Latest / Rachel Oates / TikTok's Favourite Thriller Author's Secret Blogs

Transcript

TikTok's Favourite Thriller Author's Secret Blogs · Rachel Oates

• 0:00
  Freedom McFadden is a doctor turned thriller author who I've
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  covered before on my channel for her books which excuse CSA and
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  Grooming and The Ablest Nightmare which was Ward D which
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  massively stigmatised mental health problems.
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  After those videos I had, especially the Ward D1, I had a
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  lot of people in my comment section saying like wait, is
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  Freedom McFadden actually a doctor?
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  Like do we know this for sure? Do we believe this Because her
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  medical knowledge and the way she wrote about hospitals in the
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  healthcare system, especially in Ward D, seemed a bit off with
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  some people and we all know Freedom McFadden is a pen name,
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  so we don't really know who she actually is or what her actual
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  background is. Because of this, I decided to do
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  a little bit of digging and I found that before she was
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  writing books, Frida went by the name Fizzy or Doctor Mcfizzy
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  online and she had a couple of blogs.
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  One was private and we don't currently have any access to it.
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  Another one which was like her main blog.
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  He went through a couple of different names I think, but he
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  ended up being called A cartoon Guide to Becoming a Doctor.
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  Lessons on the medical training process from somebody with apps.
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  Absolutely no artistic talent. She even offered us a
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  disclaimer. All stories told on this blog
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  are entirely fictional. Even the ones that are true are
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  entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual
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  events, locations, or persons living or dead is coincidental
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  and clearly some self absorbed person deluding himself.
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  By which I mean, she was totally writing about her real life, but
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  she wanted some plausible deniability by saying that Oh
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  no, it's totally fictional. It's true, but it's entirely
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  fictional. Freda began writing during the
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  time that she was writing this blog and during I think it was
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  kind of like lockdown ish, her books began to really blow up on
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  TikTok and she started to get more and more popular and she
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  ended up posting in April 2020 that she was taking a hiatus
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  from writing her blog. She said taking a hiatus from
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  blogging for now. This coronavirus thing has been
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  really hard both as a parent, as a daughter, and as a physician.
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  It's hard watching patients get sick with this and it's scary to
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  know taking care of them means I could get it.
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  But I'm going to keep doing what I do as long as I still can.
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  Stay healthy, everyone. This was her last ever blog
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  post, to the best of my knowledge, and a little while
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  later, this blog, this cartoon guide to being a doctor, was
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  deleted. I'm free to try to wipe its
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  existence from the Internet. The Wayback Machine, however,
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  has an archived version of it which is available to read.
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  I'm not sure it's captured every single post she's ever made, but
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  it's got a hell of a lot of them, and I've screenshot quite
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  a few and created a document where you can read through in
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  chronological order, a lot of her blog posts.
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  Not all of them, but a lot of them.
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  Just if you're interested, you can do that.
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  I'll leave it. LinkedIn, the video description,
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  it's just meant to be like a little extra thing to this video
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  where like if you want a little bit more context around, because
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  I basically between the two of her blogs and we'll get to the
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  second one in a minute. There were like 600 pages of
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  posts and I was like, I can't cover all of this in a video,
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  but I know a lot of people will be interested, but you maybe
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  don't have time to go searching through the Wayback Machine like
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  I did. So I've kind of put it all
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  together. So if you want a little bit more
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  context to this video, you can go and get it that way easily.
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  Obviously all the content on there is still Frida's, but
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  yeah, it's just just to make things a little bit easier for
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  you guys. If you're interested.
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  Today I wanna focus on looking at just a few of these posts
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  because I think they're quite enlightening in terms of telling
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  us who Frieda is, a little bit about her background, how yes,
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  she actually is a doctor and you can definitely see where some of
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  the attitudes we see in her books come from.
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  For example, her judgy attitudes towards patients in her blogs
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  maybe explains why she's so judgy towards especially mental
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  health patients in her book Ward D and so on.
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  There were actually as well through her blogs, a few posts
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  that really surprised me in a good way.
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  While Frieda often came across as rude, rude and judgmental in
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  a lot of her posts, there are also a few where she really
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  impressed me by talking about things like the need for a
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  better healthcare system in America.
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  She was quite, she is liberal in her political beliefs and she's
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  outspoken about them at time there's times when she was
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  advocating for a child victim of CSA.
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  And I think they're all brilliant, brilliant things.
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  And it surprised me because I didn't expect to see them from
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  Frieda. So seeing her write about them
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  in their blog, I was like, oh, this is a new side to her that
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  I've not seen before. And I like this side.
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  And that said, there were also a lot of posts where I was like,
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  Oh, well, if I liked that, I don't necessarily like this
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  because she was coming across as a little bit of a mean girl at
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  time. There was a fair bit of
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  misogyny. There was a lot of judgement
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  towards women and especially their appearance in a lot of her
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  blogs, which really bothered me. And overall, it seems she kind
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  of hates being a doctor, which is interesting.
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  But like I say, this cartoon guide to being a doctor wasn't
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  her only blog that she contributed to.
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  She also contributed a lot, around 220 posts or more to a
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  blog called Mothers in Medicine, where she is described as again,
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  she goes by the name Fizzy on this.
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  Fizzy is a PM and R attending with two small daughters and a
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  non medical spouse. Her hobbies include reading,
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  baking cookies with said daughters, blogging at A Cartoon
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  Guide to become a doctor, and repeatedly explaining to people
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  what PM and R is. And just be clear, PM and R is
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  physical medicine and rehabilitation, which John
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  Hopkins says is a medical speciality that works to restore
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  function for a person who has been disabled as a result of
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  disease, disorder or injury. Meanwhile, she started her
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  personal blog, The Cartoon Guide to Being a Doctor with
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  Description. I'm a physician who has finally,
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  finally, finally come to the end of my gruelling medical
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  training, and I have at least enough time to publish the
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  wealth of cartoons I've created over the years.
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  If you enjoy them, please comment.
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  If you don't enjoy them then you can just keep your full mouth
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  shut. A little aggressive at the end
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  there, but OK. This inability to take criticism
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  is something you will see throughout her blog posts and
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  she does get a little bit angry and mean towards people who are
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  critics sometimes. Sometimes understandably,
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  sometimes not so understandably. It's it's a mixed bag.
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  The Mothers in Medicine blog started in June 2008, whereas
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  the Cartoon Guide to Puma Dr blog only started in 2010.
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  So I'll be going through some of this in chronological order,
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  sometimes a little bit all over the place, but mostly I'm going
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  to structure this video in terms of like talking about themes of
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  blog posts that she wrote about. And within those themes, I'll be
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  mostly chronological, but it's also a little like I've just,
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  I'm trying to tell a story here. Basically, that's what I'm
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  doing. I'm trying to paint a picture of
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  who Frieda is so we can get a good idea of her good points,
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  her bad points and understand her background to try and
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  understand her writing style and her views a little bit better.
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  Also as a little introduction, if you're new here.
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  Hi, my name is Rachel. I talk everything from books and
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  poetry and do in depth analysis of them.
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  I do a lot of social commentary, especially around intersectional
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  feminism and I just talk about whatever interests me.
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  Sometimes it's a little serious, sometimes it's more fun and
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  light hearted. And sometimes, like today, I
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  just I'm looking into an author that I find fascinating because
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  I'm not really a fan of her books, but her as an individual,
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  she just intrigues me. You know, I find her, like I
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  say, fascinating for both good and bad reasons.
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  If you're new here, it'd be wonderful if you want to
• 6:39
  subscribe and come on this journey with me and the rest of
• 6:42
  us. And if you're not new here, hi,
• 6:44
  welcome back. This is my first time filming in
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  a while because a lot of you know, two weeks ago yesterday, I
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  had to say goodbye to my best friend in the world, my soul
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  mate, my daughter, my just absolute perfect little dog,
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  Kyra. And it's been hard.
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  Luckily, I'd done all the research for this video before
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  it happened. And so in the two weeks since
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  I've been struggling to get out of bed, I've been struggling to
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  function and I've been trying to work on this script and it's
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  been difficult because I can't concentrate on anything.
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  And I'm feeling quite woozy at the minute.
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  And I'm just, I'm really out of it.
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  My doctors increased my antidepressant medication, which
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  is making me a little bit foggy brained.
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  I'm a bit all over the place. And this is my first time back
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  on camera since. So thank you for joining me
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  today. Thank you for everyone who's
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  been patient while I've, I mean, I'm still in the grieving
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  process. Like, you know, you know how
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  hard it is. And yeah, it's, it's not been a
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  good time. But thank you all for your
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  patience while I've been going through a lot and thank you for
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  your patience today. If my brain isn't quite where it
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  normally is, I'm still going to try and put out the best content
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  I can for you guys, But I just just appreciate your kindness
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  and patience during this time. And I've not really been very
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  good at replying to messages or anything at the minute because
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  I've just been, I've been spending most of my time
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  sleeping, to be honest. I've been an absolute wreck.
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  Sleeping and crying have been the majority of my daily
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  activities. I've been trying to like see my
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  friends when I can and like, yeah, it is.
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  I don't know. I went out once I end up crying
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  there as well. So it's a bit all over the
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  place, but yeah, I don't know what I'm saying.
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  I just, yeah, I just want to thank everyone who's sent me
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  kind messages and been so lovely.
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  I've had people send flowers and gifts and it's been, it's been
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  really, really kind. And I really, really appreciate
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  every single one of you for how lovely you've all been.
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  And I just want to say that before we go any further today,
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  and again, sorry if I'm tripping over my words a bit.
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  I'm still not quite with it. But yeah, we're going to get
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  through this together. We're going to be OK.
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  We've got this. OK, so Freda's first public blog
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  post that I can find online at all that hasn't been like wiped
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  was on the Mothers in Medicine blog on the 4th of June 2008 and
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  it was titled The Doctor's Doctor.
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  And it doesn't present Freda in the most likeable way.
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  Right off the bat. She comes across as a bit
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  self-righteous, a bit egotistical.
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  Some of it I can kind of understand, but also I'm like, I
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  don't necessarily like the way she comes across in this blog
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  post. I kind of feel like a failure
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  when I bring Mellie, that's her daughter to the doctor because,
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  you know, I'm a doctor, sort of. That's what it says on my badge.
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  So naturally I should be able to diagnose any medical problem
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  that comes up, then prescribe amoxicillin to treat it.
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  My current excuse for my poor paediatric, my current excuse
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  for my poor paediatric diagnostic skills is a lack of
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  proper equipment. I don't have the tiny
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  stethoscope applying my paediatricians and I'm fairly
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  sure the stethoscope I use for work is colonised with MRSA and
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  every other bug I've come across in the six years I've owned it.
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  It it's pretty much a Petri dish.
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  Mellie tried to lick it once and I almost had a heart attack.
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  Don't. Don't think that's normal.
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  Clean your equipment. Yeah.
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  Also, I left my otoscope at my mother's house, and there's
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  absolutely no possible way I can get it short of some sort of
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  experimental matter transportation device out of the
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  fly. Yeah, if only I had my otoscope.
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  It would be no problem to stick that thing in her tiny ear to
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  visualise her eardrum while she's flailing about wildly
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  because I was just so good at it.
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  As a Med student, the sad truth of the matter is that I'm lucky
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  if I can even get a temperature for her.
• 10:08
  That ears Mom we bought is very suspect.
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  I took her temperature on it once and got 102.4 then took it
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  2 seconds later and got a 95 and got a 97.5.
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  So what am I supposed to do? Average the numbers?
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  Part of the problem is that I have too much knowledge for my
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  own good, but not enough knowledge to do anything useful.
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  Like when she's drilling a lot instead of assuming that she's
• 10:28
  teething I think Oh my God is this epiglottis?
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  What if it required? Will this require intubation?
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  And slowly I lose my mind. I recall in Med school that my
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  worst exam grade was in my paediatrics rotation.
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  If only I'd studied harder I could have saved so many $20
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  co-pays. And I understand when you have a
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  bit of knowledge in an area like medicine you might jump to the
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  worst case scenario. And I know she's trying to be
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  funny here and be like relatable to other doctors, but like I
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  find it so difficult to find someone likeable or have empathy
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  for them when they're saying lines like I was just so good at
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  in Med school. And I have too much knowledge
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  for my own good and I have too much knowledge for my own good.
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  And blaming any faults on the equipment are not their own lack
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  of expertise in that area. Like there's a reason you train
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  to specialise in a certain area. And like, not just every doctor
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  can do every field. You know it anyway, I just, I
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  couldn't help but compare her to my own sister-in-law who's a GP
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  and like, I just, I can't imagine her ever saying
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  something like this or making these kinds of jokes.
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  You know it's I found her super unlikeable straight off the bat.
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  Then again, on the other hand, in other posts I found her quite
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  relatable and I understand her concerns and there's a few
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  things I really liked. For example, June 2008, so not
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  that much later. Cinderella isn't pre Med.
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  The vast majority of our TV viewings these days are
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  dedicated to the Disney princessing long videos.
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  The songs in these videos feature only the Princess of the
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  Disney movies such as Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Cinderella,
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  Princess Jasmine, etcetera. Bowed to Jasmine, by the way,
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  she's always been my favourite. I love to bits.
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  Mellie loves them. So we've been subjected to each
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  of these videos roughly 5000 times in the couple of weeks
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  since we've discovered them. It's gotten to the point where
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  I'm subconsciously humming a whole new world while examining
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  patients and they look at me like I'm nuts.
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  Between each of the songs, there's a narrative that I find
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  rather disturbing. For example, after the
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  Cinderella song, the narrator states Cinderella finally lived
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  out her dream of going to a ball in a beautiful dress.
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  Is that your dream too? And so on.
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  It sort of emphasises the point that Disney movies have two kind
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  of female characters 1. The princesses who have
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  developed a deep malaise which can only be cured by an exciting
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  new man. And two poor girls, usually also
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  abused by their stepmothers who are eventually saved by a
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  handsome Prince, often while wandering through a forest and
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  singing. Between the popular Disney
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  movies and dolls that pronounce math class is tough.
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  It seems like a miracle that so many women have high-powered
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  careers these days. My husband and I get nervous if
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  we don't turn off the Disney videos, Mellie is going to end
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  up doomed to a life of dancing in forests with strange
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  Princess. My dream for her is to be a
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  mathematician, which is about as far as you can get from going to
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  a ball and a beautiful dress. So while I still have some
• 12:57
  issues with some of the stuff she writes here, in particular
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  that last line, because like, please, I'm amazing at maths and
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  still find time to wear pretty dresses.
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  You can do both if you want to do both.
• 13:07
  Overall, I get it. I think this is a valid concern
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  of mothers, especially in 2008 when she was writing this.
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  Disney films at this time did have more of a focus on woman is
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  safe by man, blah blah, blah, and less on young women finding
• 13:21
  themselves. Things did get better with time
• 13:24
  because people like this were pointing out, you know, after
• 13:27
  this point, we did get that kind of Disney film that was focused
• 13:30
  on these strong women like like Brave, Frozen, The Princess and
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  the Frog. You know, I think it's brilliant
• 13:35
  that we've got more of those films now, but this was written
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  in 2008 before they were released.
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  And so I think these are genuine concerns.
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  And I, I relate to her. I think she makes good points.
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  Again, I find her likeable for pointing this out.
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  Like this is great. Then again, sometimes I find
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  that like instead of making good points, she's just comes across
• 13:55
  as sucking the fun out of everything.
• 13:57
  For example, in a similar vein, March 2009.
• 14:00
  How many of you were hit on the head with mallets last week?
• 14:03
  My daughter's really into Donald Duck right now.
• 14:05
  So I've watched about 5000 Donald Duck cartoons on YouTube
• 14:07
  in the last week or so. Believe it or not, they all seem
• 14:10
  to follow a similar format. Donald does something to pee off
• 14:12
  some kind of woodland creature, then they get revenge on him.
