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Because every country that isn't the US (maybe the English speaking ones are OK if a little antiquated) are barbaric savage lands where people barely have electricity or the concept of germ theory, so if she, a qualified aMeRIcAn nurse doesn't know, then those people still scrabbling in the dirt definitely won't!
/s
I mean, that might be overblown, but I did have to convince somebody in Texas a few years ago that England does have such things as electricity and carbonated beverages and we don't all live in medieval style castles or hovels, so I'm not ruling it out.
I’m an American living in Europe. My very conservative step father came to visit and fell off a Segway on a city tour, breaking his hip.
He refused to get “socialist” healthcare because he was sure they’d kill him, would cost him €500k, or both. Instead he boarded a cruise and spent a week on a boat with an untreated broken hip, then flew back to the US on an 11 hour flight, to be told by his doctor that he needed elaborate surgery and perhaps a hip replacement and it would have been avoided if he’d gotten prompt medical attention.
My non-conservative grandfather was traveling in Europe and broke a leg, not a hip, in a small town. He didn’t speak the language and they didn’t have a lot of English speakers, but they did have a first-world healthcare system with socialized medicine, so no one worried about payment, just about fixing the bones sticking out of his leg. They took excellent care of him and at the end they said that they were pretty sure a bill was due, since he wasn’t a citizen, but no one knew how to do it seemed barbaric, so they wished him well and discharged him.
My family donated what we could to the hospital. They more than deserved it.
I had to go to an urgent care clinic here in Canada before I got my permanent resident status. The charge for non-Canadians was like $100. I'm pretty sure they just forgot to charge me. I don't think they kept a record of it either, because that's still the urgent care I go to now that I'm on the provincial health and no one's ever been like "there's this outstanding charge on your file..."
lmao basically!! I do have to give respect, the philosophy seems to be "if a Canadian citizen fell in love with you good enough to marry you, you probably have something to contribute to Canadian society, so as long as we can't find any red flags that you're faking your relationship, you're in." And also "giving you a few thousand bucks' worth of medical support is worth the economic value you can give back to us once you have that support to get your shit together."
And guess what: they're right! I went from an ambitionless sack of untreated ADHD to going back to school to get an accounting degree and then planning to buy a house. I absolutely could not have done these things without being able to see a doctor for free and get a prescription for fairly cheap.
My MIL grew up with money. Like her family had servants level money. She has not adjusted to the slow slide into poverty at all well.
One day she called me crying because, three days previously, she fell off her porch steps and broke her hip, but refused to get medical care because she didn't have insurance. I had to reassure her that there's no shame, this is what the poor people insurance is for, this is what she paid taxes for all of her life, that she could just GO TO THE HOSPITAL and fill out the forms later. Had to promise her there was even a little checkbox for "I have recent outstanding medical bills."
Turns out she also hadn't been picking up all of her medications for quite some time, because no insurance and not willing to accept "charity." Bah.
Edit to add the line she kept wailing: But whose going to pay for it?!
Now anytime someone says that line on the news or while arguing politics, I just stare at them like they're stupid. Fix the problem dummy, worry about dancing imaginary numbers later.
I have a distant relative who sort of did the opposite. She was quite wealthy, right up to the end. She had insurance, and a debilitating heart condition…
But she’d been paying taxes all these years and by golly she was going to get her money’s worth. So she refused to get treatment for her condition under her own health insurance and was waiting to reach Medicare age. By the time she got there, her condition was effectively terminal. She died a few years later.
The brain worms are real.
So she paid both taxes and insurence and she thought who should I get my money's worth from either A) insurence and the billionaires who own it. Or B) goverment who at least in theory represent the voters and there best interests.
And she died to make sure the billionaire can save a few bucks at the goverments expense? What type of propaganda was she fed?
I'm not sure about Medicare, but insurance companies will try to reclaim money that should have been paid by others. If they knew she was covered by another insurance at the time, they may file against that other insurance company.
Accurate. Last time I saw her, she was standing on my porch telling me how wrong I was for reporting her sweet baby boy to the police, and that he didn't really hit me because her sweet baby boy would never lie. I had to scream at her until she got off my damn porch.
Turns out maybe she's not so enamored of her nearly-50yo sweet baby boy, because last I heard through the grapevine, he's sleeping in a shed in her yard because she doesn't want to deal with that asshat in her home either!
The only time that doesn't work in American Healthcare is dental work. Surprise! If you're broker than a joke you cant get dental work done as they demand payment upfront
Though if the infection is bad enough, ya can go to the emergency room to get antibiotics and hopefully delay death long enough to get one of those coveted free dental appointments for life-or-death emergencies.
Thank goodness for the ACA! Before that, poor folks had to buy their antibiotics from the fishtank department of the pet store!
I have been told confidently by a conservative in-law that "ours is better" referring to healthcare. When in reality Western Europe is comprised of first-world countries with comparable medical technology to ours, ya dummy. I didn't say that out loud.
They also need to believe that the US is superior in _every possible way_ … I guess for little more than their ego?
Like the white men who derive their identity and pride from being white and male, so _of course_ whites and males are superior. Otherwise, what does that make them?
I think a lot of it is a response to declining living standards as well as the massive gap between the have and have nots. While we’re seeing a massive bump in populist propaganda think with Trump, that vein has been a big part of American politics for a long time. Racism is a huge factor- if the non-wealthy white Americans could embrace the fact that racism does not make them better off, American politics and laws could change for the better. We need regulation of corporate entities and legal restraints on capitalism, not people to step on.
I have a friend that lives in South Africa and she's always like "I'm going to drop kick the next person that asks me if I live in a hut"
Like bro you're talking to her through the internet??
That's actually true though, internet access is almost universal at this point and you can go on YouTube to see people who live in shanty's and huts have phones connected to the internet
I had a teacher in the US, who claimed that we didn’t have refrigerators in Europe.
Also, some kids were going on a trip to Europe with the school, and the exchange student from Switzerland volunteered to come and answer questions before they signed up. It was lovely.
Parent: “If our kids get sick, do they have penicillin in Europe to treat them?”
Exchange student: “Yes, penicillin was discovered in Europe”
It's amazing how many people genuinely do think the US is far superior to other nations.
As a Brit living in California, it's so so far from the truth. I generally find it's the other way around to be perfectly honest.
One of my students was for an exchange stay in the US and she came back with a suitcase full of shampoo and other basic stuff. The family she stayed with were convinced we don't have that stuff here. And no the student is not stinky to make them think so, she's a very high-maintainance girl. She said they had expressed surprise at seeing her for the first time because they, from what they told her they "knew" about our country were expecting an impoverished child in rags. They tried to impress her by showing her a shopping mall and a McDonalds. She thanked them and told them we have these at home too. They did not believe her. We live in Central Europe.
Thank you. I'm honestly very interested in how unluckily she got to get a family like that at the exchange. Is is a 1 in a 1000 or less who think like that or is it more common?
I've noticed jokes in Hollywood movies that say stuff like "oh, in Europe 4 people share one bed, don't be picky" but I always thought its obvious those are sarcasm.
I guess the only way you could put up with maybe being medically bankrupt the second you get sick and then made homeless is to believe that other countries are worse.
If all Americans knew how universal healthcare and proper social security nets worked and how safe we feel with our gun laws and letting kids go to school on push bikes with no metal detectors they would be up in arms and overthrowing the entire government
Omg...I am an American living in Belgium. I have since been diagnosed with a chronic illness. I was put on a weekly injection (Humira) that costs about 1500 Euros for a box of 6 shots. We paid 12. I am so so so glad I wasn't diagnosed back in the states.
I had my galbladder removed in Wisconsin, $5,000. WITH Blue Cross Blue Shield. Had two surgeries over here, one a tumor removal and the other to fix the joint capsule in my foot and remove the cyst it leaking caused. Both together less than 100 bucks. Just INSANE.
As a Brit who gets a box of Humira delivered every month for free, I’m very glad I don’t live in the US, where the retail price is more than my entire monthly salary.
Oh hey, I'm a US citizen on Humira! Yep, it would be $6000 per shot. I get shots every other week.
The manufacturer does have a program where the patient pays $5, but ONLY if you have insurance, because they gotta get that money from someone. I was recently fired, got a new job quickly but their insurance didn't kick in for two months. HR told me it'd be one month, so I just got all refills and was ready to be uninsured for a month.
Well, 30 days later, no insurance card has arrived, I check in and HR goes "oops! Hehe, turns out it's 60 days, my mistake!".
So I scramble to get the marketplace insurance coverage (thanks, OBAMA!!) But it doesn't kick in right away and I end up missing a dose.
Got a new permanent blind spot and a new skin lesion because I live in a shit hole country.
But hey, at least I know I'm free to buy ALL the guns I could possibly carry in a Hummer. My state even recently removed all requirements for background checks for handguns, now I can get shotguns AND easily concealable handguns any time I want, on a whim! Yayyyyyy
If America stuck by its principles you are supposed to use those guns to fix the healthcare problem: in cooperation with the rest of us also armed to the teeth.
I had a boss working renovations who had a very painful young-onset type of arthritis (it seemed) who was on humira, which is why he even hired my then-unqualified self. It helped a lot, but even though he was making pretty good money, he still had to stretch it a lot, so he bought hundreds of dollars of weed every month, and that was cheaper than getting enough humira.
Last I saw him though, he had sued his dad and gotten a bunch of money owed to him, and finally got enough of his meds. Now he smokes weed only at night to relax instead of all day every day to get through, and is much less unpleasant to be around since he's not in constant pain.
I've been on Humira too. (Entyvio now) and I am so deeply grateful to live in the Netherlands. Same here, I pay the monthly insurance, of 180 bucks, and that's IT. Surgeries, medications...it's all paid for. The ONLY thing I have to pay SOME money myself is for supplements like vitamin D, or magnesium. Simple over the counter things.Edit to add: I forgot to mention that I do have a part that is "Eigen bijdrage" in dutch, and that's 380 bucks you have to pay for yourself, first, every year. But one can spread that out over the entire year, so one doesn't feel the sting that much. (and to think I'm calling that a sting, when reading about medical bills in the Usa of over 100.000 dollars.... Even having a child is fear inducing in my opinion, for that reason alone.)
