Everybody loves talking about themselves. I’m guilty just as much as any other person. But you’d think parents with a sick kid in the ER would have the presence of mind to realize that their kid is the sick one who should deserve the attention, not them.

I worked in Pediatrics tonight and I swear half the parents tonight wanted to talk about their own medical conditions, or how they were recently sick, or that one time they had pneumonia and half their lungs were filled with “stuff”. I rarely speak in my role, so I’m always a little anxious to say something, but tonight I just wanted to scream, “Shut UP. Why are you so self centered?!”

Well, just needed to rant for a sec. People are weird.

One of my most surreal experiences I’ve had in the ER had little to do with medicine. It’s more about how screwed up our world can be sometimes.

The story doesn’t need much commentary, so I’ll keep it to a minimum.

So, I’m working as an ER Scribe with a great doctor. The shift is fairly slow, so we make our way over to the Pediatric department to see if we can help. We sign up for a 16 yo with cold symptoms.

We walk in the room and see the patient with his father. My doctor introduces himself. The father mumbles something like, “No, this isn’t going to work” and makes like he’s going to leave.

The father turns to me and asks, “Are there any other doctors here?” My doctor says, “I’m going to be your ER doctor today”. I’m feeling a little uncomfortable. Something’s not right.

The man looks at me again. “No. You see, we need to see a white doctor.”

I’m not kidding.

Doctor says, “Alright, you can leave.”

He turns to me again, “There are no other doctors?”

“This is your ER doctor, if you don’t want him to help you, then you can leave,” I say.

“Fine, we’ll be leaving.”

We’re already out the door. The man tries to get my attention again, I ignore him. Security is called as the man starts to make a scene, and they are escorted out.

Holy crap. I haven’t been that angry in a long time. I could tell the doctor was angry, but he didn’t show it much. Later he was joking with the other doctors, saying he should have sent another minority physician in.

I’ve seen some racism in my life, but never has it been that blatant. People are messed up.