• 14:15
  So you can see this is already like this blog post is a similar
• 14:18
  set up to the Disney one. But where the Disney 1 I think
• 14:21
  had valid points, this one just seems like fun sucking.
• 14:24
  In the past week I've seen Donald fall from a 30 foot tree.
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  They plummet from several cliffs and be exploded countless times.
• 14:30
  As I was watching him run his sled into a tree stump mass by a
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  snowman, I couldn't help but think of my patient who ended up
• 14:36
  with serious brain or spinal cord injuries because they hit a
• 14:38
  tree on the ski slopes. As Donald made impact with the
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  tree, I winced as I thought about the broken bones, Halo
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  vests, incubation, central lines.
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  But none of that happens in cartoons obviously.
• 14:49
  Like does she want cartoons to show like deathly injuries to
• 14:52
  children? Like I'm confused, I don't know,
• 14:55
  slamming into a tree at 60 miles an hour is definitely an
• 14:57
  annoyance, Donald. But the only thing he appeared
• 15:00
  to damage in the accident was the winter coat he was wearing.
• 15:03
  The winter coat was virtually destroyed beyond repair when a
• 15:05
  bunch of ants push him off 100 foot Cliff to get his picnic
• 15:09
  basket. He yelled out in fury and
• 15:11
  climbed right back up the Cliff Cliff to get revenge on those
• 15:13
  ants. When 10 sticks of dynamite
• 15:15
  explode in his face, he just adjusts his beak and moves on.
• 15:18
  Yes, I know cartoons are not supposed to be realistic, but
• 15:21
  this is really beginning to bother me.
• 15:23
  It disturbs me not just as a who wants my daughter to know the
• 15:26
  consequences of violence violence, but also as a Doctor
• 15:29
  Who has seen countless veterans with severe permanent brain
• 15:32
  damage from IED blasts. I need to see Donald experience
• 15:36
  the consequences of consequences of his actions in some way.
• 15:39
  I mean they don't have to show him on a ventilator, but if he
• 15:42
  falls off a Cliff at least show him limping a little in the next
• 15:45
  scene. And for the record, a second
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  bunk on the head is not a cure for brain injury.
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  Also sorry I'm struggling to talk today.
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  I I've barely spoken 21 in two weeks.
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  I'll be honest and I feel out of practise.
• 15:56
  I feel like I'm kind of slurring my words a bit and I'm not
• 15:59
  speaking very well. So again, I'm sorry and thank
• 16:02
  you for your patience. And her posts, like I say,
• 16:04
  definitely sway between kind of feminist and relatable and
• 16:09
  making some really good points to being hateful and
• 16:12
  misogynistic. And it's quite confusing but
• 16:15
  also quite normal. You know, Freda, Despite that
• 16:18
  not being her real name, is a real person.
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  And like all of us, she contains multitudes.
• 16:22
  You know, we can like some parts of her and criticise others.
• 16:25
  I think that's just a part of being a normal human person.
• 16:30
  We don't have to like every part of someone again, to look at
• 16:33
  another example. And when she started her
• 16:35
  personal blog in 2010, her post seemed fairly harmless.
• 16:38
  You know, she was just making these silly, poorly drawn
• 16:40
  cartoons about being a doctor, but they weren't problems with
• 16:44
  most of them, you know, useless for surgical gloves, taking your
• 16:47
  house on a magical adventure as inspired by up.
• 16:50
  That's silly, that's harmless, that's funny.
• 16:52
  And evolution of a doctor's handwriting, caffeine overdose,
• 16:55
  blah, blah blah. And yet some of them start to
• 16:57
  verge into judgy and misogynistic.
• 16:59
  For example, lamest resident Halloween costumes 1A doctor.
• 17:04
  OK, that's quite funny because you are a doctor.
• 17:06
  It's lame to do that. That's funny.
• 17:08
  But then the last one is sexy cat.
• 17:10
  Again, it like it's not world ending.
• 17:13
  It's not something that like I'm going to be like, oh, she's a
• 17:15
  monster for doing this, but I'm just like feels a little
• 17:17
  misogynistic, you know what I mean?
• 17:19
  It's just, but on the whole, her cartoons were not especially
• 17:22
  harmful. And like I say, I think I read
• 17:25
  something like 600 pages of blog posts or 600 screenshots of blog
• 17:29
  posts or more in preparation for this video.
• 17:32
  So I think the best way to tackle this going forward is to
• 17:35
  categorise the interesting posts and go through them one by one.
• 17:38
  We're going to start with the positives because I need a
• 17:41
  little positivity in my life right now.
• 17:43
  There are thankfully a number of posts she writes which I imagine
• 17:47
  will be of great help to others who are mothers and quite
• 17:50
  relatable to them. I also think it's great that she
• 17:52
  calls out a fair amount of inequality and problems that
• 17:55
  working mothers face. I think these blog posts that
• 17:58
  she writes are invaluable, are invaluable and I think it's a
• 18:01
  really positive thing to put out there.
• 18:03
  For example, May 2010 she wrote a blog post on the Mothers and
• 18:08
  Medicine blog called Mummy Guilt.
• 18:10
  I've noticed one common theme on this blog.
• 18:12
  Guilt. As working mothers, we often
• 18:14
  feel guilty. We feel guilty for not spending
• 18:16
  enough time with our kids and at the same time we feel guilty for
• 18:19
  not working hard enough at our jobs.
• 18:20
  After I was recently saying how I felt bad that my husband had a
• 18:23
  longer commute to work than I did, a male attending said to
• 18:26
  me, you're always feeling guilty.
• 18:28
  I never feel that way, ever. Men don't write blog posts about
• 18:32
  how they feel bad they miss putting their baby to sleep two
• 18:34
  nights last week. They don't obsess over the fact
• 18:37
  that their infant got 1 bottle of formula instead of breast
• 18:40
  milk. Ever notice that there aren't
• 18:41
  any male boob Nazis? And they don't attend lectures
• 18:45
  about how to achieve a work family balance?
• 18:47
  There isn't going to be a blog called Fathers in Medicine
• 18:50
  anytime soon when men talk about the challenges of balancing
• 18:53
  fatherhood and a career as a physician.
• 18:55
  Not to say male physicians don't love their kids, because I know
• 18:58
  they do, but they don't have the kind of guilt that we do.
• 19:01
  Actually, I'm a little jealous. Maybe we should all try to be
• 19:03
  more like men and not feel so damn guilty all the time.
• 19:07
  And I think these are great points well made.
• 19:09
  Like, obviously I'm not some of them myself, but I know while
• 19:12
  Kyra was ill, especially like the last few months of her life,
• 19:15
  she was having seizures and things like that.
• 19:16
  And she was having daily medication and like, there was a
• 19:19
  lot of stuff going on. I was taking her for regular
• 19:21
  blood tests and everything. And the doctors also suspected
• 19:24
  that she had dementia. So I was constantly worrying
• 19:27
  about like her anxiety and dealing with memory issues for
• 19:30
  her and stuff like that. So I constantly felt this guilt
• 19:32
  where I was like, I can't do my job well enough because I'm
• 19:35
  looking after Kyra, but I can't look after Kyra all the time
• 19:38
  because I have to do my job and pay our bills.
• 19:40
  And so I felt like I wasn't a good enough YouTube and I wasn't
• 19:43
  a good enough mother. And I was constantly balancing
• 19:45
  that guilt between them and everyone around me telling me
• 19:47
  like, you're working yourself so hard, you're burning yourself
• 19:50
  out, like you're doing fine at both of them.
• 19:52
  I was like, but I don't want to do fine at both of them.
• 19:54
  I want to excel at both of them. And you, you can't do that
• 19:58
  because there's just not enough hours in the day.
• 19:59
  And it was, it was so, so hard. I was giving myself so much
• 20:04
  anxiety and not sleeping properly and it was horrific.
• 20:07
  And so that was just like four months.
• 20:10
  With an I'll dog, I can't imagine what it's like for
• 20:13
  mothers like Frieda McFadden who are working such an intense job
• 20:16
  as being a doctor while raising two kids.
• 20:18
  Well, she had one at this point, but you know, a few years later
• 20:21
  it was 2 while raising two kids like that.
• 20:23
  Guilt must be immense and stress must be immense.
• 20:26
  So I really commend her for talking about it and speaking
• 20:28
  out about it and raising awareness of these issues and
• 20:31
  saying, hey, men rarely ever feel guilty for this stuff.
• 20:34
  Why do they not have these feelings?
• 20:35
  Like, why are we the ones to shoulder the burden?
• 20:38
  I think I can only commend her for talking about that really.
• 20:41
  Similarly, I appreciate a post like this in which she
• 20:44
  normalised mothers choosing what is right for them and their own
• 20:47
  child in regards to feeding and breastfeeding versus bottle
• 20:51
  feeding and so on. March 2011 breast pump outrage.
• 20:55
  Breastfeeding is mothers issues that can be extremely
• 20:57
  controversial amongst mothers. Dads don't seem to care so much.
• 21:01
  Love that she's pointing that out again.
• 21:02
  For the record, I think breastfeeding is a woman's
• 21:05
  choice. If a mother feels that for for
• 21:07
  whatever reason she can't do it, I don't think we should chastise
• 21:10
  her. It's horrible that some women
• 21:12
  will approach a mother feeding her baby a bottle in public and
• 21:15
  feel the need to comment to this stranger that the baby should be
• 21:18
  getting breast milk. If you've ever approached a
• 21:20
  stranger and said something like that or given any sort of
• 21:22
  unsolicited parenting advice, you're nuts and should mind your
• 21:26
  own business, just so you know. Again, obviously I'm not a
• 21:28
  mother myself and I never will be, but when I see other people
• 21:31
  trying to tell people what the best way to feed their kid is
• 21:33
  like, it does bother me. And I'm like, why?
• 21:36
  Why are you getting involved? It's not your business.
• 21:38
  What you do or do not do with your body in regards to using it
• 21:41
  as a source of food for your child or not is entirely your
• 21:44
  business, right? So again, I think it's great
• 21:47
  that Frida's calling this out. I, I'm fully with her on this.
• 21:50
  And in other important posts that are really positive, she
• 21:53
  pointed out the importance of birth control and how it's
• 21:56
  helped so many women. Again, this is something I'm
• 21:58
  personally very passionate about and it's great to see others
• 22:00
  talk about. I commend her for this.
• 22:03
  So this was January 2012 owed to birth control.
• 22:06
  Sometimes people write into mothers in medicine with guest
• 22:08
  posts asking should I become a doctor?
• 22:11
  Whatever the answer to that question is for you, the truth
• 22:13
  is that none of us would be doctors and this blog wouldn't
• 22:16
  exist if not for one thing, birth control.
• 22:19
  My great great grandmother had ten children.
• 22:22
  She wasn't so much thinking about whether OBGYN or family
• 22:25
  medicine was the right choice for her.
• 22:26
  I don't know if she worked, but she sure wasn't considering a
• 22:29
  career that involved nearly a decade of intense training.
• 22:32
  It would have. It wouldn't have been possible.
• 22:34
  The earliest female physicians, such as Elizabeth Elizabeth
• 22:37
  Blackwell, were unmarried and didn't have to worry about
• 22:40
  children. Most women with any sort of
• 22:42
  career were unmarried. Being pregnant non-stop and
• 22:45
  caring for a brood of children makes it very hard to have a
• 22:48
  career outside the home. I think it's easy to forget that
• 22:50
  up until recently, birth control wasn't a given.
• 22:53
  As recently as the 1960s, many states actually prohibited use
• 22:57
  of contraception. In 1965, the Supreme Court ruled
• 23:01
  that a Connecticut law prohibiting the use of
• 23:03
  contraceptive violated the right to marital privacy.
• 23:06
  It wasn't until 1972 that the case of, UM, Eisenstadt versus
• 23:12
  Baird explained the right to possess and use contraceptives
• 23:15
  to unmarried couples. That's only four years ago.
• 23:18
  Obviously more now when we're reading this, when she was
• 23:20
  writing, Yeah. Think about what your life would
• 23:22
  be like if birth control wasn't available to you.
• 23:25
  What would your career be like if you had ten children like
• 23:27
  great, great Grammy Mcphis? What if birth control was
• 23:30
  suddenly taken away from you? How would that affect your
• 23:33
  career and your family? So I have to say a great big
• 23:36
  thank you to birth control and express my anger.
• 23:38
  See better now that there are people out there potentially in
• 23:41
  positions of power who would like to take it away.
• 23:43
  So again, I have to completely commend her for saying this and
• 23:46
  speaking out about it. I think it's brilliant.
• 23:49
  And similarly, there are posts like this.
• 23:52
  This was on her personal blog on in January 2018 and education on
• 23:57
  late term abortions. I was recently talking to a
• 24:00
  friend of mine named Joe who works in healthcare and is an
• 24:03
  intelligent, well educated person.
• 24:04
  The subject of abortion came up and Joe told me he was
• 24:07
  pro-choice but I just don't think women should be allowed to
• 24:11
  have abortions at 37 or 38 weeks pregnant.
• 24:14
  That's just wrong. I think.
• 24:16
  I gasped audibly and said Oh no, I didn't understand how a smart
• 24:20
  guy in healthcare could believe women were having abortions 2
• 24:24
  weeks before delivery. Or, putting it another way, that
• 24:27
  there are doctors out there who are effectively willing to
• 24:30
  murder full term foetuses. Donald Trump said it during a
• 24:33
  debate though, and while people did point out that this is
• 24:36
  ridiculous, I always felt like a big enough deal wasn't made of
• 24:39
  it. Our presidential candidate
• 24:41
  believed women are allowed to have abortions at full term.
• 24:44
  How can we brush that off? I calmly tried to explain to Joe
• 24:48
  why this logic made no sense and he quickly said I don't want to
• 24:51
  talk about it anymore. And that was the end of the
• 24:53
  discussion. Now I'm someone who sympathises
• 24:55
  with people who are genuinely pro-life.
• 24:57
  I have female friends who believe life starts at
• 24:59
  conception and can talk intelligently on the subject.
• 25:02
  I am willing to listen to anyone who does not just want to ban
• 25:05
  abortion as a way to punish women for having sex.
• 25:08
  But the issue of late term abortion is one that I think is
• 25:10
  confusing to a lot of people. And I genuinely believe that
• 25:13
  very few of the politicians, especially the ones that try to
• 25:17
  a ban, that try to ban abortion after 20 weeks, really
• 25:20
  understand anything about it. And then she links to what she
• 25:23
  calls an incredible article by an OBGYN about late term
• 25:26
  abortions. She says here are the
• 25:28
  highlights. One, late term abortions make up
• 25:30
  about 1% of all abortions, so banning them does not really
• 25:35
  reduce abortion rates that much. 280% of late term abortions
• 25:39
  offer serious birth defects, many of which are incompatible
• 25:42
  with life. Should politicians really get to
• 25:45
  decide if women have to spend four months with a baby with no
• 25:48
  brain in her uterus? Why is that even a political
• 25:51
  issue? Completely agree with her three.
• 25:54
  Most of the remaining 20% are for serious maternal health
• 25:58
  reasons. 4 after 24 weeks, abortion is never performed,
• 26:02
  delivery is always attempted. Essentially these politicians
• 26:06
  want to keep women with the most heartbreaking situations, tragic
• 26:09
  birth defects, life threatening conditions from getting medical
• 26:13
  treatment. I can't figure out any way to
• 26:15
  justify it other than ignorance about late term abortions.
• 26:19
  And again, I think it's brilliant that she's speaking
• 26:20
  out about this. I really do.
• 26:22
  It's brilliant that she's pointing out all the
• 26:23
  misinformation and correcting it.
