This morning in the call room, I was chatting away with the housekeeping lady in Spanish. There were a lot of babies born last night, and she wanted to know how many were girls and were boys. We were talking like old friends, when she stopped. After thinking carefully, she asked me in a whisper, 'Are you a NURSE or something?"
I smiled. Here she was changing the 'Doctor's Sleep Room' sheets and she had no clue about me! No...I am a doctor.... and I looked her in the eye and kept smiling.
"Wow! All that work, and everything!" she exclaimed.
I laughed inwardly. Many female physicians are mistaken for nurses. I have experienced this all the way through my career. I used to call my mother and complain about it to her. Want to know what she said? She said, 'People think that nurses are pretty and kind. Think of it as a complement!"
I haven't had a problem with it since.
Today, I was watching 'cooking class' at my kid's school. I was in scrubs, because I had been up all night doing epidurals and anesthesia for cesarean sections. Sasha came up to me and asked, 'Are you a hospital lady?'
I said, yes, indeed, I was.
Another girl asked, 'Are you a veterinarian? I thought you worked at my vet's office? (pointing to the scrubs)'
I laughed, and shared that I had wanted to be a veterinarian, but I am terribly allergic to cats, so I take care of people instead.
"Do you help people?"
Then my son piped up, "Help people? She takes care of people who are so sick they are half dead! And last night? She took care of somebody who was having a baby who was not much older than us! Can you imagine that?"
