What Docs Hate: Every Specialty Has Its Thing

Laurie Scudder, DNP, NP

Disclosures

July 24, 2020

An emergency medicine physician at Johns Hopkins, Andrew Stolbach, MD, MPH, recently threw out a question to his followers on Twitter: What things do different specialists hate?

He began his own list.

  • Dermatologists hate the sun.

  • Pediatricians hate trampolines.

  • ENTs hate Q-tips.

Ruth Mitchell, an Australian neurosurgeon, hates quad bikes and guns.

Gastroenterologists hate food allergy tests — at least in the opinion of Irish gastroenterologist Anthony O'Connor.

Vapes, said Robyn Cohen, a pediatric pulmonologist at Boston University School of Medicine.

Any and all holidays that involve drinking got the vote of emergency physician Edwin Leap.

Bilal Asif is a gastroenterology and hepatology fellow. He nominated NSAIDs.

Child psychiatrist Nora McNamara had a list: homework before high school, 7:30 AM school start times, standardized testing in school, and the loss of recess.

Connie Liu offered that she and her fellow ob/gyns hate douche products.

Urologists hate beet juice, according to Ashley Winter.

Many nominations crossed specialties. Pretty much everyone hated smoking and 5 PM consults. And COVID-19. Well-meaning friends and family sharing horror stories — of childbirth, medication reactions, hospitalizations — with frightened patients led to near-universal sighs. Several medications were nominated, including docusate, buprenorphine, and prednisone, as well as polypharmacy. Research via Google and patient queries that began with "I read on the internet..." generated a number of votes.

The question eventually garnered over 5000 retweets and comments, ranging from the obscure to the obvious, the hilarious to the serious.

What gets your vote, and why? Join the discussion in the comments section.

Laurie Scudder, DNP, NP, is a nurse practitioner and an editorial director at Medscape. Follow her on Twitter

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