Carrie G.
Google
Don’t Wear a Baseball Cap to the Doctor
Apparently, what you wear matters more than how you’re coping.
I requested my clinical notes after weeks of confusion, missing information, and unreturned calls about my ultrasound scans and tissue sample.
When I finally read (part of them), I learned something important; I wore a cap to my appointment.
The kindest person to me with this entire process had been the lady from the morgue, but we’ll get back to that later.
This was documented. Immortalised. Black and white.
No real mention of the fact that I’d just lost a pregnancy.
No meaningful reflection of my emotional state. No acknowledgement of fear, vulnerability, or distress.
But the cap? The cap made the cut.
For context.. I was contacted via an unscheduled call from an unknown number, shortly after being transferred from a hospital affected by a major cyber incident. No warning.
Poor phone connection.
Yet I was expected to answer deeply personal questions on the spot.
Later, the notes imply I was unclear about my bleeding pattern.
Perhaps because I was trying to process contradictory advice, grief, and medical uncertainty, not performing a rehearsed monologue for an unexpected caller.
The notes also state that I was “not keen” on another internal scan. Correct.
After repeated invasive procedures and a traumatic loss, I wasn’t exactly eager for more.
The surprise at this reluctance is telling.
What’s most concerning isn’t one comment, it’s the “narrative”.
Uu
A subtle but consistent framing that strips away context and humanity, replacing it with judgment, implication, and irrelevant detail.
When medical notes tell a story, that story matters.
And this one didn’t feel truthful to the experience I was actually living.
Compassion shouldn’t be optional.
And patients shouldn’t have to wonder whether their grief will be reduced to a footnote.. or overshadowed by a uIbaseball cap.
Btw.. C&W.. let me know how you’d like to be featured in my memoir. I’ve made Forbes already.. you’re up next.