all my legal obligations, but more importantly, I believe I met my moral obligations as a doctor by ensuring that my patient would be as safe and protected as I could make her. I would do it all over again without reservations if another teen ever came to me for help.

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I’m waiting in a medical office that does diagnostic testing. It’s a Saturday, so they only have minimal staff (only the people running the tests), and due to the ongoing health situation, only a limited number of people are allowed in the socially distanced waiting room. The way it should work is as one person walks outside, and then another walks in from the line, takes a number, and sits in the now empty chair.

Inevitably, a person walks in and stands at the empty reception desk. They stare at the numbers and then stare at the large white sign with neon orange and green arrows pointing at the numbers, which says, “PLEASE TAKE A NUMBER AND TAKE A SEAT.”

They turn around and stare at the seat. Then they stare back at the numbers. Then they turn to the waiting area and ask:

Patient: “Do I take a number?”

This happens every single time I’m here.