Covering Shawn's Patients

This week Shawn (the other doctor in the office) is out of town at a seminar. I am covering some of his patients for the week. Today is the reason why I have this blog in the first place ... you could only have experiences like today if you were a female.

It started out with a Personal Injury case coming in and telling me what areas HE FELT were out ... like I can't figure it out on my own. As I'm working on him he proceeds to tell me his C1 is out at well on the right. My reply was, "Actually it's your occiput, but thank you so much for your help, " obviously with much sarcasm. After his adjustments he was getting up telling me that the adjustments seemed easy and was I sure I didn't need to go harder. I replied with yes I'm sure, I made sure I was specific, how do you feel? He said he felt great (and I had a little ah ha in my head). He then asked, "How old are you now?" UHHHHH are you serious! Come on, have some class guy! "How old am I?" I asked, "28." He then muttered under his breath, "you look 12." Normally this would have been a compliment to me, except the way he said it didn't sound that way. As he walked out of his office he said in a loud voice "enjoy 28!" I said back, "Oh I will!"

You would think it would end there, however there was another guy later on. This one gave me a "wow I was surprised you got that" after I adjusted his hips. "It's all about timing not force" was my reply. He then apologized because he realized he offended me. I laughed and said it was ok and I get comments like that all the time. I told him a couple of offensive stories and he laughed. He apparently took this as a license to make fun of me and for the rest of the visit he made one sexist comment after another.

The difference between the two men was the tone in their voice. Even though there was more comments by the second guy, you could tell he was joking and he gave me much credit for everything I was doing. Where the first guy was almost disgusted by me trying to be a female in a males profession. I have some news for you guys ... I enjoy this and I am not going anywhere! You do not have to be a male to be a talented chiropractor.