• 26:25
  And eight years after Freda wrote this blog post,
• 26:28
  misinformation is still being spread about online.
• 26:30
  I still think we need people like Freda and others like her
• 26:32
  who are educated in this matter to speak up about it.
• 26:34
  So again, I commend her for that.
• 26:36
  There are also a few political posts that she makes.
• 26:39
  And now recently I've covered a lot of right wingers on my
• 26:41
  channel. But I'm pleased to say that
• 26:43
  Freda, despite, you know, I had some worries about her, she's
• 26:47
  not right wing, thank God. And she is very outspoken about
• 26:51
  her hatred for Donald Trump and seems to be quite a fan of
• 26:54
  Obama. He's just a couple of examples.
• 26:57
  But don't don't like the first line of this first person I'm
• 26:59
  about to read for you. She is very against Donald
• 27:02
  Trump. She does not actually like him.
• 27:04
  This was August 2015 and she titles the post misogynist.
• 27:09
  I like Donald Trump, I truly do, because the guy is just the
• 27:13
  biggest bum hole ever and has no chance of winning the election.
• 27:17
  Oh, I wish she'd been right, which I'm sure he realises, so I
• 27:20
  can only assume that he's just running for a personal
• 27:23
  amusement. So I really appreciate that he's
• 27:25
  spending so much money just to make this election fun for us.
• 27:28
  I wish, I wish she was right. God.
• 27:32
  That said, if we were to take his candidacy seriously for a
• 27:34
  minute, I can't fathom how any female in her right mind would
• 27:37
  ever vote for him. Is there something I'm missing?
• 27:40
  One, this guy sponsors the Miss America pageant which obviously
• 27:44
  completely objectifies women and he was a total creep while he
• 27:47
  did it. 2, he's public referred to women, see Rosie O'Donnell
• 27:51
  starters as ugly. Three, he may have raped his
• 27:54
  wife and when his wife accused him of this, his lawyer stated
• 27:57
  that you can't rape your wife, so obviously he's innocent.
• 28:01
  He's also raped other women, let's be real.
• 28:03
  Four, he called a female lawyer disgusting for wanting to break
• 28:06
  a trial to pump milk for his three month old baby.
• 28:09
  Gross. He keeps doing that to women
• 28:11
  though, doesn't he? Keeps calling them names like
• 28:12
  Piggy. Is it like disgusting?
• 28:13
  So he's not changed at all. 5 when a woman does something to
• 28:16
  pee him off, his first response is to suggest she's on her
• 28:19
  period. I hate Megyn Kelly, but that was
• 28:22
  still really obnoxious. Agreed.
• 28:24
  Six. He seems to believe vaccines
• 28:26
  cause autism. Well, maybe Jenny McCarthy would
• 28:28
  vote for him. So that's one woman.
• 28:30
  He still does to this day, doesn't he?
• 28:31
  And now he thinks paracetamol causes it as well.
• 28:34
  Insane. I know he has 18% of the
• 28:37
  Republican vote right now, but I find it really hard to believe
• 28:39
  that any of those 18% are women. I wish she'd been right.
• 28:43
  And in another post, this was February 2016, she called this
• 28:47
  one lesser evil. She says.
• 28:49
  I haven't written anything political on here in a long
• 28:51
  time, but I have to say, with the primaries officially
• 28:53
  underway, I spend a good amount of time with my husband, who I
• 28:56
  usually agree with politically. Are over our choice of
• 28:59
  candidates. He thinks that Trump becoming
• 29:01
  president is the worst thing that could happen to this
• 29:03
  country. I think that Ted Cruz becoming
• 29:05
  president is the worst thing that could happen to this
• 29:06
  country. You know, I hate to say it, but
• 29:08
  I think her husband was right on this one.
• 29:10
  In reality, the idea of Trump becoming president is incredibly
• 29:12
  frightening. But on the other hand, Cruz is
• 29:15
  vocally against the issues that are personally really important
• 29:17
  to me. Gay marriage, Planned Parenthood
• 29:19
  slash abortion slash, birth control, global warming, gun
• 29:22
  control, Obamacare. Don't get me wrong, Trump is on
• 29:25
  the wrong side of all these issues, but not quite as
• 29:27
  vehement currently. Oh, how things have changed.
• 29:31
  He's he's still against all that stuff.
• 29:33
  He's. Oh, bless her.
• 29:36
  She tried. On The Daily Show.
• 29:38
  They compared it to a blood clot versus cancer.
• 29:40
  I can't remember who was who. I mean, sadly, I think she was
• 29:44
  wrong here because Trump has done nothing but destroy
• 29:45
  America, especially in a second term.
• 29:47
  But yeah. And she was also outspoken about
• 29:52
  supporting sexual assault survivors, especially when they
• 29:55
  were children. So for example here we go.
• 29:58
  This was December 2014 and the post was titled sexual abuse is
• 30:03
  okay. I had a patient in residency who
• 30:05
  had a brain injury and we couldn't discharge him to his
• 30:08
  parents house because he sexually abused his sister when
• 30:11
  she was 9. She's 14 now, and the parent,
• 30:14
  sorry. And the patient had been living
• 30:15
  with his grandparents, so he wasn't near her.
• 30:18
  I was mentioning this to the new attending, and he was like, So
• 30:20
  what? He sexually abused her a long
• 30:22
  time ago. He should still be able to live
• 30:24
  there. OK.
• 30:25
  I was told that if he goes back home, we have to report it to
• 30:27
  Child Protective Services. That's not true.
• 30:30
  The attending insisted he hasn't expressed any intent to hurt
• 30:33
  her, so we don't have to report it.
• 30:35
  The sexual abuse was long ago. It was five years.
• 30:37
  That's not long ago. Yeah, but he's already attacked
• 30:40
  two women here but his sister won't be involved in its care.
• 30:43
  The attending said they'll be living in the same house but she
• 30:46
  can avoid him and she can leave the house if she wants.
• 30:50
  Mate, she's 14. I didn't even know what to say
• 30:52
  to that. I mean, how would he like a
• 30:54
  serial killer living in his house, provided the murderer
• 30:56
  hasn't specifically stated he's going to kill him and he doesn't
• 30:59
  have to go near him? I was totally baffled by the
• 31:02
  fact he thinks there's nothing wrong with making a 14 year old
• 31:04
  girl live in a house with a guy that abused her and she can
• 31:08
  leave the house if she wants. WTF.
• 31:10
  She's 14, not 40. Where was she supposed to go?
• 31:14
  And again, I can't commend her enough for speaking up for this
• 31:16
  girl and advocating for her and calling out this nonsense.
• 31:20
  And I genuinely like this side of Freda.
• 31:22
  I think this is great seeing her stand up for people and be so
• 31:25
  kind and be so supportive. Brilliant.
• 31:29
  And finally, I just want to point out this post.
• 31:31
  This was June 2013 and this is one of her weekly wines, which
• 31:35
  is something we'll see. She does a weekly wine segment
• 31:37
  quite a lot where she whines about stuff, but this one was
• 31:40
  called It's called compassion. Sometimes I post about topics
• 31:43
  that don't affect me currently or directly, but I've noticed
• 31:46
  the effects they have on other people.
• 31:47
  For example, when I talked about how crazy hard it is to pay
• 31:50
  nanny taxes or how people with small kids should get extra
• 31:53
  flexibility in choosing which holidays to have off.
• 31:56
  No matter how many times I reiterated that I do not and
• 31:59
  will never have a nanny, or that my work gives me all major
• 32:01
  holidays off automatically, people keep insisting that I'm
• 32:04
  being selfish and entitled. I mean, I'm pro-choice but I
• 32:08
  never I have never and probably will never have an abortion.
• 32:11
  I'm pro gay marriage even though I don't want to marry another
• 32:14
  woman personally. People are capable of caring
• 32:16
  about issues that don't affect them directly.
• 32:19
  You can call me wrong if you want, but I'm not selfish for
• 32:21
  making a post to help people who are not me.
• 32:23
  And again, love this side of her.
• 32:25
  I think this is brilliant. I also speak out frequently
• 32:27
  about topics which don't personally affect me and I
• 32:30
  fundraise for charities that I'll never be personally helped
• 32:32
  by because like Frida, I care about people, you know, and when
• 32:36
  I've done function raising for charities like Forward, which
• 32:39
  often help women who are survivors of child marriage or
• 32:43
  FGM, and people are like, well, why are you like talking about
• 32:46
  that? Why you doesn't affect you?
• 32:47
  Why are you talking about that? I'm like, because I care about
• 32:49
  other people. I have compassion for other
• 32:50
  people. Just because something doesn't
• 32:52
  affect me, that doesn't mean I don't want it stopping because I
• 32:54
  care about the people who are affected by it.
• 32:56
  You know, it should be obvious, but it's surprising how rarely I
• 32:59
  see other people advocating for this.
• 33:01
  So Frida being outspoken about it is something that I really,
• 33:03
  really respect and really like about her.
• 33:05
  But I think that a considerable chunk of the positive stuff done
• 33:10
  and out of the way. Now let's talk about some of the
• 33:13
  things that I have a few criticisms of.
• 33:14
  And I think what one of the biggest themes in Frida's posts,
• 33:18
  unsurprisingly, is about her focus and experience on
• 33:22
  motherhood. And just to be clear, I have
• 33:23
  absolutely no issues with her writing about and speaking at
• 33:26
  her her own experience with it. As we saw in the last section, I
• 33:29
  think this can be a really positive thing because she can
• 33:31
  speak about things that other people relate to, which it can
• 33:33
  be really helpful for other people.
• 33:35
  However, one of her core messages in many of her blog
• 33:38
  posts is this idea that all women need to have kids, all
• 33:41
  women want to have kids and all women should have kids and if
• 33:44
  you choose not to, she will judge you for it.
• 33:47
  She is very judgmental of child free people and that's what I
• 33:51
  have a bit of an issue with. So let's take a look at a few
• 33:54
  examples. One of her first posts on this
• 33:56
  issue was from June 2008 and this was titled Advanced
• 34:00
  Maternal Age. My OB told me an interesting
• 34:03
  story during one of my routine pregnancy cheques.
• 34:05
  Well, sorry, I'm really to see without my glasses today.
• 34:08
  Sorry. When she was starting her
• 34:09
  residency, one of the first lectures the residents got was
• 34:12
  about how fertility declined sharply after age 30.
• 34:15
  She said it was kind of scary the way it was presented.
• 34:17
  And sure enough, a few months later, all the female residents
• 34:20
  in the programme were pregnant. Lesson.
• 34:22
  Don't talk to your female residents about declining
• 34:24
  fertility. I had a baby at age 27, which is
• 34:27
  above the mean age for a first baby in this country, 25 I
• 34:30
  think, but well below the mean age for a first baby among my
• 34:33
  colleagues. I think this average has gone up
• 34:35
  since Freda wrote this blog post. 18 years?
• 34:38
  Oh my God, this blog post is 18 years ago.
• 34:41
  Wow. Yeah, average maternal age has
• 34:45
  gone up quite a bit since then. In some areas of America it's as
• 34:48
  high as 28.5. I think her next blog post on
• 34:51
  this was a few days later, June 2008.
• 34:54
  Baby making in medical school. I gave all the female pre meds
• 34:57
  that I meet. The same possibly controversial
• 34:59
  advice. If you want to have children
• 35:00
  before 30, you should seriously reconsider your decision to go
• 35:04
  to Med school. And this is where I start to
• 35:06
  feel a little annoyed with her. She's more than OK letting women
• 35:08
  decide what to do with their own bodies when it comes to things
• 35:10
  like breastfeeding. But when it comes to deciding
• 35:12
  when to have kids, or if they have kids, Freda is more than
• 35:16
  happy to lecture them about what's right and what isn't.
• 35:18
  So her advocacy for bodily autonomy only goes so far, you
• 35:21
  know? And of course, she seems to
• 35:23
  think that all women are baby obsessed as she makes statements
• 35:25
  like this. March 2012.
• 35:27
  This might be a slight exaggeration, but all women love
• 35:30
  to talk about baby names. No, we don't.
• 35:33
  And it's not just when people have babies that she gets judgy
• 35:35
  about. It's also about whether those
• 35:36
  babies will planned or not. September 2012 Oops babies.
• 35:40
  It seems there are a lot of oops babies out there.
• 35:42
  I know a bunch of people who said they only wanted to have
• 35:45
  one or two kids or no kids and then oops.
• 35:48
  It seems like everyone I know had an oops baby or knows
• 35:50
  someone who did. I questioned the concept of oops
• 35:53
  babies. I wasn't trying to get pregnant
• 35:54
  either time I did, but I know I wasn't trying hard not to.
• 35:58
  Yeah, Miss Timed Naturally natural Family planning.
• 36:00
  One of my friends in residence, he got pregnant by accident
• 36:03
  twice, although one time it sounded like she wasn't using
• 36:06
  any protection of mine. Who got pregnant in high school
• 36:08
  wasn't the result of a broken condom, but no condom at all.
• 36:11
  I do know a woman who got pregnant on birth control pills,
• 36:14
  but I have to wonder if she was taking them correctly.
• 36:16
  I wonder how many genuine oops babies there are, or if they're
• 36:19
  really should have known better babies.
• 36:21
  It's so judgy. So I mean, right now I feel like
• 36:24
  99% sure that I don't want any more children, and I certainly
• 36:27
  feel like the stress of another child would be unbearable right
• 36:29
  now. So I got a Marina IUD.
• 36:31
  It's supposed to be greater than 99% effective and as effective
• 36:34
  as sterilisation procedures. But the more stories say here,
• 36:37
  the more I worry about an oops baby.
• 36:39
  I'll just say from personal experience, not everyone can
• 36:43
  have the Marina. For me it is simply too big for
• 36:45
  my uterus and it was causing me constant daily pain and it Oh my
• 36:48
  God it was horrific. It was just like because it was
• 36:50
  digging into the sides of my uterus constantly and causing
• 36:52
  constant cramping and pain and it's just like it was great for
• 36:55
  stopping my periods, horrible for having daily pain nightmare.
• 37:00
  And it'll be great for some people, absolutely they will.
• 37:02
  And I I absolutely advise people like give it a try.
• 37:06
  But if you haven't abnormally small uterus like I do, and an
• 37:09
  abnormally small cervix, it might not be possible for you.
• 37:12
  Just going to say that her judgement around people deciding
• 37:15
  not to have kids or waiting to have kids does seem to stem from
• 37:17
  her own mother's struggles with infertility, which Freda said
• 37:20
  she saw when she was growing up. And so I understand that her
• 37:23
  judgments come from a place of concern and worry.
• 37:25
  But these don't stop her comments from upsetting a lot of
• 37:28
  people, as we'll see in a moment when we read some of the replies
• 37:31
  to her posts. I'm also just going to take a
• 37:33
  break for a moment because I am struggling with my speech, so
• 37:36
  I'll be back in a few minutes. OK, I've been had a little break
• 37:38
  so let's get back to. This is from October 17th, 2010.
• 37:44
  My experience with infertility, which is actually about her
• 37:46
  mum's experience. Susan Sarandon had a child with
• 37:49
  Tim Robinson at age 46. You might ask why I know such a
• 37:52
  thing. Believe me, I'm not some kind of
• 37:54
  encyclopaedia of what celebrities had kids at what
• 37:56
  age. But in 1992, when Susan Sarandon
• 37:59
  was 46 and gave birth to a son, my mother was 42 and trying to
• 38:02
  get pregnant for the last three years.
• 38:03
  I don't know if you've ever known someone having problems
• 38:05
  with infertility, or if you have, you may not have lived
• 38:08
  with them. It's pretty painful.
• 38:09
  When my mother found out Susan Sarandon was pregnant, she
• 38:11
  cried. Cried.