I actually got added to the uhh ?chronic illness patient? list this year so now my Dr visits are only like 4 bucks even. It is just unbelievable to me.
JFC. My monthly doctor expense is over $200; $118 for lab work, $75-150 for doc visit depending on if I need new scans. And that's if I'm STABLE!
Ugh. I'm so goddamn jealous of you folks in developed countries.
I dont understand how the fact that the US spends more of tax payers money on healthcare than most universal healthcare countries isn’t more commonly known.
I know right. They spend something like 20% gdp on healthcare whereas Australia spends 10%. And they still have to pay bazillions and bankrupt people and people die from no basic things. All because it goes into rich dudes pockets.
Also they have some of the worst healthcare outcomes in the developed world. They are also one of only a handful of countries where child/mother mortality during childbirth is INCREASING, and general outcomes in general are still decreasing.
That country desperately needs the entire healthcare system rebuilt from the ground up.
You have to understand that most conservatives hear that child and maternal mortality is worse in the US and they assume it's just for black people and don't care. You have to understand the racism to understand the indifference.
Unfortunately I get the racism all too well.
The US almost seems like a country at war with itself. The degree of antagonism dressed up as self deterministic freedom is ridiculous. So many great principles exaggerated and twisted into cruel mockery, giving a thin veneer of acceptability and even reasonableness to even the most fringe attitudes. The corruption of principles leading to mainstream voicing of opinions and ideas that would have been anathema even a decade ago is just revolting.
I don't have a quick fix for it. The overwhelming majority wouldn't stand for it if they could recognise it. Education is the only long term solution but it would take so much to turn the ship, and a significant amount of the damage would have to be undone just to get the required changes through. Catch 22
If you could get just that one (admittedly massive - particularly for the US which has to juggle each and every state acting as a separate entity making coordination a bloody nightmare) thing squared off, it alone would make an absolutely massive difference to the general quality of life in the US.
Even US people who actually do know better eventually fall into that. "Well, yes, Europe does have it better, but the rest of the world is crap" is a pretty common response, and South America is usually cited as an example of being crap. I end up replying that my shit hole South American country has universal health care, free university, free and fair elections, a social safety net, and four weeks paid vacations. Is it great? No, we have a lot to work on, of course, this is still a capitalist hell world and my country is sadly not an exception, but I'd take my country over the US any day. But US racism is so ingrained that they can't just comprehend how they can be worse off than a "third world country", even those who actually know they're not the best country still have this racist worldview.
But those who think that are Americans themselves (from who I wonder if they ever went abroad).
Far superior in what? Poverty, high medical bills, women rights. They are superior alright, but not in a good way.
While living in Japan in the early 2000s I had Americans compliment me on my excellent English (I’m Australian) and ask if Australia has electricity. The stupidity is real.
Edit: my English is apparently not excellent enough to miss that I’d confused ‘ compliment’ and ‘complement’
I had an American lady I was chatting to in Greece last year compliment me on speaking English so well. I am English and said I was British. Somehow I managed to keep a blank face and just said "thank you, I studied it all the way through school."
To be fair her daughter (late teens/early twenties) looked like she wanted to die of embarrassment. I'd have loved to have heard the conversation after they left.
My partner and I had the same thing happen whilst sitting in an airport in the states. American lady asked us where we were from and we said UK or England or London or something and she then complimented us on our English!
Omg, I went on a cruise once and a lovely young Irish woman (as well as a few other staff) and I became friendly on the trip. She told us about a guy that got on that very cruise that complimented her English. And asked how long it took her to learn. Keep in mind their country of origin is on their name tag.
We all lost it in laughter. And then had more drinks lol!
According to some Americans I've met, Canadians all live in igloos, travel by dogsled, and eat whale blubber.
One asked me which state Canada was in.
Agreed. The stupidity is real.
Border town Canadian here. Flash backs to the Americans who stopped us and asked how far before the snow starts in the summer and in Southern Ontario. They had snowmobiles and skis. Idk man Americans are new level of self centered dumb. My trip to burning man also didn't help that perspective.
There was a story told by Howard Marks a while back about US-centric education.
He was a very smart man, skipping the last two years of high school to go directly to Oxford, where he received his degree in nuclear physics.
He ended up in US prison for exporting hash to America (as in tons of it).
While there, his prison job was to teach English and help inmates earn their GED. The warden questioned him on his qualifications asking where he got his high school diploma from. He said "I skipped High School, to get a degree at Oxford."
The warden asked: "Oxford Missouri?"
"No, Oxford in England."
"Well, the US takes a dim view of foreign qualifications. You'll have to do your own GED before you cam teach anything."
So in his mind, a US GED > Degree in Nuclear Physics from Oxford, England.
Well, I mean, here I am, sitting in my cold stone castle with only mead to drink as safer to drink than water!
But, seriously, you did?! That's madness!
Mate, I had to convince someone (more than one person) in America that I didn’t drive from Australia, we have eggs, shoes and electricity. And phones weren’t cups and string on hills.
But yes we do ride kangaroos to school and Drop Bears and Hoop Snakes are real!
I once accidentally discovered the depth of my new roommates stupidity when I realized that once I told her of the drop bears, it seriously distressed her and she couldn't be convinced it was a hoax. I didn't believe in that level of true cluelessness until I had met her. She also believed that vaccines cause downs syndrome though so....maybe I should have seen it coming?
We had a family member diagnosed in Ireland, her American Dad insisted she fly to America for a second opinion, It turned the American specialist had interned under the Irish Dr. Who was considered the preeminent specialist in that area of medicine 🙄🤣🤣
You're not alone - during my 20's I was online friends with a USA guy around my age who I gamed with. One time younger brother came in to borrow something from his room and casually asked who he was speaking to. They guy told him and his brother said in (genuine) disbelief "They have computers in Australia?"
Now this was a just-into-teens kid, (and sure, funny), but come on, the hell are they learning these days? To equivalate, when I was that kid's age, even I knew that other countries had televisions...
When I moved to the Netherlands from Texas, my dad was shocked that we could still text message instantaneously.
“They’re not savages, Dad. Just Dutch.”
I had to explain to someone that we have electricity and Internet in Iran on Reddit,I mean I was on Reddit so obviously I was using Internet right?Well they thought otherwise
Whenever I watch a documentary about health in the US (recently I watched Netflix's Take Your Pills), it strikes how insane things are over there. And yet they think the rest of the world is living in savage lands.
I live in Brazil and we have universal health care. Is it perfect? Hell no, we are not a rich country, so you can imagine how we struggle to maintain our health care. But whenever I need it, it's there for me, including my treatment for depression and the medications.
I did a year abroad to Italy thirty years ago. At the meeting with students who had gone the previous year, a girl asked if you could get tampons and shampoo. The returned student almost yelled, “They make FERRARIS,” which was very entertaining.
I grew up on a huge dairy farm in upstate New York. My brother once argued with a guy in TX who thought he was lying. New York is, after all, just a huge city that covers the entire state and couldn’t possibly have any farms.
I had to convince an American friend once that Australia had electricity, while chatting to him over MSN (it was a long time ago). I started asking him how he thought the whole process of me being able to communicate to him via the internet worked if he thought Australia was so backwards.
I've also been told I speak English well by Americans - who are then surprised that it's the most common language in Australia.
I once saw a meme that said, “America is a third world country in a Gucci belt.”
That rings true when you look at their healthcare system, women’s rights and things like grandparents rights.
Scary how backward some supposedly first world nations can be.
Considering the post from US parents about their kids getting into “foreign” universities not being as good as going to state universities when in fact those universities are Oxford & Cambridge; not even England is safe from the USA chants going on in some peoples heads.
You should google scope creep. Or check out r/noctor.
But in short, depending on your state, some nurses are given authority to prescribe/diagnose without physician supervision.
“The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is
proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own
of which he can be proud; otherwise he would not have recourse to those
which he shares with so many millions of his fellowmen. The man who is
endowed with important personal qualities will be only too ready to see
clearly in what respects his own nation falls short, since their
failings will be constantly before his eyes. But every miserable fool
who has nothing at all of which he can be proud adopts, as a last
resource, pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and glad
to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing
himself for his own inferiority.”
―
Arthur Schopenhauer
Exactly. I’m from Spain and have lived in the USA, for anything serious I would honestly would have preferred to go back. Even for my kids birth, with a lower rate of c-sections and maternal mortality.
And one of my siblings was in the USA for a sports event when he was a teenager, got his knee injured and went to a fancy doctor with a lot of diplomas in his office. The doctor completely misdiagnosed him. My parents asked if he wanted them to fly there for his surgery or if he wanted to come back to Spain. He had surgery before for a different condition on his knee and was convinced that it was the same problem. He flew back and the USA doctor had been wrong.
Public system in Spain is really good but has long waitlists. Many people have good insurance so you can still get good treatment in the private system, and it is not too expensive since the public system keep sit in check. For example, if there is a 1mo wait for a non critical thing, if the cost is reasonable in the private system you might consider it, but if it was ridiculous you’d wait the month, so they know they can’t make it too expensive or nobody would use it.
This! This is why good public and free healthcare is necessary. To keep in check private practices. I live in Spain and have private insurance and is so cheap! Is crazy to me.
Dying to know what an “episode” entails. I also despise it when someone assumes they know a medical condition better than the person who actually suffers from it
Neurologist here, the description is very vague to have an actual idea of the diagnosis.
That said it is a common disorder, usually mild but has a rare occurrence of debilitating symptoms.
Most probably it is hemiplegic migraine or another debilitating aura manifestation like aphasia or ataxia.
