“Usually, twenty-five-year-olds don’t need help going number two,” my attending said to me.
I wish you could hear the passive aggressiveness dripping from his voice. He was referring to the Miralax I had prescribed for my twenty-five-year-old patient. It is a relatively harmless, over-the-counter medicine that helps with constipation. This was passive-aggressive remark number forty-nine of the week. This was the last day I was on service with this attending.
“Okay,” I said and removed the medicine from the patient’s medication list without blinking.
Looking back, it is absolutely astounding how much sass and pompousness this attending had. Literally, just one year into his attending career and he was already acting like this. Sir, you are a god-damn super-duper uber-specialized doctor. Why the fuck do you care about my bowel regimen. I guarantee you this ‘healthy’ twenty-five-year-old, with a BMI of thirty-two does not have regular bowel movements. Do you think he gets enough fiber to go on the regular? Do you think he is suddenly going to make responsible, healthy eating choices now that he gets to eat wonderful, tasty hospital food? No. The fuck planet are you on? Please just let me and the other resident peasants use our goddamn medical degrees to let our patients have amazing bowel movements. Jesus. Good day.