• 38:12
  Let me tell you, there are a lot of people in this world
• 38:14
  procreating, probably like millions.
• 38:16
  It's really difficult to shield your mother from all of them.
• 38:18
  We weren't even allowed to watch television shows involving
• 38:20
  fictional pregnancies or babies. It went on for years.
• 38:23
  Years of pregnant, years of pregnancy tests, ovulation
• 38:26
  tests, fertility drugs, and mostly just lots of crying.
• 38:29
  And eventually, she really was too old.
• 38:31
  And then there was the trying to adopt era, which came with its
• 38:34
  own set of heart breaks. And my daughter when I was 27
• 38:36
  and was probably the youngest of all my friends and colleagues to
• 38:39
  have a baby, although interestingly, that was still
• 38:41
  above the average age to have a first child in this country.
• 38:44
  But then again, that includes people living in huts in Wyoming
• 38:47
  where I don't think that birth control has been invented yet.
• 38:50
  Kidding. In any case, I felt a little
• 38:52
  awkward at times having a baby so early.
• 38:53
  Some of my friends thought I was nuts, and now, almost four years
• 38:56
  later, some of them still haven't gotten started on their
• 38:58
  first. Thing is, when you've watched
• 38:59
  someone close to you go through the heartbreak of infertility
• 39:02
  month in a month, it's really hard to wait for something you
• 39:04
  know you really want. I knew I had to be a mother,
• 39:06
  that my life would seem empty if I didn't get that experience.
• 39:10
  So how could I do anything to risk that not happening?
• 39:12
  And I did wait for quite a while.
• 39:14
  It's not like I got knocked up in high school and made it
• 39:16
  through my entire intern year. That's why I feel a bit
• 39:19
  perplexed when I see my female friends waiting through all of
• 39:22
  Med school, then all of then all of residency, and even though
• 39:26
  they're married and in their early or even mid 30s, they
• 39:28
  still continue to wait. And the truth is, I'm sure
• 39:30
  they're all going to get pregnant.
• 39:31
  People seem to get pregnant pretty easily, but then again
• 39:34
  what if you're the one person who can't and you didn't even
• 39:36
  start trying till age 35? I had a talk about this with an
• 39:39
  OBGYN attending and she said that most of her female Co
• 39:42
  residents decided to wait until after residency to conceive and
• 39:45
  some were less successful than others.
• 39:47
  That's why despite the fact I'm only 31 and in many ways I like
• 39:51
  my life how it is, I feel compelled to start thinking
• 39:53
  about having a second baby sooner rather than later.
• 39:55
  My husband tells me I'm being silly but if I know I want a
• 39:58
  second then how could I risk not having it?
• 39:59
  No, this is my 100th post on mothers of medicine.
• 40:02
  Definitely. Only a sign I've got too much
• 40:03
  time on my hands. But some of the commenters were
• 40:06
  not happy with this post at all. One anonymous person says
• 40:09
  Although I appreciate your comments on fertility, I felt
• 40:11
  compelled to respond. I'm a 30 year old female with
• 40:14
  one year and eight months who's counting left of residency.
• 40:17
  My husband and I are both in residency training actually, and
• 40:20
  although I do think we want children in the future, we're
• 40:22
  not trying to get pregnant currently.
• 40:24
  Unfortunately, your unfairly written article helps contribute
• 40:27
  to the pressure that women in my position feel.
• 40:29
  As a woman in her 30s, I have had friends, found family and
• 40:32
  even patients. Give me the you better hurry up
• 40:35
  and start a family lecture. And as a doctor, I'm acutely
• 40:37
  aware that statistics are not in my favour as I gain years.
• 40:40
  However, I am a firm believer that you must be mentally ready
• 40:43
  to start a family and not just start trying because you feel
• 40:46
  time is running out. I like this commenter, they seem
• 40:48
  sensible. Your article, especially written
• 40:50
  by a female doctor of only 31, is not very woman friendly.
• 40:54
  In addition, when you write things like.
• 40:56
  That's why I feel a bit perplexed when I see my female
• 40:58
  friends wait in through all of Med school and all of residency,
• 41:01
  and even though they're married and in their early or even mid
• 41:03
  30s, they still continue to wait.
• 41:05
  Maybe you should take a minute to get to know these women
• 41:07
  before you make these kinds of statements.
• 41:09
  Why not talk to these friends of yours if you're so concerned?
• 41:12
  As successful, as successful and intelligent female doctors, we
• 41:16
  understand the risks of waiting to have children until we are
• 41:19
  ready. Although this may perplex you,
• 41:21
  not all of us are in the position to have children in
• 41:23
  medical school or residency. Finally, as a colleague, I would
• 41:26
  appreciate you thinking before judging me and female doctors
• 41:29
  that make tough decisions. I think this is really fair
• 41:32
  comment and I do agree with them I think.
• 41:34
  Yeah, great point. Freda or Fizzy as she was going
• 41:37
  by at the time, disagrees though she says Anon.
• 41:39
  I appreciate your point of view. I didn't say these things to
• 41:42
  judge anyone or be controversial, although I was
• 41:44
  fairly sure some people, especially those who are already
• 41:47
  feeling the pressure, would take it that way.
• 41:48
  I'm just trying to share the pressure that I personally felt
• 41:51
  to have a child early and why I felt that.
• 41:53
  Obviously I know as well as anyone that having a baby is a
• 41:55
  huge deal and sometimes I do wish I had waited.
• 41:58
  A lot of these times I feel jealous of my friends who
• 42:00
  waited, but I also know from experience that infertility is
• 42:03
  really, really heartbreaking and frustrating, and I was terrified
• 42:06
  of going through that myself. Ultimately, it's a risk you take
• 42:09
  when you wait. If you're comfortable taking
• 42:10
  that risk, then great. I wasn't, and I wanted to
• 42:12
  explain why. Freda really does have a habit
• 42:14
  of arguing back and forth and people who disagree with her.
• 42:17
  We'll touch more on this later, but it's something you'll
• 42:20
  notice. And another commenter called
• 42:21
  Lindsay said it's just a set of facts and judgement.
• 42:24
  Chances of infertility and complications go up with age.
• 42:27
  You have to judge that against your financial position and
• 42:29
  personal and relationship situation.
• 42:31
  Against how important having a child or children is due and
• 42:34
  make a decision based on those factors yeah, on board there
• 42:37
  another commenter who goes by OMDG said.
• 42:40
  What's perplexing to me is why this is so hard for you to
• 42:43
  fathom Fizzy. Not every woman lives her life
• 42:45
  waiting for the day when she can finally be a mother you're
• 42:47
  entitled to your set of priorities.
• 42:48
  Other women are entitled to theirs and Freda responded with
• 42:51
  some people seem to be having trouble with the word perplexed
• 42:54
  so why don't we say curious instead?
• 42:56
  I do of course understand the decision to wait on some level
• 42:59
  because I've been waiting on #2 most people have their kids two
• 43:01
  to three as A and I've waited longer, around 4 years.
• 43:04
  I'm sure that many people are perplexed as to why I've waited
• 43:07
  longer and I'm OK with that. I'm comfortable with my decision
• 43:09
  and the risk I'm taking. I have lots of friends who don't
• 43:11
  want kids at all and that's pretty understandable.
• 43:14
  It's only she says that because another post she gets really
• 43:16
  judgy about them. I guess I'm more curious about
• 43:18
  friends who are 35 plus and definitely want kids but are
• 43:21
  still waiting. It seems like a big risk, but
• 43:23
  then again I'm extremely risk adverse in general.
• 43:26
  I hate to gamble. Once again, I didn't intend this
• 43:28
  as a judgement post, although I'm not surprised or
• 43:31
  disappointed it sparks controversy.
• 43:33
  My mother's infertility was primarily was a primary theme
• 43:36
  during at least a third of my childhood.
• 43:38
  I was sharing a meaningful story that influenced my later
• 43:41
  choices. I was trying to be honest and
• 43:42
  share my feelings waiting to conceive as a risk.
• 43:45
  That is a fact. I was trying to explain why I
• 43:47
  didn't take that risk. However, another anonymous
• 43:50
  commenter accused her of being anti woman and said anti woman
• 43:54
  can be characterised when a professional intelligent female
• 43:56
  doctor says. And now, almost four years
• 43:58
  later, some of them still haven't gotten started on their
• 44:01
  first in reference to her friend being age 31, not getting
• 44:04
  started having children, or when the author writes That's why I
• 44:06
  feel a bit perplexed when I see my female friends wait in blah
• 44:09
  blah blah blah blah. We've read that quote.
• 44:10
  If you can't understand why that's not anti woman, I cannot
• 44:13
  help you. Freda left a long response to
• 44:15
  this. After having a night to sleep on
• 44:17
  it. I feel even more certain that my
• 44:19
  post is not judgmental in the slightest.
• 44:21
  You're still in training, so the perplexed statement doesn't
• 44:23
  apply to you. But yes, I meant that statement.
• 44:26
  If you're 35, done with training, married, no you want
• 44:29
  kids, then what are you waiting for?
• 44:31
  Just because you're a physician does that mean your biological
• 44:33
  clock has different rules? Is start is stating the
• 44:37
  biological facts of female fertility anti woman?
• 44:39
  If so you should send some hate mail to this site and the
• 44:42
  thousands of others like it. And it's a website
• 44:44
  calledadvancedfertility.com and none.
• 44:46
  I truly hope that when you're ready to conceive, you are
• 44:48
  successful. The people who are telling you
• 44:50
  not to wait though aren't doing it because they're mean or
• 44:52
  hateful. They're simply worried about
• 44:54
  biological facts and that you'll be heartbroken if you risk if
• 44:57
  you take a risk and fail. I'm not saying that 20 year.
• 44:59
  I'm not saying that a 20 year old should go out and get
• 45:01
  pregnant. I'm not saying people who don't
• 45:03
  want kids need to have them. That's not what she says in
• 45:05
  other posts. Or that people who aren't sure
• 45:08
  need to have them. But fertility falls off after
• 45:10
  age 30 and much more so after age 35.
• 45:13
  If you're 31 and want two to three kids, you're taking a risk
• 45:15
  by not trying. Now I think need to analyse your
• 45:17
  choices and on and try to figure out why a relatively innocent
• 45:21
  and personal post made you so enraged.
• 45:23
  Look at some of my main points. My husband thinks I'm nuts.
• 45:26
  I got pregnant earlier than any of my friends and felt awkward
• 45:28
  about it. I had a trauma early in my
• 45:29
  childhood and everyone gets pregnant.
• 45:31
  I said repeat repeatedly that it was my choice, if I was
• 45:34
  judgmental of anyone it was myself, but you somehow took it
• 45:36
  as a personal attack. I'd love to hear from a female
• 45:38
  physician who struggled with fertility a guest post and maybe
• 45:41
  they can give their thoughts on whether they think waiting into
• 45:44
  your late 30s is a good idea. And thanks a lot because now
• 45:47
  you've made me sound like my mother.
• 45:49
  In another comment she says of course I knew this post would
• 45:51
  generate a lot of comments. I was purposely saving it for my
• 45:54
  100th post to make a Big Bang. I really do apologise if anyone
• 45:58
  was hurt by the post because that wasn't my intention.
• 46:00
  And yes, I do understand why having been babies is emotional
• 46:03
  and waiting to have babies is emotional.
• 46:05
  And infertility is emotional. That is part of my point.
• 46:07
  I know women in their 30s hear this from their friends, family,
• 46:10
  colleagues, etc. And they get to the point that
• 46:12
  anytime they hear it, they want to punch the person who says it.
• 46:15
  I've gotten some of that same pressure on #2 especially from
• 46:17
  my mother. So believe me, I understand.
• 46:20
  But on the other hand, this is a story that was incredibly
• 46:22
  meaningful to me. I wasn't going to not share it
• 46:24
  because someone might get offended.
• 46:25
  If I'm going to work that way, I might as well stop blogging
• 46:27
  altogether. Speaking of judgmental, there is
• 46:29
  absolutely nobody worse than Internet mummies.
• 46:31
  If you don't have your crib facing like east, you're called
• 46:35
  you're called a Nazi and an unfit mother.
• 46:37
  OK, obviously it's a woman's choice whether to reproduce and
• 46:40
  when I'm not making that choice for anyone.
• 46:42
  I thought people might be interested to hear why I made
• 46:45
  the specific decision I did because I often felt like nobody
• 46:48
  understood. I do worry about infertility
• 46:50
  most more than most women because of my family history.
• 46:52
  And it also makes me realise that reproductive technology
• 46:55
  isn't foolproof. I didn't want to miss my window
• 46:57
  because it goes past another person who is anonymous.
• 47:00
  And I think, you know, this is a pretty fair thing said.
• 47:02
  I'm just picking up this post now.
• 47:03
  Quite the responses. Fizzy, I can understand the
• 47:05
  points you were trying to make, but you just need to reread your
• 47:08
  original post. Your comments come across as
• 47:10
  judgmental. Just saying.
• 47:12
  She replied. She replied to this saying I
• 47:14
  think people who are older and have not gotten started on baby
• 47:17
  making are all reading this post as judgmental.
• 47:19
  Mostly because they hear comments about you better not
• 47:21
  wait all the time and are sick of it.
• 47:22
  I was trying to do a be honest and I was trying to do a be
• 47:25
  honest. Oh but I completely misread
• 47:27
  that. But all I was trying to do was
• 47:29
  be honest and explain my real thought process.
• 47:31
  And I think I presented most sides if you reread it.
• 47:35
  So I mean like this commentary was on her side.
• 47:37
  They were trying to help her. And she's like, well, if you
• 47:39
  reread it, see what I mean about how she's not the most likeable
• 47:42
  even when she is making good points, blah, blah blah.
• 47:44
  These are not judgments but rather worries I have.
• 47:47
  This was my stream of consciousness.
• 47:48
  I think I presented both sides, but nobody wants to hear both
• 47:51
  sides. They only want to hear their own
• 47:52
  side. I know.
• 47:54
  Following this, she decided that she had so much to say on the
• 47:56
  topic that she wanted to make a Part 2 in which she got her
• 47:59
  mother to share her story herself.
• 48:01
  And again, they were quite a lot of angry comments.
• 48:03
  So this was my experience with infertility Part 2.
• 48:06
  I felt like my first post hadn't peed everyone off sufficiently,
• 48:09
  so I've decided to take things a step further.
• 48:11
  I mentioned this Internet discussion to my mother, who is
• 48:14
  not just a mother in medicine, but also a mother of her mother
• 48:16
  in medicine. And she wants to share her story
• 48:19
  with Casey's permission, who runs the blog posting what she
• 48:21
  wrote to me below. Get ready to flame, because the
• 48:24
  people who didn't like the first post are going to hate this one.
• 48:26
  So I kind of feel like Frida likes being controversial.
• 48:30
  She likes getting people angry and then she likes arguing with
• 48:32
  them in the comments. You'll see when we get to the
• 48:35
  end of this video there's posts about how sometimes like she
• 48:37
  does it on purpose to get people riled up.
• 48:39
  Anyway, this is her mother's story.
• 48:41
  This is fine, we don't have to go into it all.
• 48:44
  But one of the things her mum said was I don't have confidence
• 48:47
  in fertility treatments and one commenter called Kelly picked up
• 48:50
  on this and said that is quite a statement.
• 48:52
  Things have changed so much since your mum's treatment.
• 48:55
  Pergonal is not used which is what her mum had.
• 48:57
  There are also better treatments for causes of infertility.
• 49:00
  I have the greatest confidence because I know I would not have
• 49:03
  my wonderful 4 year old without the medical intervention and I
• 49:07
  think that's a big thing to think about.