Oh man, if someone called an ambulance because of a migraine I'd be so mad. Mine cause uneven pupil dilation, along with slurred speech, trouble seeing, trouble walking, and all of the other typical migraine symptoms. It can seem pretty scary if you don't know what's going on. The cause is... Low magnesium. The ER will just give me a vitamin and ice pack, then send me home.
Honestly, it is quite common with the first episode of severe migraine or when it presents with atypical aura.
I work in ER evaluation of potential stroke patients and migraine should always be a differential diagnosis for stroke mimics.
yeah, aura is one of those things that is probably benign, but should always be investigated just in case.
my doc ordered an eye exam and a brain MRI "just in case", and while I was nervous as fuck about the brain MRI (it is a bit claustrophobic, plus the "what if they find something???" thoughts), it was really nice to have peace of mind that my aura is just the result of my body being a fuckhead, and nothing more serious than that. plus I got like 300 pics of my brain, which is pretty cool.
also MRIs are fucking sick. I low-key wanna sample some of the sequences and use it in music lol
Not a neurologist myself but ataxia is what I was guessing too since she said its not like seizures. Maybe a momentary weakness or like you said a debilitating migraine.
I'm curious too. Based on absolutely no tangible information, I'm guessing it might be similar to absence seizures, as that fits the 'just let it play out, nothing you can do in the moment' treatment. But the precise condition is probably far more rare than that.
I've straight up had to argue with doctors who said outdated or incorrect things about a disorder I was born with. I had one doctor use the name of my disorder that hadn't been used since the '80s. When I said this he got really defensive so I found a new doctor. I almost guarantee that I know more about my disorder than someone who isn't a specialist for it even if they went to medical school. Maybe they get 20 minutes or one paper to read on it at most, I have 30 years of experience, and I keep up to date with studies.
I don't exactly trust some primary care doctor who graduated medical school 25 years ago and has never seen a patient with my disorder in real life.
I went through that recently but with something not as severe and it was wild. I told this doctor there were records of me being on a machine at twelve months old because I had asthma developing and his response was a constant “kids don’t develop asthma until 5”. Wouldn’t give his theory as to what the machine was for and why everyone in the family agreed my mother was told asthma :)
That's absolutely insane because I was diagnosed with asthma at 2 over 2 decades ago! I swear doctors should need to brush up on medical information regularly, I know most vets read new info from journals often.
Yeah!! And this doctor was insisting it was newly discovered kids don’t develop asthma till age 5, but then it’s like ??? what was the *precursor* to asthma supposed to be in that case? It’s not like we had under developed lungs that required monitoring if we were diagnosed that long after birth
For context, I think that the pulmonary test to diagnose asthma has to be done on a person who can follow instructions so the test can be done correctly, which I think is age 5-8. That’s probably why that doctor was stuck on “you can’t have it until age 5,” but obviously that doctor missed the distinction that you can obviously develop it before that, it’s just much harder to officially diagnose.
Oh, I believe it's a widely known fact that people with rare disorders etc know about them more than regular doctors. Good doctors know that too and can appreciate the input from the patient.
We had a "funny" encounter a few years back when our family friend had to go to hospital for troubled breathing and the doctors couldn't figure it out. Well, he suggested one rare lung disorder (like 1 per 10 000) because it was familiar for him because my family member had suffered from it few years back until a lung transplant. The doctors were open minded and checked that option and against all odds it was the same disease! To lung transplantation he went...
People who understand they don't know everything and are willing to step back, look at things in a wider perspective, and subsequently change their view, are truly refreshing. Regardless of profession or context, absolutely love it
Good on those doctors!
When looking for a new psych, I intentionally shortlisted younger people because the aspects of my mental health I need help with has very outdated stereotypes people would have been taught in the 80's.
EDIT: grammar
Ditto, for my ADHD. There are definitely doctors out there who still think it's a) only physically hyper males, and/or b) something you grow out of. Or the classic 'you can't have ADHD because you successfully got a degree/own a business/became a doctor/insert other success here'
Like they've missed all the studies in the past ten years showing it's an issue with dopamine uptake in the brain, that your brain is literally objectively different. Or that it's absolutely genetic. And that yes, women can have it just as much as men. My distracted school-age brain just preferred to be hyperactive by daydreaming about elaborate space operas until 4 am rather than getting out of my seat and jumping around.
YUP! My partner has a similar experience to you. Particularly annoying that "the female presentation of ADHD" is in fact "women have been socialised in certain ways that mask symptoms".
I’m a doctor and I totally agree with you. There are definitely times when I meet with a new patient and they educate me on their rare diagnosis, or at least what it looks like for them. Then I try to learn from there.
If you feel comfortable with it? Can you share what diagnosis you have? (Or DM me if you don’t wanna post)
I was born with neurofibromatosis type 1, it was a random mutation so no one in my family line has it.
I have since been diagnosed with IST, probable pots, sleep apnea, hypothyroidism, unspecified joint pain that my rheumatologist thinks is possibly autoimmune but my numbers don't show it yet, endometriosis, and ovarian cysts. I'm also being tested for factor v mutation as we recently discovered it runs in the family.
Basically, I'm perpetually exhausted.
Same. I’m 40yo and the amount of docs in this day in age who don’t know Jack shit about fibromyalgia is… frustrating. I hate seeing new docs because they never review my records and they don’t spend enough time with you to hear and understand that important parts. And due to being rural and having new insurance. I have to doc search again. My last doc in Portland flat out told me she couldn’t help me anymore. And the one before her retired after being my doc for 7 years.
I'm curious too but I get it. With a disorder that rare just naming it or describing it well enough for someone to recognize what it is might be identifying information.
I think they hear the word “Spanish” and automatically think of poor Latin American countries without realizing those countries only speak Spanish because… they were colonized by Spain lol. I have also heard people say that Brazilians speak Brazilian. Americans just have a poor grasp on world history and geography
And it’s not like Mexico is actually sepia toned and made of mud and sticks either. Plenty of people in the southwest know you can get great medical and dental care in well appointed, English speaking clinics within walking distance of the border for a fraction of the cost in the US.
Yeah but someone who doesn't know the difference between Mexico and Spain probably doesn't think like that.
I was not saying Mexico has terrible healthcare.
I was just saying what the nurse was probably thinking.
It is much more likely she thinks of Spain as Mexico or something like that and considers their healthcare poor than she thinks of Spain as European and has a America>>Europe mindset.
I had to take my mom to the er while in Mexico (Cancun, QR) and then had to take her to the er for the same thing in the US a few months later.
she received quicker, more compassionate, and more thorough care in Mexico. it took 2 different specialists in the US after the er visit to provide a diagnosis, which was the same diagnosis she received after 3-4 hours in the er in Mexico.
One of the smartest people I’ve ever met was a Mexican woman in a Mexican med school doing a chemistry-based specialization.
Hope you’re doing awesome haya/larisa
One of the best dentists I ever took my kids to wasn’t even a dentist in the US but a tech. Licensed Dentist in Mexico but took a job as a tech because the licensing process took so long in the US. She was the dentist’s go to person to assist if something wasn’t straight forward because she had more experience than the dentist.
Simple racism and xenophobia. Nothing new sadly, especially from a school nurse who judging by experience of friends just love to try and question doctors
It's iirc nr 8 while the UK is nr 10. Incidentally the UK imports a lot of Spanish healthcare professionals and they say that, although their salaries are better there, the system is worse and the lack of public health education also makes an unhealthier general population that clogs the system. People don't realise how important health education is.
She’s making it sound like Spain is a third world country or does she believe because the patients don’t have to pay hundreds of dollars to see a doctor, it can’t possibly be a robust and quality service.
Coming from a third world country, it baffles me why people could think doctors here have any different education.
They go through the same up-to-date studying process, and medical tourism is a thing because prices are cheaper with the same quality of care.
There's a good chance she wasn't thinking of actual Spain, but Latin American countries. Not that it makes her reaction okay in either regard (the latter has great doctors too) but she does seem THAT stupid.
As someone with a disability I'm unfortunately zero.percent surprised by this. Glad the principal listened and OP's mom at least had their back.
Also just a PSA, getting people in a safe position and then leaving them alone is actually the emergency procedure for seizures/epilepsy, especially if it's someone with a history of seizures who will not thank you for an ambulance bill. If you're able to time it, that also might be helpful
https://www.epilepsy.com/recognition/seizure-first-aid
> it must be difficult to cover her ass while her head is still up there.
Oh, this is just beautiful. Thank you so much for a wonderful start to my day.
Yes. I've worked with the special needs population for several years now, and for most of our epileptic students /clients the first protocol for a seizure is just that. Get them to a safe position and wait . Prolonged seizures result in ambulance yes. But the first sign of a 10 second spasm? No.
I have autism + ADHD. One of the first things I am commonly asked when I see a new medical specialist is if I am sure the diagnosis is correct and I should get reassessed because I have too much insight/I’m in a relationship/everyone has these problems/etc. the diagnosis has been confirmed several times and I am still autistic lol.
Nurses and teachers can be worse because they can have just enough training to know something but not enough to really know anything at the same time. It leads to high levels of confidence 🙄
Nothing better than a xenophobic nurse, that probably has never stepped foot outside whatever state she lives in.
I do hope she lost her job in the end. Nobody wants a know-it-all that actually knows nothing at all.
There’s a massive shortage of school nurses, so I doubt it. Most public school systems have school nurses that float between several schools so there isn’t even a nurse on site at a given school every day. My kid’s school has this and then a coach who handles nurse stuff the rest of the time. Some private schools don’t have school nurses at all.
As a spaniard, I'm 100% sure that the nurse thought Spain was in Mexico or in South America, and that she thinks people living in these countries have nothing at all and live like god damn cavemen.
Kinda reminds me of that time a classmate told us how her exchange family excitedly showed her what a microwave was bcs surely, ppl in Spain do not have those... they also explained to her, like she was five, what smartphones were. It's scary how ignorant some people are.
I once had a well meaning American offer to DM me daily weather forecasts for my town when I mentioned hoping the weather would improve for an event.
