‘Poked my muffin top and laughed’: 25 medical horror stories that prove some doctors shouldn’t be doctors

X users rushed to share their medical stories after one individual asked for "worst doctor" tales, courting claims of neglect and bigotry. On March 24, 2025, user @DiaryofaSickGrl, launched a post that would gain 18.3 million views and thousands of comments and quote tweets. Some of the top responses gained almost as much attention as the original.

"Tell me about the worst doctor you’ve ever seen (if you’re comfortable)," requested Candace D., a "chronic illness advocate."

Chronic illness leads to chronic doctor problems

Doctors are people, and that means some of them are lousy. Especially in a for-profit healthcare system like the one in the U.S., it's hard to find someone without a bad doctor story. When it comes to people who are chronically ill, the problems multiply.

A qualitative analysis from 2019 looking into negative healthcare experiences among these patients found a long list of complaints. Many were accused of lying or exaggerating symptoms (or just being lazy), with some doctors refusing to believe they were sick at all or dismissing any problems as psychological.

An alarming portion were sent away without treatment or testing and felt the medical professionals were rude, with "trivializing and contemptuous demeanors."

Homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia, and creeps

Aside from alleged medical neglect, X users responded with numerous stories about problems and even assaults blamed on one's gender identity, sexuality, or weight, with multiple patients dismissed because they weren't thin enough or praised for alarming weight loss.

However, the most common responses dealt with doctors being massive creeps to women and underage girls. When they weren't being creeps, they were dismissing women's pain and engaging in other forms of medical misogyny. It's enough to make you wonder why men are allowed to be doctors.

25 gut-wrenching doctor horror stories

1.

"I was 13 years old at a doctors appointment by myself and the doctor put the tongue depressor too far down my throat and when I didn't gag he chuckled and said 'I wish I had a girlfriend like you,'" said @DissentFu/X. "I didn't even understand what he meant until years later."

2.

@ianaarez/X wrote, "when i was pregnant and had to have antibiotics i had an allergic reaction that sent me to the ER but my OB who prescribed the medicine told the ER doctor that being allergic to antibiotics is like a fish being allergic to water that i was lying LOL"

3.

"GP said to me 'I’m sorry Mrs X but as your some is gaining weight the fact that he is screaming when feeding and awake every half hour is just a minor inconvenience, I’ve tried everything I can think of. It couldn’t possibly be a milk allergy as you suggest as it can’t pass through breast milk,'" says @Naeluckmate/X. "Guess what it was."

4.

"Left hundreds of pregnant women scrambling to find a new OB care provider with only 1 month’s notice," recalls @kristenanne27/X. "He had been planning retirement from OB for a while but continued to accept new pregnant patients with due dates well past his planned retirement date so he could continue to make $$ off them until his last day."

5.

"My surgeon didn’t believe I was in pain when I had stage 5 AVN, limping around on a collapsed femoral head," writes @catziepurrell/X. "Same guy didn’t believe me when my hip replacement partially dislocated, blamed my pain on 'mental health issues.'"

"yeah it fully dislocated days later & I had to have a 5th surgery."

6.

"Had a partial hysterectomy in November and had to keep going back to the OzB/GYN for severe pain and bleeding we are now in April they had cauterized what they’d called granulated tissue 3 or 4 times and I would scream like a Banshee," says @teixido_heather/X. "They would sigh, roll their eyes tell me it wasn’t that painful."

"I said ok fine but before I go could you answer me one question, if nothing is wrong with me and it’s all in my head or just me looking for pain meds why am I still bleeding 4 months after surgery? She ... had accidentally sewn my fallopian tube into my vaginal cuff and it was hanging out of me which was pulling my ovary I had to go have emergency surgery."

7.

@postoctobrist/X writes, "oooooh I think it’s the one who physically laughed in my face when I asked for a bridging prescription for HRT"

8.

"In late 2014, I got really sick. So, in 2015, my PCP sent to Cleveland Clinic to see a few specialists—a cardiologist, a rheumatologist and a neurologist. After several tests, the cardiologist had diagnosed me with POTS," @nc_2300/X recounts.

"I go to [the rheumatologist] and he outright told me to my face 'There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. The cardiologist only diagnosed you with POTS so you’d leave. You’ve seen one too many doctors and you need to stop. You are a hypochondriac and you’re wasting our time.'"