• 49:09
  Freda was writing this back in 2010 and again, it's 16 years
• 49:12
  ago. Things have improved greatly
• 49:14
  since then as well. So like in the 30 years since
• 49:16
  her mum was struggling in the 16 years since the blog post went
• 49:19
  on. So it's like 40 or what, 4645
• 49:22
  years since her mum was struggling with infertility.
• 49:25
  I feel like fertility treatments in the same way because we have
• 49:28
  had so many advances. So that's something worth
• 49:30
  thinking about. Freda replied to Kelly here
• 49:32
  though being pretty sensible saying I'm glad things worked
• 49:34
  out for you but it doesn't for everyone, even these days
• 49:37
  unfortunately. I have friends who have recently
• 49:39
  failed some of the modern fertility treatments in the last
• 49:41
  few years. It's much better than it was,
• 49:44
  but there are still limits to what medical science can
• 49:46
  accomplish. And another anonymous poster
• 49:49
  said I'm a non number one from your first post.
• 49:51
  I truly feel sorry for you. To be a better person you must
• 49:55
  be able to look at your writing and opinions critically.
• 49:57
  The story in this post is not judgmental, nor is it written in
• 50:00
  a judgmental way. Your post however had some
• 50:03
  questionable statements. My original point is that you
• 50:05
  must be supportive of all women. Whether you meant it or not,
• 50:08
  your comments did not come across as supportive.
• 50:10
  Instead of listening to a thoughtful response though, you
• 50:12
  became very defensive and many of your statements after my post
• 50:15
  continued along the same line. Finally, in your introduction of
• 50:18
  the new writer, you emphasised the word hate and you even chose
• 50:22
  to write that word in capital letters.
• 50:23
  Is this really the word you want to say loudest?
• 50:26
  As a colleague I would ask that in future you really try to
• 50:28
  listen to others opinions before becoming defensive.
• 50:31
  Also try to start my place of mutual respect rather than hate
• 50:34
  when you begin posts respectfully And non Frida.
• 50:38
  Oh she got so like sassy in her response.
• 50:40
  And non number one, I should remind you that you were the one
• 50:43
  who immediately and insultingly dubbed my post as anti woman and
• 50:47
  didn't even have the courtesy to use any sort of real identity
• 50:50
  for yourself so that I could properly reply.
• 50:53
  See, she loves arguing. She loves it.
• 50:55
  I don't think one person agreed with you that the post was anti
• 50:58
  woman. There's no point in my
• 50:59
  explaining to you as there's no point in my explaining to you.
• 51:02
  Why? Because you don't actually seem
• 51:03
  to be listening to anything I say and you were the only
• 51:06
  person, even if the ones who disagreed, who was actually rude
• 51:09
  in your reply. I'm sorry you're so insecure
• 51:11
  about the future that you feel the need to take it out on me.
• 51:13
  If you were truly happy with the choices you were making, you
• 51:16
  wouldn't feel a need to attack me repeatedly.
• 51:18
  You would simply shrug and let it go every time you reply.
• 51:21
  And anger just reaffirms your insecurity.
• 51:23
  This has nothing to do with me or my post, but about your own
• 51:26
  fears. You need to learn to be
• 51:27
  comfortable with your own choices and stop being so damn
• 51:30
  oversensitive. She sounds like me, me arguing
• 51:32
  with people when I was like 21, you know?
• 51:34
  So all that happened around her 100th post anniversary?
• 51:38
  That's really hard to say. But she also tried to serve a
• 51:41
  bunch of controversy for her 50th post anniversary as well
• 51:45
  back in 2009, where she admitted her reason for blogging it all
• 51:49
  was this. So June 2009.
• 51:52
  Oh my God, that means she wrote 50 posts in like a year.
• 51:57
  Anyway, she writes a lot. When I realised that this would
• 52:00
  be my 50th post on this blog, I decided I wanted to make it
• 52:03
  good. Not my usual crap, right?
• 52:05
  I asked around for advice and got some suggestions that were
• 52:07
  good, probably topics for future posts, but didn't quite have the
• 52:10
  wow factor I wanted. I wanted to make a post that was
• 52:13
  not just interesting, but shocking.
• 52:15
  See, she loves the drama. Loves it.
• 52:17
  So here goes. When I joined this blog back in
• 52:19
  its infancy one year ago, I had an ulterior motive.
• 52:22
  The truth was that I felt that going into medicine was a huge,
• 52:25
  huge mistake for any woman who wanted to become a mother, and I
• 52:29
  was determined to share that opinion.
• 52:31
  I mean, that's a lot. That's a lot being like, if you
• 52:35
  ever want to be a mom, don't do this entire huge range of
• 52:38
  careers. Like, that's a lot.
• 52:40
  Thankfully though, however, it seems like she's changed her
• 52:42
  mind over the years and through blogging she ended up saying.
• 52:46
  Anyone who's read some of my earlier post would know.
• 52:48
  I came dangerously close to blurting out that opinion on
• 52:50
  several occasions, but I always just barely stopped short and
• 52:53
  ended with some cheesy phrase like but it's all worth it.
• 52:56
  I didn't say what I truly felt because I was scared I knew this
• 52:59
  opinion would not be popular. Nobody wants to hear that a
• 53:02
  woman shouldn't follow her career aspirations just because
• 53:05
  she wants to have a family. Yeah, there's good reason no one
• 53:07
  wants to hear that. And moreover, I was embarrassed
• 53:10
  to admit that after 7 gruelling years of training and hundreds
• 53:12
  of thousands of dollars in tuition, I had major regrets.
• 53:16
  But I felt that it was important and needed to be said.
• 53:18
  Maybe that's why I've written so much.
• 53:20
  I'm like the guy who buys 20 unneeded items at the newsstand,
• 53:24
  hoping the one issue of Playboy goes unnoticed.
• 53:26
  A year later, I still haven't made a definitive post warning
• 53:29
  mothers to be not going to medicine.
• 53:30
  But not because I'm a chicken anymore.
• 53:32
  It's because reading these entries over the course of the
• 53:34
  last year has actually changed my mind.
• 53:37
  We love to see someone grow and change.
• 53:38
  This is brilliant. Hearing about all these female
• 53:40
  physicians, both the bloggers and the commenters who love
• 53:43
  being mothers in medicine has inspired me.
• 53:45
  I'm changed. If you guys love it, then I'm
• 53:47
  optimistic that I can too. Maybe I'm just giddy about my
• 53:50
  graduating residency, but I no longer feel that a dire need to
• 53:54
  tell young female pre meds to run before it's too late.
• 53:57
  So I guess my 50th post, I'd like to say thanks.
• 54:00
  Thanks to everyone who posted or commented about how how being a
• 54:03
  physician Mama is a gift that only a few of us get to
• 54:06
  experience. I needed that.
• 54:08
  Which sounds great, we love that.
• 54:10
  However, as time went on and I read more and more of her posts,
• 54:13
  I began to realise that maybe she hadn't actually changed her
• 54:16
  mind at all because she still seemed to hate her job.
• 54:19
  She hated being a doctor and she was still writing posts about
• 54:22
  how if you want to be a mother, you need to do the mother thing
• 54:25
  first and the doctor thing second.
• 54:27
  Or for some women, she was just flat out saying don't become a
• 54:30
  doctor because, well, in one case she says certain women are
• 54:34
  too pretty to be doctors, but we'll get to that.
• 54:36
  It's wild here was where are we up to Let's take a look at a few
• 54:42
  posts as examples of her like pushing motherhood on people
• 54:45
  before career and so on. So this was March 2012.
• 54:48
  Why you absolutely need to have a baby in residency.
• 54:52
  She says I was going to write a post going through several
• 54:54
  domains and decide which was easier doing it meaning having
• 54:58
  maybe meaning having a baby as an attending or doing it as a
• 55:01
  residency or like, you know, during residency.
• 55:05
  But I'll save some time for both of us attending Windsor round to
• 55:07
  the point where I got mad at myself for not having weight at
• 55:10
  the first time round. Of course, everything's easier
• 55:12
  the second time round because you know what to expect and I
• 55:14
  happen to have an easier second child than the first and a
• 55:17
  flexible job. That said, I think having a baby
• 55:19
  during residency was a good experience in many ways and I
• 55:22
  obviously do not regret it. So in the interest of being
• 55:24
  positive, I present to you reasons to have a kid during
• 55:28
  residency instead of waiting. One, because apparently it isn't
• 55:31
  so great to have kids after age 40 and blah blah blah.
• 55:34
  She goes on to talk about how awful it is to have a kid when
• 55:37
  you're older if you can. Two, it's unlikely when you to
• 55:40
  get out in the real world, you will have like 20 people to
• 55:42
  share coverage for your leave. Coverage is much harder to come
• 55:45
  by in the real world and blah, blah, blah.
• 55:47
  So once again, she's talking about why you need to have a kid
• 55:49
  as early as possible, blah, blah.
• 55:50
  Nothing really changed there, did it?
• 55:52
  There's more for everyone talks about the getting the career
• 55:55
  stuff out the way before having kids because you want to enjoy
• 55:57
  your kids. But how about enjoying your
• 55:59
  career the second you get out in the real world and start
• 56:02
  building your career? Do you really want it broken up
• 56:04
  by maternity leave and sleepless nights?
• 56:06
  So she says, do the kids first, do the job second, 6.
• 56:10
  And it helps you grow up and gain maturity and perspective,
• 56:13
  which, let's face it, let's face it, a lot of residents really
• 56:16
  need. Yeah, Because a person couldn't
• 56:17
  possibly be mature or have perspective or be responsible
• 56:21
  without being a parent, right? A being a parent gives you a way
• 56:23
  to relate to attendings. And some of them might give you
• 56:26
  smack for taking maternity leave.
• 56:28
  I felt like I got more respect for being a mum.
• 56:31
  And 9:00 because what else are you going to put a picture of at
• 56:34
  the end of your PowerPoint lecture?
• 56:35
  Your cat? Am I crazy for thinking like,
• 56:37
  don't include your family in a work presentation?
• 56:40
  I don't know, I'm confused by that one.
• 56:41
  That's really bizarre. And she just kept going with
• 56:43
  these types of posts for years. Here's another again.
• 56:45
  September 2012. Having kids young.
• 56:47
  More and more it seems like women are waiting until their
• 56:50
  30s or even their late 30s to have children.
• 56:52
  Medicine. I think it's a function of
• 56:54
  trying to get difficult training out the way first, which I can
• 56:56
  certainly understand. There are times when I question
• 56:58
  my own decision to have kids so young, but ultimately I think it
• 57:01
  was a good decision. I've written here before about
• 57:03
  how I think career advancement can always be postponed, but
• 57:07
  having kids is one thing that's time sensitive for women.
• 57:09
  Here's why I'm glad I had kids young.
• 57:12
  One pregnancy was much easier in my 20s and my 30's.
• 57:15
  The difference was actually surprising and my glucose
• 57:17
  numbers were even worse the second time.
• 57:19
  I had 0 complications for my first pregnancy, and since I was
• 57:22
  so young, I didn't have to go through any invasive testing
• 57:24
  like amniocentesis. 2 Caring for a newborn was easier in my 20s
• 57:28
  and my 30s. My body was not.
• 57:30
  Which is funny because certainly you're saying the second
• 57:32
  pregnancy was easier, but OK. My body was much more amenable
• 57:35
  to it when I was younger and I had far fewer aches and pains. 3
• 57:38
  Presumably I'll continue to have more energy to do stuff with my
• 57:41
  kids throughout my 30s compared with parents in their 40s.
• 57:44
  I've heard a lot of older dads complain about this.
• 57:47
  Four. My parents are younger and have
• 57:48
  more energy to help than they would if I'd waited until they
• 57:51
  were in their late 60s to have kids, and similarly have a
• 57:54
  greater chance of being a young grandma who can help with and
• 57:57
  appreciate my own grandchildren. Fingers crossed, Five.
• 57:59
  I never had to go through the pains of trying to conceive
• 58:02
  while all my friends were having babies and posting photos of
• 58:04
  them on Facebook. If I did have trouble TTC trying
• 58:08
  to conceive at 27, I would have had more time to work on it.
• 58:11
  What are we on, 6-6? Something like that.
• 58:13
  Arranging cover was amazingly less burdensome as a resident
• 58:16
  than it was as an attending. Hang on, that's my dishwasher 7
• 58:20
  At this point, since I feel done with childbearing, IUD willing,
• 58:24
  I can expand my career and take on new obligations without
• 58:26
  worrying about another pregnancy and kids interrupting.
• 58:29
  And finally, kids are awesome. I'm going to disagree with that
• 58:32
  one, but that's just a personal opinion, of course.
• 58:35
  I'm sure there's a similar list of benefits to having kids at
• 58:37
  age 40. And it's not just that she's
• 58:39
  trying to convince you that her way is the right way, it's that
• 58:41
  any as a way, in her opinion, is wrong.
• 58:43
  Take this post from just a few months later in December 2012,
• 58:46
  titled Older Parenthood or Pending American Society.
• 58:50
  I was at a meeting recently with several female physicians and
• 58:52
  young therapists. We were discussing a patient who
• 58:54
  was 45 years old and had a six year old son.
• 58:57
  One of the therapists commented, So that means she was 39 when
• 59:01
  she had a baby. That's so old.
• 59:04
  Crickets chirped. Almost every physician in that
• 59:06
  room had had children at 39 or older.
• 59:08
  Same with my mum actually, and she was a month off 38 when I
• 59:12
  was born. So yeah, on Facebook this
• 59:14
  morning, one of my friends posted an article about how
• 59:16
  families are having children at older ages and the consequences
• 59:19
  of this decision. In case you don't read the
• 59:20
  article, there are its main. These are its main points.
• 59:24
  One, the chance of learning disabilities as well as certain
• 59:26
  other problems such as schizophrenia and autism
• 59:28
  increased several fold in older parents.
• 59:31
  I don't know if the autism thing has been proven there all the
• 59:34
  it's a free new thing. I know there's a higher chance
• 59:36
  of Down syndrome if the father was older but I would like a
• 59:41
  proper source for this please. Two, women who have their first
• 59:44
  child at an older age are less likely to have the number of
• 59:46
  children they want at 10 years earlier.
• 59:48
  People's needs and wants also change of the period of 10
• 59:51
  years, so that's that. Three, reproduction becomes more
• 59:54
  difficult and costly as you age, unless you're in a country with
• 59:57
  nationalised health care like the UK, in which case it's not
• 1:00:00
  more costly at all because it's still free having children at an
• 1:00:04
  older age. Means having older grandparents
• 1:00:05
  for your kids. I don't see why that's a bad
• 1:00:07
  thing. And having children at an older
• 1:00:09
  age means dying when your kids are younger or at least being
• 1:00:12
  more infirm for most of their adult are heard At the same
• 1:00:16
  time. The article also cites children
• 1:00:17
  of older parents grow up in wealthier households, leading to
• 1:00:20
  most lead more stable lives and do better in school.
• 1:00:22
  Although it's funny how she's very much like, I'm just trying
• 1:00:25
  to show both sides. I'm trying to but she's like,
• 1:00:27
  here's a whole article about my side of things and a line about
• 1:00:30
  the opposite side. Ultimately, it's a very personal
• 1:00:32
  decision, but I know when it comes to motherhood, we're all
• 1:00:34
  racked with guilt about our decisions.
• 1:00:36
  And one of the illest decisions you have as a mother is when to
• 1:00:38
  have babies. Like, I get her point, and this
• 1:00:42
  isn't like, the worst thing she's ever said or done, I'll
• 1:00:44
  say that. But I feel like she's being bit
• 1:00:47
  patronising because, you know, that if women are choosing to
• 1:00:49
  wait, this is already stuff that they've already thought about
• 1:00:52
  and weighed up. You know what I mean?
• 1:00:54
  The later someone goes into motherhood and pregnancy, the
• 1:00:56
  more they've likely thought about it and weighed up certain
• 1:00:58
  pros and cons, you know? Yeah.