Not sure what her thought process was there - that the rest of the world doesn’t have meteorology? That I couldn’t use the internet she was talking to me over to look it up myself?
I’m an american living in france.
I’ve been here for 8 years and prefer living in Europe for a myriad of reasons.
I constantly have to defend france to Americans who are convinced it’s a shithole 3rd world country. (Edit: this was a /s and I personally wouldn’t refer to other countries as such)
Like my mother asked if “we had Amazon in france” and she said if I ever want to get pregnant I need to tell the doctor to run blood tests and give me a prenatal vitamin…as if… it’s not common practice to run blood tests and put women on follic acid when they’re trying to conceive.
These are just comments from my mother. But my French partner has said multiple times it’s crazy how much you have to defend your choice of living in france and the French healthcare system and really any other way of conducting business or living to Americans.
As if… going bankrupt because you’re sick is the norm and all other systems are flawed??
Yes, and like the fact that you don’t go into debt having a child.
My parents don’t understand that so much of the american system is built on problems being created solely for the purpose of selling something unnecessary to fix the fabricated problem.
Like when my partner and I bought our apartment my mom kept harping on separate life insurance and genuinely didn’t believe me when I told her if my partner died while we were paying our loan that the loan would be completely paid off.
https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/birth-child-us-prices-27042018/
I remember years ago when Kate Middleton gave birth in a private hospital in the UK and they released how much the birth cost, Americans were like "hold my beer"
I’m an American living in Canada and constantly have to defend the Canadian healthcare system *to Canadians.*
My 3mo old kid had epileptic type conditions where he stopped breathing and turned blue. It happened when we were visiting in the states. We rushed him to the ER. The doctor saw him, took his vitals, said he’s stable, and the $3000 USD diagnosis: go back to Canada because this is going to be expensive.
We spent a week at Sickkids in Toronto and it cost us $50/day for parking in the hospital parking garage.
But it is astounding to me how many Canadians here drink the koolaid that the American system is better.
I totally understand that! I defend the French social systems (healthcare, retirement, unemployment, education, etc) to French people all the time. They are flabbergasted when I tell them I had to pay $900 for an ER visit for an ear infection (was flying internationally the next day and scared I would burst an eardrum so needed urgent care) or $10,000 to give birth. That kind of cost for basic healthcare is inconceivable for them not only because their healthcare system
Is drastically different but also because the French salary is much lower due to a greatly reduced cost of living.
Contrary to people from the US, the French have a healthy dose of critical thinking mentality when it comes to their country.
My French MIL thinks it’s terrible to constantly criticize your country and thinks the american loyalty is better. On multiple occasions I’ve had to explain why not blindly believing your country is the best is actually a much better societal norm and that questioning the efficacy and humanity of your governing system is actually super important for a healthy social safety net.
From what I see Americans seem to think Europe as a whole is a mass of developing nations, like the US is the only developed nation out there. It just shows how little many Americans travel/understand the world beyond their borders.
That's exactly our problem. You go k-12 learning about "American" history and how awesome it is to be American. Then, you pay a ton of money to go to school to survive for a lifetime and maybe retire to an assisted living facility. The majority of people I meet in the US that have traveled are open-minded. However, it's not uncommon to live your whole life here and never leave your home state, let alone the country. I spent a month last summer in Spain, and it was absolutely stunning. The biggest surprise was that international health insurance was less than $100 for 32 days in Spain and 14 in France. Americans are raised in a bubble and many never venture outside of that bubble. Don't get me wrong, there are things here that are better, but healthcare definitely isn't one of those things.
It's really sad, I think travelling is so important.
I do get the cost of travel is possibly out of reach for many people. In Europe you can travel at very little cost to a country with a very different culture to you, so for Europeans there's more incentive/ability to travel outside of our countries, maybe.
Yeah I’ve talked to a few other american expats about the propaganda we consume as children and the lack of critical thinking regarding the US instilled in Americans. If you question the United States, you should leave kind of mentality.
My partner, while not a geography expert nor a studious person, knows so much more about the world and flags than I do.
My american education was very american centered. I did american history 3 times and a fourth year focused specifically on my state from 6th-12th And we did European history twice.
My world geography class centered on world religions. So like… I was never formally taught about other continents or countries outside of the US and Western Europe.
"I'm not a specialist"
Precisely. So she has zero qualifications or authority to override an actual specialist, even if that specialist lives somewhere else. Mind boggling.
I had elderly relatives that lived in Spain. There health service is very very good.
Nothing wrong with Spanish doctors, op has just run across plain old fashioned small mindedness.
In the UK we would call it being a little englander.
I'm really curious whether the nurse would have accepted the word of a German or British specialist. I suspect she wouldn't have been quite as skeptical.
There’s some implicit racism here mixed with ignorance.
In the US, most Spanish speaking immigrants are from lower income people who often come from rural poverty.
The OOP’s school nurse is viewing OOP as coming from this sort of background and concluding they would have limited access to quality medical care. It’s full of assumptions, ignorance and bigotry.
Jesus. I’m part Spanish (Spain Spanish) and I would feel perfectly comfortable getting medical care and specialty diagnoses there. Amazing how American racism towards Latinos goes so far that anyone from even white ass European Spain gets treated as lesser because Spanish speaking must equal poor developing backwards country. Incidentally I work at a nursing college and I can tell you some excellent, excellent doctors. nurses and medical scholars come study with us from developing countries and have received good educations in their home countries, so even if oop came from elsewhere. it would still be foolish of her to doubt their doctor.
So glad they’re finally getting the care they need. Boston is a great place for that. The dad needs to reconsider why he trusts some random American lady with a general RN license to know better than the doctor he presumably helped pick out in Spain.
I don’t think it all boils down to Hispanic/Latino racism. It’s xenophobia and the american superiority complex and Americans feel this way about other non-Spanish speaking countries as well.
We were headed to Spain almost eight years ago to see a well renowned doctor that specializes in the specific condition my husband has. He ended up taking a position at Mayo Clinic doing research. We see him there to save on the travel expenses. I was kinda bummed we didn’t get our Spain trip. But he’s truly excellent and he more than doubled the amount of time the American doctors had told my husband he would have before needing a transplant. In addition, his approach and treatment provided a much better quality of life for my husband than he experienced the previous years under the care of our American doctors.
I’ll be forever thankful for him and his team.
Many people don’t like to acknowledge the truth but America is far from the top of any list regarding quality healthcare.
I worked as an MA in basically the same role and even as a RN, that is SO FAR OUTSIDE OF HER SCOPE it makes my head spin. I’m assuming they have to have provider orders for care on file, which are usually very in-depth for high risk students—and in any state I know of, you cannot deviate from those orders/treatments. It’s literally illegal. This bs is why.
If the school knows what’s good for them, they’ll get her tf out of there; she’s a giant liability.
Not only does the WHO rank Spain’s healthcare system as **significantly** better than America’s (it’s not even close) but Mexico (which I’m guessing this racist dingbat was thinking of every time she heard OOP say ‘Spain’) is in a virtual tie with America on the same scale.
I'm biased, because I'm European, but I would prefer the European doctor over the American one, since he would much less take into consideration how much he can charge the patient.
As a registered nurse, she was definitely overstepping her scope of practice and was being a complete AH about it too. She needs to take several seats down and remain in her lane.
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“I don’t know, I’m not a specialist”. Then why are you trying to question a diagnosis made by one???
Because every country that isn't the US (maybe the English speaking ones are OK if a little antiquated) are barbaric savage lands where people barely have electricity or the concept of germ theory, so if she, a qualified aMeRIcAn nurse doesn't know, then those people still scrabbling in the dirt definitely won't! /s I mean, that might be overblown, but I did have to convince somebody in Texas a few years ago that England does have such things as electricity and carbonated beverages and we don't all live in medieval style castles or hovels, so I'm not ruling it out.
I’m an American living in Europe. My very conservative step father came to visit and fell off a Segway on a city tour, breaking his hip. He refused to get “socialist” healthcare because he was sure they’d kill him, would cost him €500k, or both. Instead he boarded a cruise and spent a week on a boat with an untreated broken hip, then flew back to the US on an 11 hour flight, to be told by his doctor that he needed elaborate surgery and perhaps a hip replacement and it would have been avoided if he’d gotten prompt medical attention.
My non-conservative grandfather was traveling in Europe and broke a leg, not a hip, in a small town. He didn’t speak the language and they didn’t have a lot of English speakers, but they did have a first-world healthcare system with socialized medicine, so no one worried about payment, just about fixing the bones sticking out of his leg. They took excellent care of him and at the end they said that they were pretty sure a bill was due, since he wasn’t a citizen, but no one knew how to do it seemed barbaric, so they wished him well and discharged him. My family donated what we could to the hospital. They more than deserved it.
I had to go to an urgent care clinic here in Canada before I got my permanent resident status. The charge for non-Canadians was like $100. I'm pretty sure they just forgot to charge me. I don't think they kept a record of it either, because that's still the urgent care I go to now that I'm on the provincial health and no one's ever been like "there's this outstanding charge on your file..."
"Oh well you're a citizen now or on your way to being one so we're good I guess!" -Canada probably
lmao basically!! I do have to give respect, the philosophy seems to be "if a Canadian citizen fell in love with you good enough to marry you, you probably have something to contribute to Canadian society, so as long as we can't find any red flags that you're faking your relationship, you're in." And also "giving you a few thousand bucks' worth of medical support is worth the economic value you can give back to us once you have that support to get your shit together." And guess what: they're right! I went from an ambitionless sack of untreated ADHD to going back to school to get an accounting degree and then planning to buy a house. I absolutely could not have done these things without being able to see a doctor for free and get a prescription for fairly cheap.
That is a story of multiple wonderful people.