9.

"Went with a wrist injury and told him that I work at the PC, bro told me to change hands when I work," claims @hadesCS2/X.

10.

"Probably the doctor who had to redo my stitches after I got stabbed, he said 'maybe stop pretending to be a woman,'" said @miss_fjord/X.

11.

@plushoid/X says her "gynecologist tried to coax me into saying i was lying about being a virgin because he found me attractive at 19."

12.

"When I was a teenager I went for a checkup and when getting dressed, I pulled out my last pair of underwear, they were neon hot pink AA briefs," wrote @CallHerPerla/X. "(This is important) I thought nothing of it and went to the appointment."

"I panic and strip down, and sat back on the table/bed thing. The light from outside is perfectly hitting my underwear and making this bone white/ beige room glow neon hot pink. When the doctor opens the door he literally gasped and went 'oh my' as I’m sitting in my neon pink glow. And then during the routine questions so he knows what to check over, he goes 'are you sexually active?'”

13.

"I was taken to a psychiatrist(?) when I was nine or ten and he made my dad leave the room and brought a nurse in instead and gave me an unnecessarily thorough physical exam," @selentelechia/X recalled.

"I have never seen my mom as close to murdering someone on my behalf as when I told her about it."

14.

"My pediatrician told me I had a muffin top, poked at it, and laughed," said @thecindynoir/X. "I had to be 8/9. He was a man and that was my last time with him as my pediatrician."

15.

@plume__/X writes, "tough call but probably the one doing a biopsy on my kidney transplant who said, annoyed, “you don’t have to make that face you know” (face of discomfort; i was not sedated). i basically lost my mind on him. many psychos in healthcare who are repulsed by any display of suffering."

16.

"I had my appendix out when I was 14," @jubunnies/X recounted. "After the surgery, the doctor goes 'and while we were in there, we had a look at your ovaries too, everything looks good!' and he acted like that was a normal thing to have done"

17.

"Went to a dermatologist because I had intense rashes all over my hands and body," writes @leo_ozzo/X. "He said he's treat me like his own granddaughter while touching my thigh (with the gown up). Worsst part: when I askesd what we could do to fix this, he said with no empathy at all, 'well not everyone is going to have celebrity ski, you just have to deal with this' and sent me off."

18.

"The doctor who told me on Monday it wasn't that bad and the pain was psychosomatic and I shouldn't get worked up about it until I was in the hospital on Friday when it was life-threatening, when I was 18, is definitely in my top 5," said @Frollein_VogelV/X.

19.

@vvictorman_uel/X wrote, "when I was 18, I’d lost 35 pounds in a few months. I was 5’9” and 107 lbs. family history made celiac very likely, and I wanted to get an endoscopy before going gf. as the gi was denying me an endoscopy, he said, 'you know, most women would be happy to have lost that much weight.'"

20.

@quendergeer/X remarks, "i guess it would have to be the one who rated my breasts in my written notes"

21.

@ckoochie/X remembers "going to a Dr for a Pap smear at like fresh 19 and the doctor asked why I don’t have a bf. His office has been closed for several counts of negligence."

22.

"He joked around how I couldn't get painkillers after I gave birth because he thought that women supposed to suffer he said he was joking after that," says @Wendyinspanish/X

"I was having a miscarriage and I didn't know so I went to the hospital when they would send me back saying that it was a UTI but they didn't believe I was in pain and then the second time I went there they found out that I had a miscarriage and I needed an emergency surgery I was bleeding internally cuz of the miscarriage."

23.

"Following a teenage suicide attempt, I loudly begged the nurse forcing the shunt into the back of my hand to stop or pause," wrote @ElkanahWilder/X. "She refused & said 'this is what happens when selfish girls waste NHS resources' as I passed out from the pain. Woke up with my shirt off from the ECG."

24.

"That time I lost 10% of my weight in a very short period of time (enough that should make a doctor worry), but because I'm fat they said 'keep up the good work,'" says @Triple0Tea/X "Literally had a condition that caused irreversible damage and could have killed me."

25.

"My 1st psychiatrist ever accused me of 'being abnormal' cause 'I don't have a girlfriend,'" writes @SBrycki/X. "I'm gay, I live with schizophrenia and I am extremely afraid of people. And I believe I had a right to a *professional* care."

"She never apologized to me - she had long years to do so."

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