• 1:01:01
  These sentiments come up in other posts too.
• 1:01:02
  So for example, September 2011, The best career for a mother.
• 1:01:06
  And I recently read A blog post about whether medicine is a good
• 1:01:09
  career for a woman since you can work part time to be with your
• 1:01:11
  kids and many specialties are very family friendly.
• 1:01:14
  I wasn't thinking about kids when I was 21 and applying to
• 1:01:17
  Med school, but I was told medicine was a good career for a
• 1:01:19
  woman because it's a field where a woman can earn a good living
• 1:01:22
  and face less discrimination than in some math oriented
• 1:01:25
  fields I was considering. As for being a mother in
• 1:01:28
  medicine, if you'd asked me five years ago, I would have said
• 1:01:30
  that being in medicine is a horrible idea if you want to be
• 1:01:34
  a mother. Now I revise my opinion and say
• 1:01:36
  that it's only a horrible idea if you want to be a mother
• 1:01:38
  before you turn 30, but it's still still not ideal in that
• 1:01:41
  you can't reschedule a roster of patients because your kid has a
• 1:01:44
  fever and squeezing in a pumping session can be difficult during
• 1:01:47
  a doctor's typically busy day. I'm following on from this.
• 1:01:50
  I just want to talk about her complaints about child free
• 1:01:52
  people. There's quite a few posts on
• 1:01:54
  this, but I picked out just a couple.
• 1:01:55
  This was July 2008 called Child Free.
• 1:01:58
  I've written about the decision of female physicians to have a
• 1:02:00
  child early in their career versus late in their career.
• 1:02:03
  But there's a third option. I've noticed more and more
• 1:02:05
  female physicians seem to be choosing no kids.
• 1:02:08
  In my residency programme, many of the female attendings would
• 1:02:11
  have chosen to be child. Many of the female attendings
• 1:02:13
  had chosen to be child free. When I asked them why they get
• 1:02:16
  the following reasons. I wanted to be able to retire
• 1:02:19
  early. I thought I could either be a
• 1:02:20
  good doctor or a good mother, but not both.
• 1:02:23
  So I chose to be a good doctor. Kids are too much
• 1:02:25
  responsibility. I'd rather be a godparent or an
• 1:02:27
  aunt. I don't like kids much.
• 1:02:29
  I didn't want to ruin my life. And I think that all sounds
• 1:02:32
  absolutely reasonable, right? No, not to freedom.
• 1:02:34
  A lot of these people seem enamoured with the concept of
• 1:02:37
  DINK. DINK is an acronym that stands
• 1:02:39
  for Double Income. No kids.
• 1:02:41
  As another resident recently remarked to me, a pair of DINK
• 1:02:44
  physicians have really made it. They can have a huge, expensive
• 1:02:47
  house. They could spend their afternoon
• 1:02:48
  playing golf, their weekends at the spa, and their nights
• 1:02:51
  bathing in gold amulets. I guess I don't really know what
• 1:02:53
  rich people during their leisure time.
• 1:02:55
  They could retire at 50. Of course, I've always wanted
• 1:02:58
  kids, so I see things differently.
• 1:02:59
  I don't see the point of a big house if I'm not going to fill
• 1:03:02
  it up with kids. The reason I want money is so
• 1:03:05
  that I have it to spend on my kids.
• 1:03:06
  And what will I do after retirement if I don't have
• 1:03:09
  grandchildren to play with? So it just feels a bit judgy.
• 1:03:11
  She just feels like she's like forcing this idea of everyone
• 1:03:14
  should have kids onto everyone else.
• 1:03:16
  And it just bothers me a bit. Like, like, I'm sorry that you
• 1:03:18
  don't enjoy your own company or want to do anything for
• 1:03:20
  yourself, but not everyone is like that.
• 1:03:22
  Some of us like our alone time without kids.
• 1:03:25
  The idea of filling a house with kids horrifies me.
• 1:03:28
  The idea of having to play with kids during my retirement is
• 1:03:31
  also horrifying. I want to be like one of those
• 1:03:33
  old ladies who sits around and like paints all day and reads
• 1:03:36
  books and plays board games and has a bunch of old lady friends
• 1:03:39
  to gossip with. You know, that's what I want.
• 1:03:40
  I don't want kids messing that up, but that's just me.
• 1:03:43
  Freda goes on Ward 2 in December 2013.
• 1:03:46
  She wrote reasons not to have kids.
• 1:03:48
  One day in residency, I was having lunch with three people
• 1:03:51
  who did not have children, two of whom were female attendings
• 1:03:54
  who were in their 50s. So it's safe to say their child
• 1:03:56
  bearing years years are over. Third was a male resident who
• 1:04:00
  had definitively decided not to have kids, although later
• 1:04:03
  actually did. The conversation was basically
• 1:04:05
  about how horrible having children is and how it ruins
• 1:04:08
  your life and wrecks your marriage.
• 1:04:10
  I was not participating in this end of the conversation because
• 1:04:12
  I didn't agree. One of the attendings involved
• 1:04:14
  in this conversation was Doctor Blaber, the most notoriously
• 1:04:17
  horrible attending that our hospital ever had, so nicknamed
• 1:04:20
  for the painfully long and irrelevant conversations she had
• 1:04:23
  with every patient, especially on weekend rounds.
• 1:04:25
  She was universally thought of as incompetent, slow, and dumb
• 1:04:28
  by other attending therapists and nursing staff.
• 1:04:31
  She was so awful that even though she was a terrible
• 1:04:33
  teacher, the powers that be were afraid to take her resident away
• 1:04:37
  because they thought she would kill someone if she were alone.
• 1:04:40
  She does really nasty about other women sometimes.
• 1:04:42
  Like quite often. Like horrible.
• 1:04:45
  It's not the only time you'll see this.
• 1:04:47
  So this is what she said. I made the decision not to have
• 1:04:50
  kids because I didn't think I would be able to have children
• 1:04:52
  and also be able to do my job really well.
• 1:04:54
  I thought that was absolutely hilarious.
• 1:04:56
  This was what she called doing her job really well.
• 1:04:58
  She should have just had the kids.
• 1:05:00
  See, she's just unnecessarily cruel.
• 1:05:02
  Like, This is why I find it really hard to find her
• 1:05:04
  likeable. You know, nasty, really nasty.
• 1:05:07
  She goes on. The best moment was when the
• 1:05:08
  resident asked me how having a baby had affected my marriage.
• 1:05:11
  I was about to answer something along the lines of in some ways
• 1:05:13
  where closer, closer, but some things are more difficult
• 1:05:16
  because we don't get to spend as much time with just the two of
• 1:05:18
  us. But before I could say this,
• 1:05:20
  Doctor Blaber broke in. There is no marriage.
• 1:05:22
  It's just about the baby. Thanks for your input on my
• 1:05:24
  life, Dr B. Actually, she's someone who
• 1:05:27
  seemed really like she should have had kids.
• 1:05:29
  She's got a kind of matronly quality and she loves telling
• 1:05:31
  people what to do in a very patronising tone.
• 1:05:34
  So it just seems like freedom is a bit of a mean girl sometimes,
• 1:05:36
  especially when it comes to people with no kids.
• 1:05:39
  And there's more to though August 2013, No kids.
• 1:05:42
  This is an article I posted on Facebook that generated a lot of
• 1:05:45
  discussion, so I'm posting here. The article was titled I'm
• 1:05:48
  coming out, I don't want children.
• 1:05:50
  The article talks about how she feels it can ship to the LGBT
• 1:05:52
  community due to her decision not to have kids.
• 1:05:55
  The article irritated me on a few levels.
• 1:05:57
  One, comparing the plight of gay people to a couple who doesn't
• 1:06:00
  want to have kids is pretty insulting.
• 1:06:02
  The LGBT community and what they go through through even just
• 1:06:05
  calling it a choice shows how different it is.
• 1:06:08
  I make tonnes of choices that have been subject to criticism,
• 1:06:11
  for example, choosing to work as a mom, but that doesn't mean I
• 1:06:14
  know what it's like to be persecuted for my sexual
• 1:06:16
  preferences. And two, you're 27, write this
• 1:06:20
  article in another 15 years because I think every single one
• 1:06:23
  of my friends in their 20s who strongly didn't want kids to
• 1:06:25
  somehow change their mind. There's a lot to unpack there.
• 1:06:29
  I did actually go and read that article by the way.
• 1:06:31
  And so in regards to the first point, the author of the article
• 1:06:33
  simply said I relate to my LGBT brothers and sisters as I also
• 1:06:38
  struggle for others acceptance. And that's about it.
• 1:06:40
  That's as far as it goes. She said she relates because she
• 1:06:43
  struggles for others acceptance. She wasn't like diminishing what
• 1:06:47
  they go through, nothing like that, she was just saying we'd
• 1:06:49
  both struggle to be accepted by people.
• 1:06:51
  She went on to say as time goes on I will start to become more
• 1:06:53
  and more isolated from my peer group as my secret comes out
• 1:06:56
  because I don't want children first.
• 1:06:57
  This might seem like a minor comment, however it's a choice
• 1:07:00
  that I feel has alienated me from my peers and will continue
• 1:07:04
  to do so as I creep towards middle age.
• 1:07:06
  The realisation that I am somehow different is how I found
• 1:07:09
  myself standing up for my own personal beliefs and along the
• 1:07:12
  way championing equal. Championing equal right for all.
• 1:07:16
  Although I know I do not share the same predicament as gays and
• 1:07:19
  lesbians, I use the comparison to explain that I too am seeking
• 1:07:23
  acceptance in a world in which I often feel ostracised and out of
• 1:07:27
  place. And I get it.
• 1:07:28
  And I don't necessarily think there's anything wrong with that
• 1:07:32
  comparison. And to me, like this decision
• 1:07:34
  not to have kids is not like a choice as such.
• 1:07:37
  It's just an inherent part of who I am.
• 1:07:39
  Not a mother. I'm not motherly.
• 1:07:41
  I don't have those motherly maternal feelings towards kids
• 1:07:45
  or babies. So to me that's not a choice,
• 1:07:48
  you know, in the same way that like my sexuality is not a
• 1:07:50
  choice, it just is what it is, you know?
• 1:07:54
  But it's interesting as well because like, again, I do see
• 1:07:56
  comparisons because while like when I talk about my like desire
• 1:08:01
  to not want kids and stuff, I always get people saying the
• 1:08:04
  same things that get said to a lot of gay people.
• 1:08:07
  You just need to find the right man.
• 1:08:08
  It's just a phase, you'll grow out of it, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:08:11
  You know what I mean? Like there are very similar
• 1:08:13
  responses. So I understand this author
• 1:08:14
  making the comparison. And I know I'm just one
• 1:08:17
  individual and like I can't sit here and speak for the entire
• 1:08:20
  queer community, but I'm just saying I don't find it that
• 1:08:22
  disrespectful the comparison, you know?
• 1:08:24
  And I kind of find it funny that Frida, who is a self-proclaimed
• 1:08:27
  straight woman who goes on and on about how straight she is,
• 1:08:30
  not a lot of her posts, is more than happy to try and speak for
• 1:08:33
  all queer people. It's interesting.
• 1:08:35
  And her second point annoyed me as well that you're 27, wait
• 1:08:39
  another 15 years thing because Freda had her first kid at 27.
• 1:08:43
  What if I turn around to her and said, oh love, you're only 27,
• 1:08:46
  Wait another 15 years to have kids because you might change
• 1:08:49
  your mind. She would be so angry at that.
• 1:08:52
  Does she not understand that? Like this is also disrespectful.
• 1:08:55
  Again, it bothers me, bothers me.
• 1:08:57
  It's like she's literally doing the whole it's just a phase
• 1:09:00
  sugar out of it thing like anyway.
• 1:09:02
  And Freda also makes a lot of posts about how difficult it is
• 1:09:04
  to be a parent and how child free people could never possibly
• 1:09:07
  understand that. So, for example, August 2008,
• 1:09:11
  last night we went out for dinner with a friend and my
• 1:09:13
  husband as well as his girlfriend.
• 1:09:15
  Those members of this couple were graduate students and
• 1:09:17
  didn't have any kids yet. If you had construct a
• 1:09:19
  responsibility scale to rate the obligations of the various
• 1:09:22
  people that various people have in their lives, I would say that
• 1:09:25
  being a medical resident with children will fall on the high
• 1:09:27
  end and being a childless grad student would fall on the low
• 1:09:30
  end, the very, very low end, like 0.
• 1:09:34
  Another one is November 2012. Holiday privileges?
• 1:09:37
  Here's a question for the ages. Should employees with children
• 1:09:40
  be given preference in terms of not having to work the holidays?
• 1:09:43
  I say yes. You will notice that complaining
• 1:09:46
  about stuff is 1 of Frida's favourite hobbies.
• 1:09:49
  And you'll notice that when she's not complaining about
• 1:09:50
  being a parent but also telling everyone that they should
• 1:09:53
  totally 100% definitely be a parent, she's complaining about
• 1:09:56
  being a doctor. This next bunch of posts and
• 1:10:00
  stuff are about Frida's hatred of her job.
• 1:10:02
  But first, we need to figure out what her job actually is.
• 1:10:05
  November 2008, she says. I work in a field called
• 1:10:08
  physical medicine and rehabilitation, which means that
• 1:10:11
  I'm pretty much constantly explaining what I do.
• 1:10:13
  Basically, we deal with sport and other musculoskeletal
• 1:10:16
  injuries, as well as the subacute medical management of
• 1:10:20
  patients with neurological injuries, including brain and
• 1:10:23
  spinal cord injury. It's supposedly a lifestyle
• 1:10:25
  specialty, which is illustrated by the joke that PM and R stands
• 1:10:29
  for Plenty of Money and Relaxation.
• 1:10:31
  Of course, it's not all money and relaxation, especially
• 1:10:34
  during residency. But consider during I had no in
• 1:10:36
  house call even during my first year after internship.
• 1:10:39
  I can't complain too much. Lifestyle specialties are
• 1:10:42
  usually popular among all applying Med students, not just
• 1:10:46
  women who want to have kids. That all skin is just super
• 1:10:48
  interesting. It's definitely a lot easier to
• 1:10:50
  have children if you're in a specialty where the hours are
• 1:10:52
  manageable. And I won't lie and say that
• 1:10:55
  lifestyle wasn't a significant part of my decision.
• 1:10:58
  When describing some specifics about her job, she made this
• 1:11:00
  post. Blah blah blah.
• 1:11:02
  Here's a list of some of the cool stuff we get to do.
• 1:11:04
  EMG's, fluoroscopic injections for play for pain, Botox slash
• 1:11:09
  phenyl blocks, musculoskeletal ultrasound, steroid injections,
• 1:11:13
  blah blah blah, you get the idea.
• 1:11:14
  It's fine. This is about her job.
• 1:11:16
  She's also written a lot about her career path in general.
• 1:11:19
  At one point she nearly went into research.
• 1:11:21
  So July 2009, she says. And apparently after residency,
• 1:11:25
  it's all about the connections. And I had just the right one.
• 1:11:28
  Whoo I get to continue being an impoverished trainee, A large
• 1:11:32
  component of my fellowship is supposed to be flexible research
• 1:11:35
  time. This really appeals to me, not
• 1:11:37
  because I intend to spend this time taking my daughter to the
• 1:11:39
  park, but because I love doing research.
• 1:11:41
  Many aeons ago during college, I participated in quite a few
• 1:11:45
  serious research projects, but the mice in the lab weren't my
• 1:11:48
  bag. I love proposing a project,
• 1:11:50
  collecting data, analysing data, writing the paper, and
• 1:11:53
  especially seeing the article in print.
