There are many people who do not understand a lot of things to do with medicine and the human body. I get this. That is why a lot of people go to see a doctor. Even though I get this, it still amazes me some of the things that people do or ask me.
Case in point: I saw a young woman who was there with her boyfriend. She was newly pregnant for the first time and started to have a little bit of bleeding. She became concerned and came in to be evaluated. Blood work and an ultrasound were done to evaluate her condition. She was so newly pregnant, that a fetus was not visible on the ultrasound.
I went back in to the room to discuss the results with the hopeful parents. As I told them that everything was very early, she had a positive pregnancy test (although the pregnancy hormone in her blood was still very low) and nothing was seen on ultrasound, they sat there and soaked it all in. At the end I asked them if they had any questions. The boyfriend piped up and asked, "Is it a boy or a girl?" It is times like these that I am glad that all of my thoughts are not broadcast for everyone to hear. Inside my head, all I could hear was, "We just talked about that we can NOT see the baby. How are we supposed to know if it is a boy or a girl if we can't even see it at all!" Instead we had another discussion, although this time it was the condensed Reader's Digest version, about how we can't tell anything since it was still very early and NOTHING could be seen.
It just amazes me the things that they taught me in medical school. There are many things that I think are common sense, but then I start talking with patients and realize that isn't the case and that I must have gained even more knowledge in medical school than I thought.
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