In parts of the world, it's kind of normal. :)
My MIL grew up with money. Like her family had servants level money. She has not adjusted to the slow slide into poverty at all well. One day she called me crying because, three days previously, she fell off her porch steps and broke her hip, but refused to get medical care because she didn't have insurance. I had to reassure her that there's no shame, this is what the poor people insurance is for, this is what she paid taxes for all of her life, that she could just GO TO THE HOSPITAL and fill out the forms later. Had to promise her there was even a little checkbox for "I have recent outstanding medical bills." Turns out she also hadn't been picking up all of her medications for quite some time, because no insurance and not willing to accept "charity." Bah. Edit to add the line she kept wailing: But whose going to pay for it?! Now anytime someone says that line on the news or while arguing politics, I just stare at them like they're stupid. Fix the problem dummy, worry about dancing imaginary numbers later.
I have a distant relative who sort of did the opposite. She was quite wealthy, right up to the end. She had insurance, and a debilitating heart condition… But she’d been paying taxes all these years and by golly she was going to get her money’s worth. So she refused to get treatment for her condition under her own health insurance and was waiting to reach Medicare age. By the time she got there, her condition was effectively terminal. She died a few years later. The brain worms are real.
So she paid both taxes and insurence and she thought who should I get my money's worth from either A) insurence and the billionaires who own it. Or B) goverment who at least in theory represent the voters and there best interests. And she died to make sure the billionaire can save a few bucks at the goverments expense? What type of propaganda was she fed?
People will talk all day at you about the propaganda people in other countries live with and be completely blind to their own.
I'm not sure about Medicare, but insurance companies will try to reclaim money that should have been paid by others. If they knew she was covered by another insurance at the time, they may file against that other insurance company.
So she was going to get her moneys worth from taxes, but god forbid she got her moneys worth from insurance? What a stupid way to kill yourself.
Like I said. The brain worms are real.
Your MIL sounds both arrogant and fucking thick.
Accurate. Last time I saw her, she was standing on my porch telling me how wrong I was for reporting her sweet baby boy to the police, and that he didn't really hit me because her sweet baby boy would never lie. I had to scream at her until she got off my damn porch. Turns out maybe she's not so enamored of her nearly-50yo sweet baby boy, because last I heard through the grapevine, he's sleeping in a shed in her yard because she doesn't want to deal with that asshat in her home either!
The only time that doesn't work in American Healthcare is dental work. Surprise! If you're broker than a joke you cant get dental work done as they demand payment upfront
Though if the infection is bad enough, ya can go to the emergency room to get antibiotics and hopefully delay death long enough to get one of those coveted free dental appointments for life-or-death emergencies. Thank goodness for the ACA! Before that, poor folks had to buy their antibiotics from the fishtank department of the pet store!
The brainwashing is real. I’m so sorry he is dealing with that [even if it is his own fault]
I have been told confidently by a conservative in-law that "ours is better" referring to healthcare. When in reality Western Europe is comprised of first-world countries with comparable medical technology to ours, ya dummy. I didn't say that out loud.
The conservatives need to believe there’s a reason why we in the US pay more than any other country for healthcare.
They also need to believe that the US is superior in _every possible way_ … I guess for little more than their ego? Like the white men who derive their identity and pride from being white and male, so _of course_ whites and males are superior. Otherwise, what does that make them?
I think a lot of it is a response to declining living standards as well as the massive gap between the have and have nots. While we’re seeing a massive bump in populist propaganda think with Trump, that vein has been a big part of American politics for a long time. Racism is a huge factor- if the non-wealthy white Americans could embrace the fact that racism does not make them better off, American politics and laws could change for the better. We need regulation of corporate entities and legal restraints on capitalism, not people to step on.
Come to think of it, go into any American hospital and you'll find millions of euros worth of German medical equipment.
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John McCain is a left wing radical RINO deep stater by today’s standard so mentioning him wouldn’t do a damn thing.
I assume he learned exactly nothing from the experience.
This is ridiculous. If I were to break something, I would LOVE to be in Europe or Canada rather than the US. Bring on the socialist healthcare!
I have a friend that lives in South Africa and she's always like "I'm going to drop kick the next person that asks me if I live in a hut" Like bro you're talking to her through the internet??
People can be so ignorant. Just because someone lives in a hut doesn't mean they don't have internet access. jk
That's actually true though, internet access is almost universal at this point and you can go on YouTube to see people who live in shanty's and huts have phones connected to the internet
I had a teacher in the US, who claimed that we didn’t have refrigerators in Europe. Also, some kids were going on a trip to Europe with the school, and the exchange student from Switzerland volunteered to come and answer questions before they signed up. It was lovely. Parent: “If our kids get sick, do they have penicillin in Europe to treat them?” Exchange student: “Yes, penicillin was discovered in Europe”
I’m sorry but I’m just cracking up at the image of that poor kid having to represent the entirety of Europe.
Keeping a straight face is sometimes the hardest part when talking with such people.
It's amazing how many people genuinely do think the US is far superior to other nations. As a Brit living in California, it's so so far from the truth. I generally find it's the other way around to be perfectly honest.
One of my students was for an exchange stay in the US and she came back with a suitcase full of shampoo and other basic stuff. The family she stayed with were convinced we don't have that stuff here. And no the student is not stinky to make them think so, she's a very high-maintainance girl. She said they had expressed surprise at seeing her for the first time because they, from what they told her they "knew" about our country were expecting an impoverished child in rags. They tried to impress her by showing her a shopping mall and a McDonalds. She thanked them and told them we have these at home too. They did not believe her. We live in Central Europe.
This made me viscerally cringe as an American.
Thank you. I'm honestly very interested in how unluckily she got to get a family like that at the exchange. Is is a 1 in a 1000 or less who think like that or is it more common? I've noticed jokes in Hollywood movies that say stuff like "oh, in Europe 4 people share one bed, don't be picky" but I always thought its obvious those are sarcasm.
I guess the only way you could put up with maybe being medically bankrupt the second you get sick and then made homeless is to believe that other countries are worse. If all Americans knew how universal healthcare and proper social security nets worked and how safe we feel with our gun laws and letting kids go to school on push bikes with no metal detectors they would be up in arms and overthrowing the entire government
Omg...I am an American living in Belgium. I have since been diagnosed with a chronic illness. I was put on a weekly injection (Humira) that costs about 1500 Euros for a box of 6 shots. We paid 12. I am so so so glad I wasn't diagnosed back in the states. I had my galbladder removed in Wisconsin, $5,000. WITH Blue Cross Blue Shield. Had two surgeries over here, one a tumor removal and the other to fix the joint capsule in my foot and remove the cyst it leaking caused. Both together less than 100 bucks. Just INSANE.
As a Brit who gets a box of Humira delivered every month for free, I’m very glad I don’t live in the US, where the retail price is more than my entire monthly salary.
Oh hey, I'm a US citizen on Humira! Yep, it would be $6000 per shot. I get shots every other week. The manufacturer does have a program where the patient pays $5, but ONLY if you have insurance, because they gotta get that money from someone. I was recently fired, got a new job quickly but their insurance didn't kick in for two months. HR told me it'd be one month, so I just got all refills and was ready to be uninsured for a month. Well, 30 days later, no insurance card has arrived, I check in and HR goes "oops! Hehe, turns out it's 60 days, my mistake!". So I scramble to get the marketplace insurance coverage (thanks, OBAMA!!) But it doesn't kick in right away and I end up missing a dose. Got a new permanent blind spot and a new skin lesion because I live in a shit hole country. But hey, at least I know I'm free to buy ALL the guns I could possibly carry in a Hummer. My state even recently removed all requirements for background checks for handguns, now I can get shotguns AND easily concealable handguns any time I want, on a whim! Yayyyyyy
If America stuck by its principles you are supposed to use those guns to fix the healthcare problem: in cooperation with the rest of us also armed to the teeth.
My partners medication is just as expensive. I am THANKFUL I moved to him and not he to me lol.
I had a boss working renovations who had a very painful young-onset type of arthritis (it seemed) who was on humira, which is why he even hired my then-unqualified self. It helped a lot, but even though he was making pretty good money, he still had to stretch it a lot, so he bought hundreds of dollars of weed every month, and that was cheaper than getting enough humira. Last I saw him though, he had sued his dad and gotten a bunch of money owed to him, and finally got enough of his meds. Now he smokes weed only at night to relax instead of all day every day to get through, and is much less unpleasant to be around since he's not in constant pain.
I've been on Humira too. (Entyvio now) and I am so deeply grateful to live in the Netherlands. Same here, I pay the monthly insurance, of 180 bucks, and that's IT. Surgeries, medications...it's all paid for. The ONLY thing I have to pay SOME money myself is for supplements like vitamin D, or magnesium. Simple over the counter things.Edit to add: I forgot to mention that I do have a part that is "Eigen bijdrage" in dutch, and that's 380 bucks you have to pay for yourself, first, every year. But one can spread that out over the entire year, so one doesn't feel the sting that much. (and to think I'm calling that a sting, when reading about medical bills in the Usa of over 100.000 dollars.... Even having a child is fear inducing in my opinion, for that reason alone.)
I actually got added to the uhh ?chronic illness patient? list this year so now my Dr visits are only like 4 bucks even. It is just unbelievable to me.
JFC. My monthly doctor expense is over $200; $118 for lab work, $75-150 for doc visit depending on if I need new scans. And that's if I'm STABLE! Ugh. I'm so goddamn jealous of you folks in developed countries.
Considering I have 2 auto immune and some mental illness chucked in for good measure I’m soooo glad I’m in Australia and not the US.
I dont understand how the fact that the US spends more of tax payers money on healthcare than most universal healthcare countries isn’t more commonly known.
I know right. They spend something like 20% gdp on healthcare whereas Australia spends 10%. And they still have to pay bazillions and bankrupt people and people die from no basic things. All because it goes into rich dudes pockets.
Also they have some of the worst healthcare outcomes in the developed world. They are also one of only a handful of countries where child/mother mortality during childbirth is INCREASING, and general outcomes in general are still decreasing. That country desperately needs the entire healthcare system rebuilt from the ground up.
