When Your Patient is a “Doctor”

Welcome back to another installment of Stories from Tina. Grab your coffee—preferably a Philz iced Tesora with heavy cream and sugar if you’re on my wavelength today—because we need to have a little chat about trust, truth, and the absolute audacity of some people.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know I’m big on authenticity, boundaries, and calling things exactly as I see them. And lately? I swear my trust issues have developed a full-time position, benefits, and direct deposit. Especially when it comes to healthcare and interacting with patients.

I might only be 33, but working as a Nurse has taught me a lot about human nature. And for the record, I don’t work in the ER or Med-Surg, but let me tell you, you do not need to be in the emergency room to encounter a completely unhinged level of fiction on a Tuesday afternoon. When you work around people long enough, you start realizing that not everything they say needs to be received like gospel. Some folks are truthful. Some folks are confused. Some folks are exaggerating for sport. And some folks are telling a story so polished and dramatic that you almost have to pause and ask yourself whether this is a real conversation or an episode of a show you didn’t ask to be cast in.

A Memorable Patient Encounter

I learned this lesson in a very memorable way recently. Case in point: I had a patient look me dead in the eye and casually tell me they were a doctor.

Now, normally, I’d just nod and say, “Oh, wow, that’s great.” Cool. Fine. But then they kept talking. The more they talked, the more my internal alert system started doing that little noise it makes when something feels off. You know the one. That soft, polite, almost spiritual alarm that says, “Hmm… let’s not just take this at face value.”

The Math That Didn’t Add Up

They casually mentioned that they were bringing in about $4,000 a month.

Record scratch.

Hold up. My Leo intuition immediately flared up. I don’t know what economy we are currently living in, but since when does a licensed medical doctor make $4k a month? My suspicion went from zero to a hundred in about two seconds flat. Sir. Ma’am. Friend. I need the plot to make sense before the credits roll.

Probing for the Truth

So, naturally, I decided to do a little digging of my own in real-time. I kept my face perfectly neutral and asked, “Oh, really? Have you ever served in the military?”

They perked up and said, “Yeah, I went to basic training, but something happened, and now I end up getting three-thousand-something every month from VA benefits for the rest of my life.”

Okay. Let’s pause and break this down, shall we? You claim you make $4,000 a month. Over $3,000 of that is coming directly from the VA because of a basic training incident. That leaves less than $1,000 a month coming in from this supposed lucrative, high-stakes career as a physician.

Are you a doctor who only works one afternoon a month? Are you being paid in exposure and hospital cafeteria vouchers? If you’re also claiming military experience, disability income, and physician status all in one breath, at some point I stop listening with my ears and start listening with my eyebrows.

That’s when the suspicion truly kicks in. That’s when I’m not just hearing the words; I’m hearing the inconsistencies, the gaps, the little pauses, the too-many-details-that-don’t-quite-fit-together. Plus, here’s the other thing: if you are a practicing doctor, you are usually exhausted, stressed, and busy. You are not just sitting around on your phone, scrolling through social media 24/7 like an influencer waiting for a brand deal.

Doing the Research and Finding the Receipts

So I did what any overly perceptive, mildly suspicious, spiritually tired woman with internet access and a good instinct would do: I checked. Eventually, my curiosity got the better of me, and I had to know. I pulled up the state medical board’s certified website—because your girl does her research—and searched their name.

Zero results found. Not in this state. Not in any state.

And baby, the research did not disappoint. It turns out they weren’t a doctor. They weren’t a physician of any kind. They were not board certified or listed anywhere that would support the title they were walking around with like it was a name tag from a professional conference.

Let me tell you something: when somebody is claiming a title that serious, I need more than confidence and a nice tone of voice. I need receipts. I need credentials. I need something that says this person actually went to school, passed the test, completed the training, and did not simply wake up one day and decide to upgrade their identity like it was a subscription plan. People just like to claim that they are a doctor without actually sitting through the grueling biology labs, the sleepless nights of studying, and the sheer grit it takes to earn those letters behind your name.

The Bigger Lesson on Healthcare and Trust

That was a huge lightbulb moment for me. Honestly, it was a lesson in giving people grace while keeping my own boundaries ironclad. That’s when I truly learned to take what patients tell me with a massive grain of salt.

You have to realize that a lot of folks coming through the healthcare system might be dealing with some underlying mental health issues. People are dealing with all kinds of things: stress, ego, trauma, delusion, denial. A whole buffet of inner chaos. Sometimes, creating this grand alternate reality where they are highly respected, educated, and successful is a coping mechanism. They want to feel important. They want the room to treat them differently. But when somebody is claiming to be a doctor and the facts aren’t supporting it, the whole thing starts to feel less like confidence and more like a performance.

Why Verification Matters

That’s the part that gets me, because in healthcare, trust matters. People are vulnerable. They’re scared. They’re sick. They’re trying to figure out who to believe. When somebody starts talking with authority they haven’t earned, it creates confusion. And confusion is expensive. It leads to bad advice, bad decisions, and people putting faith in the wrong hands.

That’s why I don’t just accept everything at face value anymore. I listen, I observe, and I verify. Not because I want to be difficult, but because I refuse to be careless. The older I get, the more I realize how many people are out here performing competence instead of actually possessing it. They know how to sound convincing. They know how to sprinkle in a few medical terms, a little struggle story, and suddenly everybody is supposed to nod like, “Wow, what a fascinating journey.” Meanwhile, I’m over here thinking, “Hold up. Let me see the paperwork.”

Maybe that makes me suspicious. Maybe that makes me annoying to people who prefer blind trust. But I’d rather be a little suspicious than deeply deceived. I’d rather ask one uncomfortable question than spend months realizing I believed somebody who built their whole identity on a claim that never had legs.

Key Takeaways on Discernment

So, what’s the takeaway here on Stories from Tina today?

• 1. Protect your energy. You don’t have to confront every lie you hear, but you also don’t have to absorb it as truth. Peace is expensive, and I’m not spending it on people who can’t keep their own biography straight.
• 2. Trust your gut. When someone’s story is full of holes, you don’t need to be a detective to know something is off—you just need a healthy dose of common sense. Pay attention to whether the details support the title.
• 3. Be authentic. We live in a world where everyone wants to be something they’re not. But there is so much more power in just being exactly who you are, wherever you are in life, without having to make up a story to feel important.

Discernment is not bitterness. It’s wisdom. And in healthcare, in relationships, in conversations, and in life, I’m learning that believing less quickly is sometimes the most loving thing I can do for myself. Confidence is not the same thing as truth. Loud is not the same thing as right. And a title said out loud is not the same thing as a title earned.

Stay blunt, stay true to yourselves, and remember—always verify the source!