Psycho Bitches That Go Into YOUR Work

I'm sure many of you here work/have worked in retail. I have read many of your stories. This will probably rank among up there.

This morning, this 25 year old Asian chick walks in. She is TINY. I look at her arms. I swear to god this bitch is anorexic.

Anyways, I drag her to an exam room, and I ask her why she has visited our out-patient department today.

The next three minutes of my life I may never get back, but I will also never forget.

"I want to know what the hell went wrong with my laser procedure for my skin... The other Doctor from the place I got the laser thing from that did it was like 'oh, there will be no redness after the laser takes away all my spots from my cheeks, but it's been a month, and it's still red! He gave me this cream for it, I used it for 3 days, but it didn't go away, so I went to see this other Doctor, and he gave this other this other cream, I've been using it ever since, and it still doesn't work. I want to know what the hell went wrong with my laser procedure!"

(Don't worry if you didn't understand that last paragraph, I had no idea what the fuck she was talking about either)

*All this while, I'm staring at her face, and I couldn't figure out WHAT THE FUCK she was talking about. The only thing wrong I could figure out was that she was ugly*

Me: "Um... so what area of the face was the procedure done?"

UPB (For Ugly Psycho Bitch): "I got the dye laser over the left cheek. They didn't do it my right cheek. See the spots on my right cheek? They used the laser to get rid of them on the left. And now my left is all red!"

*Knowing this is not going to turn out good, I'm FURIOUSLY comparing the left and right. They both look the same to me. Quite frankly, this nutjob has better skin than I do*

While I'm struggling for words, this is the kicker quote of the day:

UPB: "CAN YOU SEE [the changes] OR NOT?"

In a very un-me fashion, I replied with the following:
"Miss (can't remember what the woman's last name was), I'm sorry, I really can't tell the difference, I'm a student, I just got here, and my knowledge of cosmetic dermatology procedures is not very extensive. If you please wait outside for a moment, I will organize your history and physical findings, and then my supervising Doctor will see you."

And then I did my paperwork thing, all the while rolling my eyes.

When my supervisor finally saw her:
Supervisor: "Your face looks fine."
UPB: "Can I laser it again to fix the redness?"
Supervisor: "Sometimes cosmetic medicine can only do so much. ONce you hit a certain point, the positive effects are no longer visible, only side effects become visible."

Translation: You're too ugly to fix, and I'm too lazy to get you a psych referral.

I take solace in the fact that some other less-ethical Doctor will lie to her and get her to hand a shitload of money to get some other invisible laser surgery.

Did I mention she was unemployed?

Meh.

There was a bit of fun today though:

18 year old comes in with HAIR-LOSS:

Me: Any family history of hair loss or skin diseases?
The kid's dad: *points at own head*
*I nod in silence*

I May Hate Children, But Sometimes It's Really Not Their Fault

On Friday Morning, I had the wonderful experience of seeing Audrey, a two year-old-girl with intermittent left eye deviation to the temporal side. There were a bunch of patients we could choose from, but I got her because everybody went "Hey Tony, the name on the patient chart is English instead of Chinese, she must be Foreign, you take this one!"

Anyhoo, the kid wasn't actually White, but was American. Dad was Taiwanese, Mom was a Honger. So I spoke Mandarin to the dad while I spoke English to the mom.

I won't bore you with medical details, because they were really really boring. Opthalmology just generally blows.

Our department head's instructions that morning were to "take a detailed history, leave the physical and local findings to me". So I did that.

Of course, when the Department Head (he's this old balding fat guy) tried to examine the eye, the little girl started crying like there was no tomorrow. He tried to sweet-talk the little girl, tried to have her grab the examination scope to prove it's harmlessness, nothing. Then they tried getting her to take pupil-dilation drops for a fundus examination, she started crying even louder.

The problem in the end wasn't that serious, our department head told them to come back for a follow up session. (they SAY they're coming back next year when they come back to Taiwan from the USA, but everybody lies.)

Maybe I should have said something... but seeing how I'm in Asia, it was a good idea that I didn't. It's HIS fault that he couldn't figure out that the kid DOESN'T SPEAK MANDARIN. The kid's parents speak English to her, while the grandmother (mom's side) speak Cantonese to her.

If I were a 2 year-old-girl with some fat old strange Asian guy speaking some weird gibberish at me while flashing a bright light in my eye, I'd fucking cry too.

I did say something to the mom as they left:
"Don't blame Audrey, I have the same reaction whenever I see our department head too."