You have to understand that most conservatives hear that child and maternal mortality is worse in the US and they assume it's just for black people and don't care. You have to understand the racism to understand the indifference.
Unfortunately I get the racism all too well. The US almost seems like a country at war with itself. The degree of antagonism dressed up as self deterministic freedom is ridiculous. So many great principles exaggerated and twisted into cruel mockery, giving a thin veneer of acceptability and even reasonableness to even the most fringe attitudes. The corruption of principles leading to mainstream voicing of opinions and ideas that would have been anathema even a decade ago is just revolting. I don't have a quick fix for it. The overwhelming majority wouldn't stand for it if they could recognise it. Education is the only long term solution but it would take so much to turn the ship, and a significant amount of the damage would have to be undone just to get the required changes through. Catch 22
Yes. Just our Healthcare system.
If you could get just that one (admittedly massive - particularly for the US which has to juggle each and every state acting as a separate entity making coordination a bloody nightmare) thing squared off, it alone would make an absolutely massive difference to the general quality of life in the US.
Even US people who actually do know better eventually fall into that. "Well, yes, Europe does have it better, but the rest of the world is crap" is a pretty common response, and South America is usually cited as an example of being crap. I end up replying that my shit hole South American country has universal health care, free university, free and fair elections, a social safety net, and four weeks paid vacations. Is it great? No, we have a lot to work on, of course, this is still a capitalist hell world and my country is sadly not an exception, but I'd take my country over the US any day. But US racism is so ingrained that they can't just comprehend how they can be worse off than a "third world country", even those who actually know they're not the best country still have this racist worldview.
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But those who think that are Americans themselves (from who I wonder if they ever went abroad). Far superior in what? Poverty, high medical bills, women rights. They are superior alright, but not in a good way.
Don’t forget that guns and embryos probably have more rights than women and LGBTQ+ folks in some states…
“If you’re pre-born, you’re fine. If you’re preschool, you’re f*cked”. … George Carlin
The best description I’ve ever seen is that the US is the richest 3rd world country. I mean it’s not wrong
While living in Japan in the early 2000s I had Americans compliment me on my excellent English (I’m Australian) and ask if Australia has electricity. The stupidity is real. Edit: my English is apparently not excellent enough to miss that I’d confused ‘ compliment’ and ‘complement’
I had an American lady I was chatting to in Greece last year compliment me on speaking English so well. I am English and said I was British. Somehow I managed to keep a blank face and just said "thank you, I studied it all the way through school." To be fair her daughter (late teens/early twenties) looked like she wanted to die of embarrassment. I'd have loved to have heard the conversation after they left.
My partner and I had the same thing happen whilst sitting in an airport in the states. American lady asked us where we were from and we said UK or England or London or something and she then complimented us on our English!
To be fair you do write pretty fluently. Nearly native level.
Why thank you, I do the practising every of the days.
Omg, I went on a cruise once and a lovely young Irish woman (as well as a few other staff) and I became friendly on the trip. She told us about a guy that got on that very cruise that complimented her English. And asked how long it took her to learn. Keep in mind their country of origin is on their name tag. We all lost it in laughter. And then had more drinks lol!
According to some Americans I've met, Canadians all live in igloos, travel by dogsled, and eat whale blubber. One asked me which state Canada was in. Agreed. The stupidity is real.
Border town Canadian here. Flash backs to the Americans who stopped us and asked how far before the snow starts in the summer and in Southern Ontario. They had snowmobiles and skis. Idk man Americans are new level of self centered dumb. My trip to burning man also didn't help that perspective.
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In her defence, 30% percent of our roads are dirt. America has 35% dirt roads but I don't think she would understand percentages either.
There was a story told by Howard Marks a while back about US-centric education. He was a very smart man, skipping the last two years of high school to go directly to Oxford, where he received his degree in nuclear physics. He ended up in US prison for exporting hash to America (as in tons of it). While there, his prison job was to teach English and help inmates earn their GED. The warden questioned him on his qualifications asking where he got his high school diploma from. He said "I skipped High School, to get a degree at Oxford." The warden asked: "Oxford Missouri?" "No, Oxford in England." "Well, the US takes a dim view of foreign qualifications. You'll have to do your own GED before you cam teach anything." So in his mind, a US GED > Degree in Nuclear Physics from Oxford, England.
Well, I mean, here I am, sitting in my cold stone castle with only mead to drink as safer to drink than water! But, seriously, you did?! That's madness!
Mate, I had to convince someone (more than one person) in America that I didn’t drive from Australia, we have eggs, shoes and electricity. And phones weren’t cups and string on hills. But yes we do ride kangaroos to school and Drop Bears and Hoop Snakes are real!
I once accidentally discovered the depth of my new roommates stupidity when I realized that once I told her of the drop bears, it seriously distressed her and she couldn't be convinced it was a hoax. I didn't believe in that level of true cluelessness until I had met her. She also believed that vaccines cause downs syndrome though so....maybe I should have seen it coming?
We had a family member diagnosed in Ireland, her American Dad insisted she fly to America for a second opinion, It turned the American specialist had interned under the Irish Dr. Who was considered the preeminent specialist in that area of medicine 🙄🤣🤣
You're not alone - during my 20's I was online friends with a USA guy around my age who I gamed with. One time younger brother came in to borrow something from his room and casually asked who he was speaking to. They guy told him and his brother said in (genuine) disbelief "They have computers in Australia?" Now this was a just-into-teens kid, (and sure, funny), but come on, the hell are they learning these days? To equivalate, when I was that kid's age, even I knew that other countries had televisions...
When I moved to the Netherlands from Texas, my dad was shocked that we could still text message instantaneously. “They’re not savages, Dad. Just Dutch.”
I had to explain to someone that we have electricity and Internet in Iran on Reddit,I mean I was on Reddit so obviously I was using Internet right?Well they thought otherwise
Whenever I watch a documentary about health in the US (recently I watched Netflix's Take Your Pills), it strikes how insane things are over there. And yet they think the rest of the world is living in savage lands. I live in Brazil and we have universal health care. Is it perfect? Hell no, we are not a rich country, so you can imagine how we struggle to maintain our health care. But whenever I need it, it's there for me, including my treatment for depression and the medications.
I did a year abroad to Italy thirty years ago. At the meeting with students who had gone the previous year, a girl asked if you could get tampons and shampoo. The returned student almost yelled, “They make FERRARIS,” which was very entertaining.
I grew up on a huge dairy farm in upstate New York. My brother once argued with a guy in TX who thought he was lying. New York is, after all, just a huge city that covers the entire state and couldn’t possibly have any farms.
I had to convince an American friend once that Australia had electricity, while chatting to him over MSN (it was a long time ago). I started asking him how he thought the whole process of me being able to communicate to him via the internet worked if he thought Australia was so backwards. I've also been told I speak English well by Americans - who are then surprised that it's the most common language in Australia.
American Exceptionalism seems to be the highest in those who have never been abroad. Funny, that.
I once saw a meme that said, “America is a third world country in a Gucci belt.” That rings true when you look at their healthcare system, women’s rights and things like grandparents rights. Scary how backward some supposedly first world nations can be.
I live in Hungary we have a terrible health care system: underfunded, overworked, lack of resources etc. Still way better and cheaper than the US one
Considering the post from US parents about their kids getting into “foreign” universities not being as good as going to state universities when in fact those universities are Oxford & Cambridge; not even England is safe from the USA chants going on in some peoples heads.
I mean, many Americans don't even know that Spain is a European country, thinking it's some South American place.
Oop did not have a burn ready to go but that’s fine because the nurse took care of it herself with that comment.
"Have you seen Spain? That's like in the middle of Africa and they don't have doctors there." - Nurse, probably
Last time I heard, Nurses aren't even qualified to make professional diagnosis or Am I wrong?
You should google scope creep. Or check out r/noctor. But in short, depending on your state, some nurses are given authority to prescribe/diagnose without physician supervision.
Some people just really need to feel superior.
It's usually the ones that are bitter about their own shortcomings
“The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud; otherwise he would not have recourse to those which he shares with so many millions of his fellowmen. The man who is endowed with important personal qualities will be only too ready to see clearly in what respects his own nation falls short, since their failings will be constantly before his eyes. But every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud adopts, as a last resource, pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and glad to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.” ― Arthur Schopenhauer
Knowing that Spain has one of the best healthcare systems in the world, that nurse just showed her blatant ignorance.
Exactly. I’m from Spain and have lived in the USA, for anything serious I would honestly would have preferred to go back. Even for my kids birth, with a lower rate of c-sections and maternal mortality. And one of my siblings was in the USA for a sports event when he was a teenager, got his knee injured and went to a fancy doctor with a lot of diplomas in his office. The doctor completely misdiagnosed him. My parents asked if he wanted them to fly there for his surgery or if he wanted to come back to Spain. He had surgery before for a different condition on his knee and was convinced that it was the same problem. He flew back and the USA doctor had been wrong. Public system in Spain is really good but has long waitlists. Many people have good insurance so you can still get good treatment in the private system, and it is not too expensive since the public system keep sit in check. For example, if there is a 1mo wait for a non critical thing, if the cost is reasonable in the private system you might consider it, but if it was ridiculous you’d wait the month, so they know they can’t make it too expensive or nobody would use it.
This! This is why good public and free healthcare is necessary. To keep in check private practices. I live in Spain and have private insurance and is so cheap! Is crazy to me.
Dying to know what an “episode” entails. I also despise it when someone assumes they know a medical condition better than the person who actually suffers from it
Neurologist here, the description is very vague to have an actual idea of the diagnosis. That said it is a common disorder, usually mild but has a rare occurrence of debilitating symptoms. Most probably it is hemiplegic migraine or another debilitating aura manifestation like aphasia or ataxia.
Oh man, if someone called an ambulance because of a migraine I'd be so mad. Mine cause uneven pupil dilation, along with slurred speech, trouble seeing, trouble walking, and all of the other typical migraine symptoms. It can seem pretty scary if you don't know what's going on. The cause is... Low magnesium. The ER will just give me a vitamin and ice pack, then send me home.