• 1:11:54
  But I hated sitting in a lab with test tubes and or rodents
• 1:11:58
  and PCR. So the idea of doing clinical
• 1:12:00
  research really appeals to me. People all tell me I seem like
• 1:12:03
  an academic and it's in my blood IE both my parents.
• 1:12:06
  I also think that it's ideal. Well I also think that it's
• 1:12:09
  ideal work for a mother in medicine due to flexibility.
• 1:12:12
  I never want to give up seeing patients or lose my clinical
• 1:12:15
  skills, but I think I'd lose my mind and seeing patients full
• 1:12:18
  time. Research grants seem like a nice
• 1:12:20
  way to add to your income while not working yourself into the
• 1:12:23
  ground. Also, you have the opportunity
• 1:12:25
  to contribute something to your field as a whole.
• 1:12:27
  However, just nine months later, we instead get told May 2010,
• 1:12:32
  why not research? She says that she started off
• 1:12:35
  talking a little bit about her early career, and then years
• 1:12:37
  later I found myself in a research fellowship, which was
• 1:12:40
  just nine months before this post.
• 1:12:42
  Finally, putting my money my where my mouth was, I applied
• 1:12:45
  for an award that would have paid my salary for several years
• 1:12:47
  and launched me into a career in research.
• 1:12:49
  I convinced myself that research was what I wanted to do, that it
• 1:12:52
  would be great for my resume, and that it would allow me
• 1:12:54
  flexibility in my life more than a clinical career.
• 1:12:57
  It also seemed like research was a a career for a mother.
• 1:12:59
  It actually surprises me that so few women do it.
• 1:13:02
  Unfortunately, my application for the award was promptly
• 1:13:05
  rejected to many applicants, blah blah blah.
• 1:13:07
  I'm not used to academic rejection.
• 1:13:09
  And it felt awful as I read the e-mail in disbelief.
• 1:13:12
  I decided that I decided that I couldn't live my life this way.
• 1:13:15
  I would not apply for future research awards.
• 1:13:17
  I would be a clinician, not a researcher.
• 1:13:20
  How much can change in nine months?
• 1:13:22
  She says, because I like to make lists.
• 1:13:23
  These are the reasons I ultimately decided research was
• 1:13:26
  not for me. One, I don't like the feeling of
• 1:13:28
  being rejected, which I'm told is something you have to get
• 1:13:30
  used to in research and love. 2 although few jobs are permanent,
• 1:13:34
  living from grant to grant is nerve racking I've heard.
• 1:13:36
  Three, due to the economy I've seen a lot of research
• 1:13:39
  departments getting served with major cutbacks.
• 1:13:41
  This might be a bad time to start being a researcher. 4I do
• 1:13:44
  think a job in research lends flexibility, but it also results
• 1:13:47
  in a work day that never ends blah blah blah and mistreating
• 1:13:50
  patients for the sake of making them better rather than enormous
• 1:13:52
  research subjects. 6 I personally don't get excited
• 1:13:56
  about research even though before she was going on about
• 1:13:58
  how much she loved it. Interesting.
• 1:13:59
  So it's wild how quickly her perspective can change with just
• 1:14:02
  one simple rejection. But anyway, and here's another
• 1:14:05
  similar example. So Freda often talks about how
• 1:14:08
  she didn't have good enough grades to go into some of the
• 1:14:10
  more competitive fields in medicine like dermatology.
• 1:14:13
  But then she tries to convince us that it was also totally
• 1:14:15
  totally, totally her choice not going to dermatology because,
• 1:14:19
  well, her reasons seem mean. So in one of her earlier blog
• 1:14:22
  posts, she went on about how she didn't have good enough grades
• 1:14:24
  for dermatology. But then in this one in June
• 1:14:27
  2012, she says I mentioned on this before that I had good
• 1:14:29
  grades and schools in Med school, although not freaking
• 1:14:31
  awesome. So it seems like the reason I
• 1:14:34
  didn't do dermatology should be should be obvious.
• 1:14:36
  I wasn't freaking awesome and that's what you need to be to
• 1:14:39
  match in derm these days. Between you and me, I actually
• 1:14:41
  did have a possible opportunity to do derm.
• 1:14:44
  My cousin is a big cheese dermatologist and assured me
• 1:14:47
  multiple times that he'd get me a residency spot if I wanted it.
• 1:14:50
  I don't know if this was a true offer, but Needless to say I
• 1:14:52
  didn't take him upon it. It was tempting for sure.
• 1:14:55
  Dermatologists make good money and have a great lifestyle.
• 1:14:57
  I like procedures and dermatologists get to do lots of
• 1:15:00
  those. Part of the reason I didn't try
• 1:15:02
  was because of location, but there were some other reasons.
• 1:15:05
  I looked at the people in my class who matched in derm and
• 1:15:07
  thought about those people being my colleagues the rest of my
• 1:15:09
  life and I felt ill. It's just mean, isn't it really,
• 1:15:13
  really mean. She also writes a lot of posts
• 1:15:16
  which tell us why she hates her job so much.
• 1:15:19
  So for example, May 2011 weekly wine.
• 1:15:22
  Intellectual curiosity. I think I've lost my
• 1:15:24
  intellectual curiosity. I think it's been gone a while,
• 1:15:26
  like years, maybe more than a decade.
• 1:15:29
  The first time I suspected I'd lost my intellectual curiosity
• 1:15:32
  was during my intern year. I actually then goes on to tell
• 1:15:35
  a story of treating a patient with a really unusual diagnosis
• 1:15:38
  that excited all of her colleagues because we're like,
• 1:15:40
  Oh my God, we've never seen this before.
• 1:15:41
  We get to treat this. This is groundbreaking.
• 1:15:43
  And she said, aside from the fact that the woman clearly had
• 1:15:46
  some sort of stomatization disorder and not freaking
• 1:15:49
  brucellosis, I'm terrible at reading medical words.
• 1:15:53
  I'm so sorry. It occurred to me that I was
• 1:15:55
  totally and completely unexcited by the idea that she might have
• 1:15:58
  brucellosis or some other rare entity.
• 1:16:01
  I honestly couldn't have cared less, but I had to fake caring.
• 1:16:04
  I kept commenting wow that was such an interesting case.
• 1:16:07
  I hope it wasn't too obvious that I was completely full of
• 1:16:10
  crap. For a brief time in residency I
• 1:16:11
  thought I regained my intellectual curiosity but I
• 1:16:14
  think I might have just been kidding myself.
• 1:16:16
  And now, well, I get irritated when people want to work up a
• 1:16:20
  chronic medical conditions on my short stay in patients.
• 1:16:23
  Recently I had a patient blah blah blah blah blah and
• 1:16:26
  neurology was talking about how it's so interesting and
• 1:16:28
  wondering what was causing it, while the truth was I couldn't
• 1:16:31
  care less. It's kind sad that I lost my
• 1:16:33
  intellectual curiosity, though. It's one of those things that
• 1:16:36
  keeps you from being unhappy as a physician.
• 1:16:38
  So she's clearly miserable. She's really, really miserable
• 1:16:41
  in this job. And here's another example.
• 1:16:44
  December 2011, thinking big. There's a young physician named
• 1:16:47
  Doctor Thomas, Sorry, Thompson, who works at my hospital.
• 1:16:50
  A few days ago, I heard some of the staff members talking about
• 1:16:53
  Doctor Thompson. Someday I'm going to turn on the
• 1:16:54
  TV and Doctor Thompson will be talking about something
• 1:16:56
  important. And I'll be like, I know that
• 1:16:57
  guy. On the one hand, I was a little
• 1:16:59
  insulted that nobody would say that about me.
• 1:17:01
  On the other hand, I agree, he's smart and has ambition.
• 1:17:04
  While I'm thinking, how can I help a patient, Doctor Thompson
• 1:17:07
  is also thinking, always thinking, how can I help the
• 1:17:09
  hospital? How can I help my field?
• 1:17:11
  How can I help the planet? I could never think as big as he
• 1:17:14
  does. Mostly I'm just trying to get
• 1:17:16
  through the day. I wonder, is it because I'm a
• 1:17:18
  woman with kids? Does that take the fight out of
• 1:17:20
  me? Is it possible to be a mother of
• 1:17:22
  young children and also think big?
• 1:17:24
  Recently I saw a list of all the female world leaders.
• 1:17:26
  There are currently 20 female presidents and prime ministers,
• 1:17:29
  which is a record number, and half of the 10 most populous
• 1:17:32
  countries in the world of female leaders.
• 1:17:34
  These were all women, many of them mothers, who clearly think
• 1:17:36
  big. It was sort of inspiring to see
• 1:17:38
  that list. I guess it means I have no
• 1:17:40
  excuse. So as much as Freda likes to use
• 1:17:43
  her, I'm a doctor. I'm a doctor as a credential
• 1:17:45
  these days. I don't think she ever felt
• 1:17:47
  passionate about it. I don't think she actually ever
• 1:17:49
  really enjoyed it or wanted to do it, which is quite sad.
• 1:17:52
  And it's also sad that she thinks women with kids can't
• 1:17:54
  think big or have passions outside of being a mother to
• 1:17:57
  these kids. I think it does a disservice to
• 1:17:59
  women in general to think that way, doesn't it?
• 1:18:02
  This brings us nicely on to the section about Freda hating being
• 1:18:05
  a doctor and trying to convince others, especially women,
• 1:18:08
  especially good looking women, that they shouldn't work in
• 1:18:11
  medicine. So first up, in 2008 she wrote
• 1:18:14
  Mothers don't let your daughters be doctors.
• 1:18:17
  People ask me if I plan to encourage my daughter to become
• 1:18:19
  a doctor. At this point I'd settle for her
• 1:18:22
  not colouring all over the walls.
• 1:18:23
  But my specific answer to that question is absolutely not.
• 1:18:26
  In fact, not only will I not encourage her to become a
• 1:18:29
  doctor, but I will actively discourage her from entering a
• 1:18:32
  life in medicine. But tell her every awful story I
• 1:18:35
  can think of about the abuse Med students, residents and I can
• 1:18:38
  only presume attendings are put through.
• 1:18:40
  I'll complain incessantly about how being a doctor means giving
• 1:18:43
  up your life to your patients. I mean, yes, I'll buy her the
• 1:18:46
  toy doctor's kit, but that will mostly be for me to play with.
• 1:18:49
  But she did end it with and this is a little bit better.
• 1:18:52
  And after all that, if she still wants to be a doctor, I can't
• 1:18:54
  say I'll be disappointed. What Mum doesn't want their
• 1:18:57
  daughter to follow in their footsteps?
• 1:18:58
  But it's important to me that she gets to that decision on her
• 1:19:01
  own, because medicine is not a career anyone should be pushed
• 1:19:04
  into, which is not so bad. That last bit is completely
• 1:19:08
  reasonable until you read everything else she's written.
• 1:19:11
  Ever. For example, November 2008
• 1:19:15
  Pretty girls don't need to be doctors.
• 1:19:17
  And that title alone got me angry.
• 1:19:19
  And the post is even worse. On my last rotation, I was
• 1:19:22
  sharing an office with a former beauty pageant winner.
• 1:19:25
  She was gorgeous, and you can imagine how terribly attractive
• 1:19:28
  this made me feel, what with my wrinkled white coat, my shirts
• 1:19:31
  named with baby food that didn't come out in the wash, and shoes
• 1:19:34
  are probably similar to the ones your grandma wears, but she was
• 1:19:37
  such a nice girl it was hard to feel too badly about it.
• 1:19:40
  Anyway, Miss Beauty Queen was interested in going to Med
• 1:19:42
  school. Of course, over the rotation I
• 1:19:45
  did my damnedest to talk her out of it.
• 1:19:47
  Every single day. I told her a different true
• 1:19:49
  story, some titled Med School Sucks, others titled Being a
• 1:19:53
  Doctor Sucks Most, and the under the general heading of I'm
• 1:19:57
  Really Tired. Some of those stories were
• 1:19:59
  lifted right off this blog. Also, she would be a little
• 1:20:01
  older than the traditional students and I reminded her
• 1:20:04
  that. And I reminded her that Oh my
• 1:20:06
  God, your biological clock is ticking, babies.
• 1:20:10
  She was very surprised by some of the things I told her.
• 1:20:13
  She said that most people were really encouraging when she told
• 1:20:15
  them she was thinking of going to Med school, especially when
• 1:20:17
  she told them she had doubts about it.
• 1:20:19
  I was surprised by that because I thought all doctors were
• 1:20:21
  bitter. Whenever I meet a pre Med, as a
• 1:20:23
  rule, I always try and talk them out of going to Med school.
• 1:20:27
  It's not so much that I think nobody should go to Med school.
• 1:20:30
  Clearly there are people who are born doctors and love it.
• 1:20:32
  And if nobody went to Med school I'm pretty sure everyone would
• 1:20:35
  end up getting diagnosed and treated by doctor Wikipedia.
• 1:20:37
  So I'm not against Med school, but I figure if there's
• 1:20:40
  something thing that I can say that is enough to talk a person
• 1:20:42
  out of, not out of going to Med school.
• 1:20:44
  They're probably better off changing career paths now than
• 1:20:47
  when they have negative $200,000 in their bank account.
• 1:20:50
  Because medical training is damn hard.
• 1:20:52
  And most people just don't understand that.
• 1:20:54
  I mean really understand that until they're in too deep.
• 1:20:57
  I feel like if I can keep even one person from making a
• 1:20:59
  mistake, it's worth it. On the last day of the rotation,
• 1:21:02
  Miss Beauty Queen told me she was going to Business School.
• 1:21:05
  Freda understandably got backlash from this.
• 1:21:07
  Again, in her comments one person says, I'm not trying to
• 1:21:10
  criticise or anything, but maybe she would have made a great
• 1:21:12
  doctor. I think you should let her make
• 1:21:14
  her own decision instead of telling her all the bad things
• 1:21:16
  about medical school. Another person said, And she's a
• 1:21:18
  woman, not a girl. A woman.
• 1:21:20
  Don't infantilize other women. It's about power and it's sexist
• 1:21:24
  and nasty. I agree with that, which of
• 1:21:27
  course Freda responded to to the anonymous commenter.
• 1:21:30
  I was being facetious when I called her a pretty girl.
• 1:21:32
  Although I'm glad there's some passion about a topic that isn't
• 1:21:34
  political. Not sure Freda knows what
• 1:21:36
  facetious means as she was actually just being demeaning,
• 1:21:39
  but never mind. And this person HMS said don't
• 1:21:41
  know if it's a good idea to talk her out of it, but as long as
• 1:21:43
  you stay factual about what you say, namely your experience,
• 1:21:47
  it's her decision. Evil either way.
• 1:21:48
  Forecast has it that we'll be desperately short of smart yet
• 1:21:51
  people friendly healthcare professionals in the near
• 1:21:53
  future. Freda said there may be a
• 1:21:55
  shortage of doctors but there will will never be a shortage of
• 1:21:58
  desperate pre meds who want to be doctors.
• 1:22:00
  Spots get wasted when people make the wrong decision and
• 1:22:03
  either drop out of Med school or never practise or become bad
• 1:22:06
  doctors because they hate it so much.
• 1:22:08
  The irony. Not calling Friedra a bad
• 1:22:10
  doctor, just she clearly hates it.
• 1:22:12
  Interesting, I would rather have a Doctor Who had a slightly
• 1:22:15
  lower MCAT score who really loves what she does and cares
• 1:22:18
  about her patients deeply. Yeah, but for all you know, this
• 1:22:21
  woman could have loved it and you just put her off it anyway.
• 1:22:24
  And another anonymous person said you seriously discourage
• 1:22:27
  this young woman from following her ambition because she was
• 1:22:29
  pretty and because you think she should go have babies for real.
