Medical Mondays: Things Doctors Do Differently

 **Hi friends! Today I'm participating in the Medical Mondays blog hop, hosted by Emma at Your Doctor's Wife, Jane at From a Doctor's Wife, Erin at Home With the Boys, and Heather at The Life Unexpected. If you're now around here, welcome! Regular readers, please take the opportunity of checking out some other interesting blogs.**

Last time I joined in for Medical Monday, I was feeling a bit down and posted some really honest musings. This time I'm lightening things up a bit. These are a few things I've noticed that doctors experience differently than “regular folks”.

Watching TV:  Television seems to bring out the “doctor” in my doctor husband. Medical shows are the worst of this, of course. It's a good thing I've never been a Grey's Anatomy fan, because Gil can't watch two minutes of it without lecturing the TV. We watched a couple of episodes of The Mob Doctor, with the same result. (Actually, I was also yelling at the TV for that one. How can she just leave the hospital and drive to the middle of nowhere all the time without anyone noticing? ...but I digress.) Medical Drama Syndrome, however, is not limited to hospital-set shows. I've seen it occur during crime fighting programs (usually brought on by autopsies), and even food programs. The other day we watched an episode of Bizarre Foods in which the host visited a Singapore restaurant specializing in using food to restore customers' “yin” and “yang” balance. I think my husband's head nearly exploded. :-)

Making plans:  Since I'm the “secretary” of our relationship, I generally liaise with others trying to get together with us. Any accepted invitation usually follows several back-and-forth negotiations (“He's on call that weekend... and that one too... and he's post-call on that day, so that's a no...”), and is annotated with, “But of course, he may be called in and not be able to come.” A few weeks ago, we had friends over for dinner and a hockey game, and Gil did not arrive home until they'd gone home. Ah, the medical life!

Attending family gatherings:  Most people's family Christmas party include discussion of Auntie Gertrude's recent trip to Ireland (accompanied by 2 full photo albums), the weather, politics, and polite chatter. When doctors attend family gatherings, they are immediately pounced upon by Uncle Philbert who wants to discuss his recent colonoscopy results, and Cousin Euphemia who has a strange rash. Then there is the random relative who just can't wait to corner any medical person with the latest theories on how cancer is a government plot, and the entire medical profession is a money-grabbing scam. And of course all of that information must be true because he found it on the Internet...

Attending conferences: In my previous life, I attended a grand total of one conference.  I flew overseas, had an extra day to get over jet lag and sightsee, then attended two days of meetings, complete with catered lunches, breaks, and a very fancy dinner (the kind with separate wines for each course).  Due to the cross-Atlantic travel, I missed a full week of work even though it was only a two-day conference.  Since this was such a cool experience, I couldn't wait to attend conferences with my husband, but it turns out that they aren't much fun, and usually involve me barely seeing him at all because of breakfast meetings and evening sessions.  This winter we attended a conference at Mont Tremblant and he literally did not leave the hotel for two days.  (I, on the other hand, went snowshoeing and had a grand old time.)  Gil insists that this is the norm because he needs to rack up his training hours.  I'm guessing he'll need to retire to finally get some real R&R.
 

Medical friends, can you think of anything to add?