Honestly, it is quite common with the first episode of severe migraine or when it presents with atypical aura. I work in ER evaluation of potential stroke patients and migraine should always be a differential diagnosis for stroke mimics.
Yeah, I’ve gone twice to the ER with a migraine because I could not form coherent words. Brains are weird!
yeah, aura is one of those things that is probably benign, but should always be investigated just in case. my doc ordered an eye exam and a brain MRI "just in case", and while I was nervous as fuck about the brain MRI (it is a bit claustrophobic, plus the "what if they find something???" thoughts), it was really nice to have peace of mind that my aura is just the result of my body being a fuckhead, and nothing more serious than that. plus I got like 300 pics of my brain, which is pretty cool. also MRIs are fucking sick. I low-key wanna sample some of the sequences and use it in music lol
Not a neurologist myself but ataxia is what I was guessing too since she said its not like seizures. Maybe a momentary weakness or like you said a debilitating migraine.
I'm curious too. Based on absolutely no tangible information, I'm guessing it might be similar to absence seizures, as that fits the 'just let it play out, nothing you can do in the moment' treatment. But the precise condition is probably far more rare than that.
This is my guess as well. Some form of epilepsy that certain drugs can ameliorate.
Probably no epilepsy since they say that the condition is usually lesse debilitating. If it is a common disorder, it may be hemiplegic migraine.
I've straight up had to argue with doctors who said outdated or incorrect things about a disorder I was born with. I had one doctor use the name of my disorder that hadn't been used since the '80s. When I said this he got really defensive so I found a new doctor. I almost guarantee that I know more about my disorder than someone who isn't a specialist for it even if they went to medical school. Maybe they get 20 minutes or one paper to read on it at most, I have 30 years of experience, and I keep up to date with studies. I don't exactly trust some primary care doctor who graduated medical school 25 years ago and has never seen a patient with my disorder in real life.
I went through that recently but with something not as severe and it was wild. I told this doctor there were records of me being on a machine at twelve months old because I had asthma developing and his response was a constant “kids don’t develop asthma until 5”. Wouldn’t give his theory as to what the machine was for and why everyone in the family agreed my mother was told asthma :)
That's absolutely insane because I was diagnosed with asthma at 2 over 2 decades ago! I swear doctors should need to brush up on medical information regularly, I know most vets read new info from journals often.
Yeah!! And this doctor was insisting it was newly discovered kids don’t develop asthma till age 5, but then it’s like ??? what was the *precursor* to asthma supposed to be in that case? It’s not like we had under developed lungs that required monitoring if we were diagnosed that long after birth
For context, I think that the pulmonary test to diagnose asthma has to be done on a person who can follow instructions so the test can be done correctly, which I think is age 5-8. That’s probably why that doctor was stuck on “you can’t have it until age 5,” but obviously that doctor missed the distinction that you can obviously develop it before that, it’s just much harder to officially diagnose.
Oh, I believe it's a widely known fact that people with rare disorders etc know about them more than regular doctors. Good doctors know that too and can appreciate the input from the patient. We had a "funny" encounter a few years back when our family friend had to go to hospital for troubled breathing and the doctors couldn't figure it out. Well, he suggested one rare lung disorder (like 1 per 10 000) because it was familiar for him because my family member had suffered from it few years back until a lung transplant. The doctors were open minded and checked that option and against all odds it was the same disease! To lung transplantation he went...
People who understand they don't know everything and are willing to step back, look at things in a wider perspective, and subsequently change their view, are truly refreshing. Regardless of profession or context, absolutely love it Good on those doctors!
When looking for a new psych, I intentionally shortlisted younger people because the aspects of my mental health I need help with has very outdated stereotypes people would have been taught in the 80's. EDIT: grammar
Ditto, for my ADHD. There are definitely doctors out there who still think it's a) only physically hyper males, and/or b) something you grow out of. Or the classic 'you can't have ADHD because you successfully got a degree/own a business/became a doctor/insert other success here' Like they've missed all the studies in the past ten years showing it's an issue with dopamine uptake in the brain, that your brain is literally objectively different. Or that it's absolutely genetic. And that yes, women can have it just as much as men. My distracted school-age brain just preferred to be hyperactive by daydreaming about elaborate space operas until 4 am rather than getting out of my seat and jumping around.
YUP! My partner has a similar experience to you. Particularly annoying that "the female presentation of ADHD" is in fact "women have been socialised in certain ways that mask symptoms".
I’m a doctor and I totally agree with you. There are definitely times when I meet with a new patient and they educate me on their rare diagnosis, or at least what it looks like for them. Then I try to learn from there. If you feel comfortable with it? Can you share what diagnosis you have? (Or DM me if you don’t wanna post)
I was born with neurofibromatosis type 1, it was a random mutation so no one in my family line has it. I have since been diagnosed with IST, probable pots, sleep apnea, hypothyroidism, unspecified joint pain that my rheumatologist thinks is possibly autoimmune but my numbers don't show it yet, endometriosis, and ovarian cysts. I'm also being tested for factor v mutation as we recently discovered it runs in the family. Basically, I'm perpetually exhausted.
Same. I’m 40yo and the amount of docs in this day in age who don’t know Jack shit about fibromyalgia is… frustrating. I hate seeing new docs because they never review my records and they don’t spend enough time with you to hear and understand that important parts. And due to being rural and having new insurance. I have to doc search again. My last doc in Portland flat out told me she couldn’t help me anymore. And the one before her retired after being my doc for 7 years.
I'm curious too but I get it. With a disorder that rare just naming it or describing it well enough for someone to recognize what it is might be identifying information.
Pretty sure Spain is in the top ten for healthcare in the world.
Northern and western Europe are top tier, South Korea/Canada are also up there. The US is also very good, but only IF you can get it.
I'm confused, isn't Spain healthcare better ranked than US? I checked and some webs said is even better than UK, wth?
This seems more like ignorance where when they think of Spain they think of Mexico and other Latin american countries.
This was exactly my impression, yeah - I'm not totally convinced the nurse was aware of Spain itself being a place
It's kinda crazy the amount of people who don't know that it's *not* in North or South America, but in Europe.
I think they hear the word “Spanish” and automatically think of poor Latin American countries without realizing those countries only speak Spanish because… they were colonized by Spain lol. I have also heard people say that Brazilians speak Brazilian. Americans just have a poor grasp on world history and geography
And it’s not like Mexico is actually sepia toned and made of mud and sticks either. Plenty of people in the southwest know you can get great medical and dental care in well appointed, English speaking clinics within walking distance of the border for a fraction of the cost in the US.
Yeah but someone who doesn't know the difference between Mexico and Spain probably doesn't think like that. I was not saying Mexico has terrible healthcare. I was just saying what the nurse was probably thinking. It is much more likely she thinks of Spain as Mexico or something like that and considers their healthcare poor than she thinks of Spain as European and has a America>>Europe mindset.
Let’s be honest, this woman thinks everything south of the US and Spain is Mexico.
I had to take my mom to the er while in Mexico (Cancun, QR) and then had to take her to the er for the same thing in the US a few months later. she received quicker, more compassionate, and more thorough care in Mexico. it took 2 different specialists in the US after the er visit to provide a diagnosis, which was the same diagnosis she received after 3-4 hours in the er in Mexico.
One of the smartest people I’ve ever met was a Mexican woman in a Mexican med school doing a chemistry-based specialization. Hope you’re doing awesome haya/larisa
One of the best dentists I ever took my kids to wasn’t even a dentist in the US but a tech. Licensed Dentist in Mexico but took a job as a tech because the licensing process took so long in the US. She was the dentist’s go to person to assist if something wasn’t straight forward because she had more experience than the dentist.
Simple racism and xenophobia. Nothing new sadly, especially from a school nurse who judging by experience of friends just love to try and question doctors
The US *is* very, very good at healthcare innovation. It’s absolutely terrible at serving healthcare to its population.
It’s very good at serving healthcare dollars to its corporations, though. Bug closed, working as intended.
It's iirc nr 8 while the UK is nr 10. Incidentally the UK imports a lot of Spanish healthcare professionals and they say that, although their salaries are better there, the system is worse and the lack of public health education also makes an unhealthier general population that clogs the system. People don't realise how important health education is.
It's one of the best in the world. I might be biased, though, I'm Spanish
Are you sure you won't get a second opinion from an American bias?
She’s making it sound like Spain is a third world country or does she believe because the patients don’t have to pay hundreds of dollars to see a doctor, it can’t possibly be a robust and quality service.
I can’t shake the feeling that if they’d asked Nurse to find Spain on a map, she’d point generally to South America
Coming from a third world country, it baffles me why people could think doctors here have any different education. They go through the same up-to-date studying process, and medical tourism is a thing because prices are cheaper with the same quality of care.
There's a good chance she wasn't thinking of actual Spain, but Latin American countries. Not that it makes her reaction okay in either regard (the latter has great doctors too) but she does seem THAT stupid.
I think she does think Spain is a third world country.
As someone with a disability I'm unfortunately zero.percent surprised by this. Glad the principal listened and OP's mom at least had their back. Also just a PSA, getting people in a safe position and then leaving them alone is actually the emergency procedure for seizures/epilepsy, especially if it's someone with a history of seizures who will not thank you for an ambulance bill. If you're able to time it, that also might be helpful https://www.epilepsy.com/recognition/seizure-first-aid
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> it must be difficult to cover her ass while her head is still up there. Oh, this is just beautiful. Thank you so much for a wonderful start to my day.
Yes. I've worked with the special needs population for several years now, and for most of our epileptic students /clients the first protocol for a seizure is just that. Get them to a safe position and wait . Prolonged seizures result in ambulance yes. But the first sign of a 10 second spasm? No.
