One of the things that my medical school friends would joke about from time to time would be people trying to get free medical advice from us. Of course, then it was easy because we genuinely didn't know anything. As they have chosen to get into more specialized fields, I'm sure their requests have become more infrequent. This is something a doctor in, say, Urology or Neurology, doesn't really have to deal with, but we in Primary care frequently deal with. As a general rule, when I'm able to answer these questions in a couple of seconds or a minute it means that it's not that serious and I saved them a doctor's visit. I'm happy to do this, as I know how expensive a visit to the doctor can be.
One wrinkle to this has been getting medical advice questions from my family. To date I've gotten questions about infant bowel movements, a couple of sick children, and questions about whether someone is in labor or not. There has also been random other things of a non-serious nature from other siblings.
This is actually very fulfilling for me. I love primary care because we can have the longest impact on peoples' overall health and have a wide range of influence. That said, it is nice to be able to help someone out in the short term who happens to be someone in my family. And as my brother said regarding why he called me instead of the nurses line, "You're going to give me more of a straight answer" as opposed to their always telling everyone to come in and be seen.
I anticipate this to continue as the years and nieces/nephews multiply, and I'm looking forward to it.
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It's not just medical advice, now I'm coming to you for cooking advice too! You'd be proud of my homemade food this weekend: bread, apple pie, and chocolate oatmeal bars (still such a hit)--you gave me 2 of the 3 recipes and probably could've given me the apple pie recipe too.
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