Your work and home life seem very imbalanced. If must be awful. Can you maybe look for a partner, or someone you can rely on to share the load?
So yesterday, I had to go to the dentist. My appointment was at the same time as my older brother’s appointment and I was under the impression we wouldn’t be in the same room as each other but no. Me, my brother and my mum came into the room all at once which made me feel uncomfortable. The woman sat me down and started reading off my entire medical history right in front of my brother including my PCOS and what birth control I’m on which made me angry as I don’t want him to know this kind of information. I am 20 and he is 21. We are both adults and I feel like we need to keep our medical histories confidential from each other. I expressed my anger to my mum when we got home and she didn’t care and didn’t take my side at all. She just dismissed me entirely.
A similar thing happened last year where I had to be tested for diabetes because of my PCOS. I didn’t want my brother to know and what did my mum do? She told him. I got angry with her and yet again she dismissed me and told me it isn’t a big deal.
Am I wrong to want to have this kind of stuff confidential from my siblings and other people? My mum has to come with my to my appointments due to my disability fyi.
Your not wrong to want some privacy from your adult brother, but your mum probably just doesn’t see it as an issue because you are family.
Can you contact the services and ask them to put a note on your file that you want to be seen alone? Or as you go in say that you want to be seen privately? Just to stop it happening again
I’d make it clear to anyone with privileged access to my private information that I want it to remain private, if they went against my expressed wishes they would have let me down and I would tell them so.
With family there can be an assumption that it’s fine. So I would understand the first time, but it would prompt me to clearly express my wishes to them.
No, you’re not overreacting. OK so your mum (or another responsible person) has to accompany you to the practice, but you are an adult of sound mind and as such your privacy must be respected. It’s the law. Your having a disability does not entitle anyone to ignore your wishes or treat you as if you’re a child.
It’s down to YOU to make this happen, though. Phone the dental practice and make them aware that in future you don’t wish any family members or other chaperones in the treatment room with you. It’s a matter of patient confidentiality. More importantly, next time you visit, INSIST on your mum staying in the waiting room. Don’t get into that treatment chair until she complies. Stand your ground and be prepared to make a thoroughly inconvenient scene about it if necessary.
They can’t disclose your medical info without your say so unless your mum is your listed as your carer. If she isn’t you can tell the doctor or dentist that it’s not okay to disclose such things and they have to listen if not they could be struck off for breaking patient confidentiality. Your mum sounds like my mum. Unfortunately family are like that but if you want o keep stuff to yourself professionals can’t disclose it but your mum can do what she wants. If she won’t listen to you there’s not much you can do. If it wasn’t for your disability you’d have more freedom. I don’t speak with my mum ever anymore.
As others has said, you obviously have the right to keep your medical info private, in future make it known that you wish to keep it that way and not brought up Infront of others. If it was me I would try and have a calm conversation with your mum and just explain how it made you feel and that you would like to keep it private in the future and it should be you to talk about it and no one else. And whether there your family or not the dentist had no right to disclose any of your medical info Infront of them.
With me I’ll talk to my siblings about my medical info, and there’s a lot of it ![]()
and they help me a lot, as well as my hubby and mum. Without them helping me I don’t know where I’d be.
It’s your personal medical information so you are well within your rights to want it kept private. I echo others in asking for a note to be put on your file to state that your information is not to be shared without your express permission at the time.
Other than under 16’s i’ve never known dentists have a family group in together. You’d think they’d keep it one to one with Covid restrictions too!
Thought they had to observe doctor/patient confidentiality
That is a clear case of a breach of patient confidentiality as @carzy mentioned.
You have every right to be annoyed, no health care professional is allowed to discuss personal details with another family member unless in an extreme Emergency. I would certainly be contacting the practice manager to voice my concerns over a breach of confidentiality.
I’m wondering if the OP isn’t in the UK - here in the UK, particularly with Covid - I have a 5 and a 2 year old, and we all had check up recently - and we had to go en-mass as they wouldn’t allow both kids in the room at the same time. So my wife and younger child had to wait in the car until we emerged.
I’m with you completely on the confidentiality - my wife has a major problem with our doctors receptionist as she happily reads out all your results to the entire waiting room - albeit this doesn’t happen at the moment as your not allowed in the waiting room. But as an adult they shouldn’t really be that unprofessional as to disclose stuff like that to anyone else (family or not).
Not at all, we should have space and the choice to keep things private from others even if it is from family members. Your mum may not have an issue with sharing things but doesn’t mean your the same and that shows a lack of understanding on her behalf. Plus I can imagine it must feel like a part of your adult independence is being chipped away each time too?
I’d make a point to sit her down and say about this calmly and how it makes you feel. As a grownup your allowed to tell her this isn’t no longer acceptable.
Don’t know why your dentist would go over those things in the first place unless your medical history was effecting your teeth somehow, and even then I have a long-term health condition that can be effected by the health of my teeth and my dentist has never brought it up before
I’d do as others have suggested, sit her down and tell her how you’re feeling
I don’t quite remember what you said your disability is (as I know you’ve mentioned it in other threads a bit), but is there not a way to get an aid for the appointments, as quite a few GPs and other places offer them to help during visits (though I also get if you want the person to be someone you know)
I think she just wants to keep him up-to-date maybe in case something happens to you because of your condition and he isn’t blindsided, but I agree with you that if you want it kept confidential that she should respect that as you’re an adult ![]()
A weird situation really. My dentist has never gone through my medical history unless is related to my teeth.
At 20 could you not take control of booking your own appointments now. You could even swap dentists.
If you decide to keep the situation as it is though, definately phone and ask that you’re seen separately. I’m very close to my family and they know all my medical history but I totally understand if it’s not something you want to share.
I’m thinking that the poster is outside of the UK? As I’ve never heard of a dentist bringing up medical history, none of mine have and I’ve seen many trying to find the perfect one. Then there’s the restrictions when we go to the dentist they have a system and certainly wouldn’t have others in the room, yes if you need a carer but nobody else. So I’m very surprised that this happened.
It’s worth looking into getting another care aid so you’ve got privacy with your mom not keeping things confidential, that would infuriate me but hey family have a nack at doing so.
Definitely sort out appointments yourself and look at getting outside help if your mom is chatting your business when you don’t want her to ![]()
I used to work with a couple of people who treated the generous sick pay scheme the company offered as an extension of the also generous annual leave and always made sure they took every day they were entitled to sick or not.
I’ve worked with people like that too, saw days of sick as some kind of entitlement. Bit controversial, not offense intended to anyone, but at my place the edited. They will conveniently have a sick day before the school fête or Christmas play, but forget they’ve spent the last fortnight moaning about how much they’ve got to do for the event. Also worked with one women who only ever had sick days during school holidays instead of using up annual leave.
Well to be fair, @mikeormick, sick leave is usually incorporated as part of whatever EBA you sign up to, therefore it’s as much an “entitlement” as your pay rate or any other perk your union has fought and won for you (such as company car, RDOs, bonuses etc.).
Now, it’s how that entitlement is used, or moreover MISused, that defines that person, and shouldn’t reflect on how sick leave is interpreted. We all get sick (especially now with that Damn Virus floating around) and we all have bills to pay; if some people choose to abuse the sick leave entitlements, then there will be a price to pay for that later when they really are sick but don’t have any leave to cover it.
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