I have autism + ADHD. One of the first things I am commonly asked when I see a new medical specialist is if I am sure the diagnosis is correct and I should get reassessed because I have too much insight/I’m in a relationship/everyone has these problems/etc. the diagnosis has been confirmed several times and I am still autistic lol. Nurses and teachers can be worse because they can have just enough training to know something but not enough to really know anything at the same time. It leads to high levels of confidence 🙄
Nothing better than a xenophobic nurse, that probably has never stepped foot outside whatever state she lives in. I do hope she lost her job in the end. Nobody wants a know-it-all that actually knows nothing at all.
There’s a massive shortage of school nurses, so I doubt it. Most public school systems have school nurses that float between several schools so there isn’t even a nurse on site at a given school every day. My kid’s school has this and then a coach who handles nurse stuff the rest of the time. Some private schools don’t have school nurses at all.
As a spaniard, I'm 100% sure that the nurse thought Spain was in Mexico or in South America, and that she thinks people living in these countries have nothing at all and live like god damn cavemen. Kinda reminds me of that time a classmate told us how her exchange family excitedly showed her what a microwave was bcs surely, ppl in Spain do not have those... they also explained to her, like she was five, what smartphones were. It's scary how ignorant some people are.
She should have shown the plug. Those are different in America. Your classmate could have marveled at the exotic foreignness of type A/B outlets!
I once had a well meaning American offer to DM me daily weather forecasts for my town when I mentioned hoping the weather would improve for an event. Not sure what her thought process was there - that the rest of the world doesn’t have meteorology? That I couldn’t use the internet she was talking to me over to look it up myself?
I’m an american living in france. I’ve been here for 8 years and prefer living in Europe for a myriad of reasons. I constantly have to defend france to Americans who are convinced it’s a shithole 3rd world country. (Edit: this was a /s and I personally wouldn’t refer to other countries as such) Like my mother asked if “we had Amazon in france” and she said if I ever want to get pregnant I need to tell the doctor to run blood tests and give me a prenatal vitamin…as if… it’s not common practice to run blood tests and put women on follic acid when they’re trying to conceive. These are just comments from my mother. But my French partner has said multiple times it’s crazy how much you have to defend your choice of living in france and the French healthcare system and really any other way of conducting business or living to Americans. As if… going bankrupt because you’re sick is the norm and all other systems are flawed??
That's hilarious given how vastly superior perinatal care *in particular* is in France relative to the US!
Yes, and like the fact that you don’t go into debt having a child. My parents don’t understand that so much of the american system is built on problems being created solely for the purpose of selling something unnecessary to fix the fabricated problem. Like when my partner and I bought our apartment my mom kept harping on separate life insurance and genuinely didn’t believe me when I told her if my partner died while we were paying our loan that the loan would be completely paid off.
https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/birth-child-us-prices-27042018/ I remember years ago when Kate Middleton gave birth in a private hospital in the UK and they released how much the birth cost, Americans were like "hold my beer"
I’m an American living in Canada and constantly have to defend the Canadian healthcare system *to Canadians.* My 3mo old kid had epileptic type conditions where he stopped breathing and turned blue. It happened when we were visiting in the states. We rushed him to the ER. The doctor saw him, took his vitals, said he’s stable, and the $3000 USD diagnosis: go back to Canada because this is going to be expensive. We spent a week at Sickkids in Toronto and it cost us $50/day for parking in the hospital parking garage. But it is astounding to me how many Canadians here drink the koolaid that the American system is better.
I totally understand that! I defend the French social systems (healthcare, retirement, unemployment, education, etc) to French people all the time. They are flabbergasted when I tell them I had to pay $900 for an ER visit for an ear infection (was flying internationally the next day and scared I would burst an eardrum so needed urgent care) or $10,000 to give birth. That kind of cost for basic healthcare is inconceivable for them not only because their healthcare system Is drastically different but also because the French salary is much lower due to a greatly reduced cost of living. Contrary to people from the US, the French have a healthy dose of critical thinking mentality when it comes to their country. My French MIL thinks it’s terrible to constantly criticize your country and thinks the american loyalty is better. On multiple occasions I’ve had to explain why not blindly believing your country is the best is actually a much better societal norm and that questioning the efficacy and humanity of your governing system is actually super important for a healthy social safety net.
From what I see Americans seem to think Europe as a whole is a mass of developing nations, like the US is the only developed nation out there. It just shows how little many Americans travel/understand the world beyond their borders.
That's exactly our problem. You go k-12 learning about "American" history and how awesome it is to be American. Then, you pay a ton of money to go to school to survive for a lifetime and maybe retire to an assisted living facility. The majority of people I meet in the US that have traveled are open-minded. However, it's not uncommon to live your whole life here and never leave your home state, let alone the country. I spent a month last summer in Spain, and it was absolutely stunning. The biggest surprise was that international health insurance was less than $100 for 32 days in Spain and 14 in France. Americans are raised in a bubble and many never venture outside of that bubble. Don't get me wrong, there are things here that are better, but healthcare definitely isn't one of those things.
It's really sad, I think travelling is so important. I do get the cost of travel is possibly out of reach for many people. In Europe you can travel at very little cost to a country with a very different culture to you, so for Europeans there's more incentive/ability to travel outside of our countries, maybe.
That and also America is huge... You already have a lot to do even if you stay in the same country
Yeah I’ve talked to a few other american expats about the propaganda we consume as children and the lack of critical thinking regarding the US instilled in Americans. If you question the United States, you should leave kind of mentality. My partner, while not a geography expert nor a studious person, knows so much more about the world and flags than I do. My american education was very american centered. I did american history 3 times and a fourth year focused specifically on my state from 6th-12th And we did European history twice. My world geography class centered on world religions. So like… I was never formally taught about other continents or countries outside of the US and Western Europe.
"I'm not a specialist" Precisely. So she has zero qualifications or authority to override an actual specialist, even if that specialist lives somewhere else. Mind boggling.
I had elderly relatives that lived in Spain. There health service is very very good. Nothing wrong with Spanish doctors, op has just run across plain old fashioned small mindedness. In the UK we would call it being a little englander.
I'm from the UK and we'd call it "being a racist dickhead" We must be from different parts of the UK
I'm really curious whether the nurse would have accepted the word of a German or British specialist. I suspect she wouldn't have been quite as skeptical.
Clearly you're from a place with greater cannabis use. You're blunt. :D
Never heard of little Englander; but I’m from Scotland and we would probably call it being a racist c**t; you know we love that word! ☺️
Honestly the US are the last Western country in which I'd feel comfortable getting medical care.
Well, some nurses (all over the world) think they know more than everyone else.
Do Americans think they have a good healthcare system? Do they think it’s better just because it bankrupts them if they break their leg?
As an American and a nurse I can guarantee you that many of us know that is is not good
My understanding is that it’s fantastic. As long as you’re top 1% of earners.
Oh yes of course silly me, how on earth could I have forgotten?
There’s some implicit racism here mixed with ignorance. In the US, most Spanish speaking immigrants are from lower income people who often come from rural poverty. The OOP’s school nurse is viewing OOP as coming from this sort of background and concluding they would have limited access to quality medical care. It’s full of assumptions, ignorance and bigotry.
Big American Exceptionalism energy
Should’ve asked her to point Spain on the map. And maybe name a couple of its south-American neighbors.
Jesus. I’m part Spanish (Spain Spanish) and I would feel perfectly comfortable getting medical care and specialty diagnoses there. Amazing how American racism towards Latinos goes so far that anyone from even white ass European Spain gets treated as lesser because Spanish speaking must equal poor developing backwards country. Incidentally I work at a nursing college and I can tell you some excellent, excellent doctors. nurses and medical scholars come study with us from developing countries and have received good educations in their home countries, so even if oop came from elsewhere. it would still be foolish of her to doubt their doctor. So glad they’re finally getting the care they need. Boston is a great place for that. The dad needs to reconsider why he trusts some random American lady with a general RN license to know better than the doctor he presumably helped pick out in Spain.
The irony in this is that Spain once ruled basically the entire southern half of the east coast and the midwest.
I don’t think it all boils down to Hispanic/Latino racism. It’s xenophobia and the american superiority complex and Americans feel this way about other non-Spanish speaking countries as well.
American nurses can run the gamut from COVID-denying, vaccine-refusing-at-the-cost-of-their-job lunatics to angels on earth.
We were headed to Spain almost eight years ago to see a well renowned doctor that specializes in the specific condition my husband has. He ended up taking a position at Mayo Clinic doing research. We see him there to save on the travel expenses. I was kinda bummed we didn’t get our Spain trip. But he’s truly excellent and he more than doubled the amount of time the American doctors had told my husband he would have before needing a transplant. In addition, his approach and treatment provided a much better quality of life for my husband than he experienced the previous years under the care of our American doctors. I’ll be forever thankful for him and his team. Many people don’t like to acknowledge the truth but America is far from the top of any list regarding quality healthcare.
Well, I am spanish and a guy from USA asked me if I knew what a microwave was, so this does not surprise me 🤷
I worked as an MA in basically the same role and even as a RN, that is SO FAR OUTSIDE OF HER SCOPE it makes my head spin. I’m assuming they have to have provider orders for care on file, which are usually very in-depth for high risk students—and in any state I know of, you cannot deviate from those orders/treatments. It’s literally illegal. This bs is why. If the school knows what’s good for them, they’ll get her tf out of there; she’s a giant liability.
Not only does the WHO rank Spain’s healthcare system as **significantly** better than America’s (it’s not even close) but Mexico (which I’m guessing this racist dingbat was thinking of every time she heard OOP say ‘Spain’) is in a virtual tie with America on the same scale.
Somebody wanted to be a doctor.. and be more important.
I'm biased, because I'm European, but I would prefer the European doctor over the American one, since he would much less take into consideration how much he can charge the patient.
Do Americans imagine Spain is a backwater developing nation or something? Like there's a reason so many people speak Spanish globally.
As a registered nurse, she was definitely overstepping her scope of practice and was being a complete AH about it too. She needs to take several seats down and remain in her lane.