12 People Whose Doctor Visits Took Truly Unexpected Turns

A visit to the doctor’s office is usually just another part of daily life — but for some, it turned into a chilling ordeal they’ll never forget. This collection showcases real-life stories of medical appointments that took a shocking and unexpected turn. Whether it’s a bizarre comment from a doctor, a dangerous misdiagnosis, or something even stranger, these unsettling experiences continue to haunt those who lived through them.

• A coworker went for a medical exam with a dermatologist. The doctor asked her to step behind a screen and undress to the waist. As she began undressing, she asked, “Should I take off my skirt too?” Startled, the doctor nearly fell off his chair and quickly clarified, “No! Just from the top to the waist!”
• I had just given birth, and my daughter needed to stay in the hospital, but I was ready to be discharged. The doctor talked to my husband like I wasn’t there. He told him I had postnatal depression (apparently, I wasn’t supposed to be upset about leaving the hospital without my baby). The doctor handed him a prescription for antidepressants and told my husband he needed to force me to take them. © rowenaravenclaw0 / Reddit

• I woke up one day and was unable to hear out of my left ear. I waited a few days to see if it would improve, but I didn’t get better at all. I went to the doctor, and they diagnosed me with a nasty ear infection and gave me some antibiotics for it.
  After using up all the antibiotics, I went back, and they prescribed me stronger ones. Those ended up not working either. This cycle went on for another month until I eventually decided to go to an ear specialist. Within five minutes, the specialist saw that my eardrum was not infected, but rather covered in wax.
  By the end of my visit, I had my hearing restored. It’s safe to say I was furious that the doctors misdiagnosed me for an entire two months and gave me antibiotics into me that I didn’t need. © Cosmic_Noodles / Reddit
• I went to my old doctor for allergy pills. I had just moved in with my partner, and he had a cat. She gave me the prescription but then also asked how old the cat was and, in her words, said, “Maybe it will just die soon.” © yslhc / Reddit
• Before we were engaged and before we were even living together, my fiancée went to a GP for some persistent headaches she had. The GP looked at her birthdate, saw she was 32, and started lecturing her that time was running out, she needed to have kids ASAP, and she needed to go home immediately and tell me that we were going to start trying for children.
  Note: She didn’t mention anything about kids at all, and he didn’t know her history at all — legit, the first (and last) time she’d ever seen him. © Dropbbear / Reddit

• I had a period of time when I was exhausted without knowing why. After blood and urine tests, I went to get my heart checked to make sure it was functioning properly. So this doctor is performing an echocardiogram of my heart, then suddenly stops and says, “Damn, that doesn’t look good,” before running out of the examination room.
  I tried to stay calm, but the fact that a doctor was alarmed by something he saw in my body made me think he had found something horrid and unusual. A moment later, the doctor returned with another doctor, who greeted me and said, “Okay, show me.” The young doctor put the probe back on my chest, and the older doctor smirked and said, “No wonder — that’s the wrong spot. If you look at the heart from that angle, the aorta looks extremely distended.”
  “So, everything is fine?” I asked. “Nothing wrong with your heart,” he answered, then rolled his eyes and said, “Interns. Sorry, sir.” © Martyn V. Halm (Combat Pragmatist) / Quora
• I started having irregular menstrual cycles and went to my gyn. They wouldn’t listen to me and kept prescribing me things without doing any tests. So I went to my primary doctor to get a referral for some ultrasounds.
  My doctor said, “You’re probably pregnant. I’m not even the doctor you’re supposed to see for these types of things, but I’m going to take you because I have to. You’re probably pregnant.”
  After that, she made me take a pregnancy test that I knew would be negative. When it came back negative, she looked at me and said, “Well, I’ll write you a referral for that ultrasound.” I never went back to her again. © Unknown author / Reddit

• I had a hard lump under my belly button that was excruciatingly painful. I had a hernia there when I was seven, so I went to my GP to get some advice/scans on how to deal with it since it was now very painful.
  The doctor felt around and was like, “Oh yeah, there is a lump!” while I was crying in agony. She then told me not to worry about it because it was only small and that “pregnant women get hernias much worse than this.”
  A few years of debilitating pain later, I finally found a new doctor who sent me for scans right away and put me on a waiting list for a repair. When they finally took it out, it was actually an endometrioma. At every step of the way, doctors shrugged off how painful it actually was, thinking it was just a hernia. It was the blasé attitude that always got me — even from the ER doctors. © katrat1706 / Reddit
• My brother’s pregnant wife went for her first ultrasound, which revealed twins. Overwhelmed with emotion, she called her husband, crying, and urged him, “Come to the hospital immediately.” He rushed over, nervous and anxious. Without saying a word, his wife handed him the ultrasound picture. He stared at it, confused. She pointed and said, “Look — one head, and another head.” His face paled as he began to sob. “Our baby... has two heads?”

• I went to the gynecologist. It was a new doctor. As he examined me, he whispered, “Your husband is a lucky guy!” I felt like punching him.
  But when I got home and undressed, I realized he hadn’t actually examined me properly. The checkup had been rushed — he barely even looked. I was so caught off guard by his inappropriate comment that I hadn’t noticed at the time.
  The next day, I got a call from the receptionist asking me to come for an emergency 2nd visit. I was shocked to discover that this guy wasn’t a doctor at all. He had faked his paperwork and diplomas, and in reality, he had dropped out of medical school after only eight months.
  It finally made sense — why the exam had been so rushed and why he had tried to distract me with that disgusting comment. Thankfully, he was caught early and didn’t get the chance to put any woman’s life at risk.
• I was 18 and had just had a baby, and my epidural was taking a long time to wear off. The nurse came in to transfer me to the recovery room, and I told her I still didn’t have any feeling in my legs. She said, “It should have worn off half an hour ago,” and started trying to get me out of bed and into the wheelchair.
  I said I was going to need help, so another nurse came in. They had to move my legs off the bed (which should have been the second clue), and then they hoisted me up. I, of course, crumpled immediately. As they were trying to get me off the floor, the first nurse yelled at me, “You have to try to stand up!”
  I yelled back, “What part of ’I can’t feel my legs’ did you not hear?!” When my mom heard about it, she went and gave them a piece of her mind. I didn’t see that particular nurse again. © sugabeetus / Reddit

• I had bruises on my inner thighs from riding a mechanical bull. I had completely forgotten about them until I heard my gynecologist wonder aloud, “So... what are these?” Once I explained, she responded with, “OH, THANK GOD!” — yelling right at my lady bits. Five years later, this conversation was repeated after a pole dancing class. © Unknown author / Reddit

Workplaces are often filled with surprises — sometimes, they seem more like scenes from a drama series than typical jobs. These true stories show just how unpredictable, shocking, and even surreal a workday can get.