• 1:22:33
  And OMDG says as a pretty girl and slightly older than your
• 1:22:37
  traditional Med student person, I was pretty offended by your
• 1:22:40
  characterization of this person. My impression of I Bang King was
• 1:22:44
  that it was a lot less friend mummy friendly than medicine
• 1:22:47
  anyway. And last I heard hysterectomy
• 1:22:49
  wasn't a requirement for admission to Med school.
• 1:22:52
  Good point, I suppose you'll say.
• 1:22:53
  Well she chose something else so she must not have been serious
• 1:22:55
  about it, so I was right to tell her these things.
• 1:22:58
  Still, this post left a really bad taste in my mouth.
• 1:23:00
  Maybe it was how you referred to her as a beauty queen.
• 1:23:02
  Should you? Could you have shown any more
• 1:23:04
  content for her? If she looked like a rhinoceros,
• 1:23:06
  would you have assumed she had no chance at landing a man and
• 1:23:09
  told her to go for it? I'm really disappointed by this
• 1:23:11
  post. There are good reasons not to go
• 1:23:13
  to Med school, but your reason for discouraging this woman was
• 1:23:16
  way off the mark. And this person also said, I
• 1:23:18
  guess what bothers me is that your advice to her has more to
• 1:23:20
  do with your own issues than anything to do with her.
• 1:23:23
  Another anonymous commenter said I'm a beauty queen and I became
• 1:23:26
  a surgeon. Stop staring typing people due
• 1:23:28
  to how they look. She could have been a great
• 1:23:30
  doctor. Actually.
• 1:23:31
  The other day a resident was being gossiped about and they
• 1:23:33
  said she was not pretty enough to be in his operating room.
• 1:23:35
  How times change. A commenter called CF said
• 1:23:39
  sounds like someone is a little jealous.
• 1:23:41
  The first thing you said was that she practically made you
• 1:23:43
  feel ugly. She may be beautiful, a great
• 1:23:45
  doctor and have kids. One day you let your jealousy
• 1:23:48
  get the best of you and in turn made someone at and in turn made
• 1:23:52
  someone turn on their dreams. Maybe you should reconsider what
• 1:23:55
  you're doing with your life and make changes to be happier.
• 1:23:58
  Give someone who actually wants the position and give someone
• 1:24:00
  who actually wants the position have oh, I think it's might be
• 1:24:03
  and let someone who actually wants the position have it,
• 1:24:05
  whether she pretty or not. I did modelling and acted for
• 1:24:08
  three years in Los Angeles and now I start medical school in a
• 1:24:11
  year. Joe replied simply how pathetic
• 1:24:14
  to alter someone's dreams. And I kind of I kind of agree
• 1:24:17
  with a lot of the commenters here.
• 1:24:18
  I think I think they're on the right and they have some good
• 1:24:20
  points. There's more posts as well about
• 1:24:23
  Frida and discouraging people. November 2008.
• 1:24:26
  If I were a first year Med student right now, I would.
• 1:24:29
  As a third year Med student, I was involved in some sort of
• 1:24:31
  group discussion session with first year Med students.
• 1:24:35
  All of us older, wiser third years were offering advice to
• 1:24:38
  the first years in the form of If I were a first year Med
• 1:24:40
  student right now, I would. I just finished a particularly
• 1:24:43
  gruelling internal medicine rotation and I was feeling I was
• 1:24:46
  feeling fairly disenchanted. When it came to my turn, I said
• 1:24:49
  if I were a first year Med student right now, I would quit.
• 1:24:52
  Everyone kind of stared at me and shocked awkward silence and
• 1:24:55
  then quickly went on to the next person.
• 1:24:57
  It's quite revealing isn't it? Then, just a little while late,
• 1:25:00
  she told us there's a reason they call them fellows.
• 1:25:03
  This is going to be a bit of a rant, so apologies in advance.
• 1:25:06
  I've made no secret of the fact that I'm not terribly enamoured
• 1:25:08
  with the field of medicine or being a doctor, but I've managed
• 1:25:11
  to actually find a specialty that I love out on that last
• 1:25:14
  bit. But Yep, we can tell in regards
• 1:25:16
  to the rest. And anyway, in this post she
• 1:25:19
  talks about how she can't do the specialty that she wants to
• 1:25:21
  because it would be moving to a different place, and she can't
• 1:25:24
  do that because she's married. And she says being
• 1:25:26
  geographically flexible means possibly uprooting yourself to
• 1:25:29
  do the fellowship. It's not quite as big a deal to
• 1:25:32
  camp out in whatever land for a year if you're a single person,
• 1:25:35
  but it feels a lot more selfish to force your spouse and child
• 1:25:38
  to move with you, to give up your home, your daycare, your
• 1:25:40
  nanny, your spouse's job, etcetera.
• 1:25:42
  For a man with a family it can be just as hard, but I'm going
• 1:25:44
  out on a sexist limb to say that it's harder for women for a
• 1:25:47
  couple of reasons. There are a lot of men who are
• 1:25:49
  totally cool with being stay at home dads, and I salute them,
• 1:25:52
  but most men aren't. In this economy it's not easy to
• 1:25:55
  find a job, and there's a chance your spouse could be unemployed
• 1:25:58
  indefinitely if he gives up his job.
• 1:26:00
  For a lot of men, this would be a huge blow for their self
• 1:26:02
  esteem, possibly one that's unacceptable and would result in
• 1:26:05
  marital discord. For women in for women less so.
• 1:26:09
  In general, I think a lot of women tend to feel their careers
• 1:26:12
  take back seats to their husband's career and their
• 1:26:14
  family's needs. For me, the thought of uproot in
• 1:26:16
  my family for my own selfish career aspirations just feels
• 1:26:19
  really wrong. I can't do it.
• 1:26:21
  So that's that, my nerdy dream up in flames.
• 1:26:24
  And this just makes me feel quite sad for her.
• 1:26:26
  But again, what do I know? And I'd feel a lot more sorry
• 1:26:29
  for her though if she didn't keep going on about how she
• 1:26:31
  chose the feel she did because it was easy or easier than other
• 1:26:34
  options. Even when she talks about the
• 1:26:37
  positives or something in medicine, she has to whine about
• 1:26:39
  something like in this post. PM and R, the Holy Grail for
• 1:26:42
  many graduating Med students, Lifestyle matters a lot.
• 1:26:45
  When we applied to Med school, we all had a convincing story
• 1:26:48
  about how we want to help people, blah blah blah.
• 1:26:50
  And maybe at the time we meant it.
• 1:26:52
  Or at least some of us did. But when it comes time to decide
• 1:26:55
  what specialty we want to do for the rest of our lives, other
• 1:26:57
  than other things become more important than just helping
• 1:27:00
  people and generally doing good. We've all got loans, rent,
• 1:27:04
  children or potential children, future alimony payments,
• 1:27:07
  etcetera. Some money is important.
• 1:27:09
  And many of us gone, and many of us have gone through waking up
• 1:27:11
  at 4:00 AM for surgery rotations on Saturday horrors and decided
• 1:27:15
  that's not so much for us. I'm going to continue to be
• 1:27:18
  brutally frank. Get ready.
• 1:27:20
  I don't like to work that hard. I don't particularly like to
• 1:27:23
  wake up at 4:00 AM AM, in fact even 7:00 AM is a bit early for
• 1:27:26
  me. And that whole going to work on
• 1:27:27
  weekends thing? Not a fan.
• 1:27:29
  Or staying up the entire night on call.
• 1:27:31
  Also not my favourite thing. When I was entrenched in my
• 1:27:33
  third year of Med school, I realised that I desperately
• 1:27:35
  wanted a nine to five type job. Lots of people have nine to five
• 1:27:38
  jobs, why not me? Why?
• 1:27:40
  Why did I possibly have to suffer through three plus years
• 1:27:43
  of a horrible lifestyle in residency just to possibly have
• 1:27:46
  an equally busy practise after residency?
• 1:27:48
  I'd already worked so hard in Med school.
• 1:27:50
  It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair, damn it.
• 1:27:52
  There were specialties out there that that could have catered to
• 1:27:54
  the lifestyle I wanted. Dermatology residents have it
• 1:27:56
  pretty good, but my grades weren't good enough for that.
• 1:27:59
  That's what I was talking about earlier with where she said the
• 1:28:02
  reason she didn't do it was her grades anyway.
• 1:28:05
  My grades were good for radiology, perhaps, if I was
• 1:28:07
  willing to go anywhere, but I wasn't.
• 1:28:09
  I was following my husband where he wanted to go for his career.
• 1:28:13
  Yes, that was one of those women.
• 1:28:14
  The brutal frankness continues below.
• 1:28:16
  If you want an easier life during residency and your
• 1:28:19
  options are limited by your grades and or geography, there
• 1:28:22
  are two options, psychiatry and PMNR Psychiatry.
• 1:28:26
  Everyone knows what a psychiatrist is.
• 1:28:27
  I know this because people accidentally called me a
• 1:28:29
  psychiatrist about five times a day.
• 1:28:32
  In any case, psychiatry wasn't for me.
• 1:28:34
  I won't get into the reasons but but I was pretty sure about
• 1:28:37
  that. And I think if you've read her
• 1:28:38
  book Ward D, which is ableist nonsense and demonization of
• 1:28:42
  anyone with a mental health condition, we know why she
• 1:28:44
  didn't go into psychiatry. But there we are.
• 1:28:46
  If you're not familiar, go check out my review of that book.
• 1:28:49
  So that left PM and R, which stands for either Physical
• 1:28:51
  Medicine and Rehabilitation or Plenty of money and relaxation
• 1:28:54
  depending on who you talk to. I did a rotation as a medical
• 1:28:57
  student. Expected to be bored but
• 1:28:59
  actually really liked it. I did my residency in PM and R
• 1:29:01
  and it was easy. It was rare that I had to wake
• 1:29:04
  up before 7 AMI got home most days around 5 PMI spent maybe
• 1:29:08
  one or two nights in the hospital.
• 1:29:09
  During my entire residency, I had had a life like a normal
• 1:29:12
  human being. Amazing.
• 1:29:14
  Moving on, we got a long rant from her this time about why
• 1:29:17
  medicine is not for mothers. This is a December 2011 blog
• 1:29:20
  post titled Medicine Not for Mothers.
• 1:29:23
  I have to be honest, I'm a little burned out on writing
• 1:29:25
  about what PM and R is and why it's so awesome.
• 1:29:28
  I've covered it before, both on this blog and my own.
• 1:29:30
  People e-mail me questions about it frequently, which I'm happy
• 1:29:32
  to answer, but it's just hard to motivate myself to write yet
• 1:29:35
  another post about it. Medicine is not a great career
• 1:29:39
  for a mother. There I said it since we were
• 1:29:41
  asked to address which aspects not family friendly, allow me to
• 1:29:44
  do so. One is unpredictable when you're
• 1:29:46
  dealing with sick people. You can't predict your schedule
• 1:29:49
  whether you're doing inpatient or outpatient.
• 1:29:51
  You might think you're going to be done at 5:00 PM and then your
• 1:29:53
  last patient will say, oh by the way, I'm having 10 out of 10
• 1:29:56
  chest pain. Imagine at 6:00 PM your patient
• 1:29:59
  says that and you know your daycare will close in 15
• 1:30:01
  minutes. It can and will happen.
• 1:30:03
  It's interesting how she never makes posts about why medicine's
• 1:30:05
  not for fathers. Isn't it another reason she
• 1:30:08
  gives us? It'll mess with your sleep wake
• 1:30:10
  cycle. It's bad enough worrying that a
• 1:30:12
  baby will wake you up. Worrying that a baby or a pager
• 1:30:14
  will wake you up is enough to drive you crazy.
• 1:30:16
  I like my sleep so this is a big one for me.
• 1:30:18
  How many times I wish to be in a job where I could sleep through
• 1:30:20
  the night every night. And lastly, she said you can't
• 1:30:23
  take a break and a lot of careers you could probably take
• 1:30:25
  a year or two off after your child is born.
• 1:30:27
  In medicine it's much harder. You forget stuff and you're
• 1:30:29
  rusty when you get back. Not a great thing when you're
• 1:30:31
  dealing with people's lives and blah blah blah.
• 1:30:34
  It keeps going on. Finally there are the posts
• 1:30:37
  where she tells stories from her job and it just seems like she
• 1:30:39
  couldn't care less about the patient saw anything she
• 1:30:41
  actually does in her role. This is August 2011.
• 1:30:45
  Tales from intern year. More ER stories. 8:00 I arrive
• 1:30:49
  at the hospital. The waiting room is so
• 1:30:50
  ridiculously crowded that some patients are forced to sit on
• 1:30:53
  each others laps. Luckily we're under staffed
• 1:30:55
  tonight. 8:10 I'm assigned an OD patient.
• 1:30:58
  I'm supposed to do cheques on her every 20 minutes.
• 1:31:00
  I do 1 and subsequently forget for the rest of the night.
• 1:31:03
  She's got nurses. Sorry, but you're writing about
• 1:31:06
  ignoring a seriously ill patient who could die at any moment and
• 1:31:09
  you just forgot about her and left her to the nurses and
• 1:31:12
  you're like, what's it matter? Like it's something to brag or
• 1:31:15
  joke about. That's that's not funny.
• 1:31:17
  That's not funny. 8:30 I see a patient who is here for rectal
• 1:31:21
  abscesses, although she's placed in the hallway so I don't know
• 1:31:24
  how I'm supposed to look at it. Doesn't really matter though
• 1:31:26
  because when I speak with this lady she's clear really
• 1:31:28
  floridaly psychotic. She keeps telling me she needs a
• 1:31:31
  penicillin shot for new penicillin shot for pneumonia.
• 1:31:34
  That was pretty much all I could understand because she talked
• 1:31:36
  like Gollum on meth. I went back to my attending.
• 1:31:39
  This woman is crazy. I can't just under what she's
• 1:31:41
  saying. Fortunately after making her
• 1:31:43
  wait another hour she left. 850 suicide attempt patient.
• 1:31:47
  Surprisingly it wasn't me. Like she just lacks empathy and
• 1:31:50
  this all comes across as a bit scary right?
• 1:31:52
  And again we see her disdain for people with mental illnesses.
• 1:31:55
  1030 woman comes in smelling so strongly of alcohol I feel like
• 1:31:58
  him getting drunk just talking to her if only. 11:00 I run into
• 1:32:02
  my arch nemesis Jessica in the hallway, who I've discovered I
• 1:32:05
  have to spend my first ICU week with.
• 1:32:07
  I do the hardest thing I've had to do all night, which is flush
• 1:32:09
  her a small friendly smile. God I hate her, she's horrible.
• 1:32:13
  She's absolutely horrible. 440 Do I really have to do a rectal
• 1:32:16
  exam on the demented nursing home patient in room 45?
• 1:32:20
  O'clock. I have two hours left now.
• 1:32:22
  The game is how few patients can I get away with seeing in the
• 1:32:25
  next two hours? It's doctors like this that make
• 1:32:27
  patients and scared to ask for any help in the 1st place.
• 1:32:30
  Like it's seriously messed up. And if I'd like no wonder she
• 1:32:34
  stays anonymous because if I was her employer reading this blog,
• 1:32:36
  no chance she would ever get a job ever again, you know?
• 1:32:39
  But there are so many stories like this that Freda tells it
• 1:32:42
  just come across as mean and inconsiderate.
• 1:32:45
  And let's look at a few of her mean girl posts from both her
• 1:32:47
  personal and professional life. August 2011.
• 1:32:50
  Bad roommates. So I've been writing about ways
• 1:32:53
  prior roommates have peed me off, but this is 1 where I was
• 1:32:56
  100% guilty and still kind of feel bad about it.
• 1:32:59
  In college I had a single during my junior year, but we had a
• 1:33:03
  locked hallway and I shared a bathroom with three other girls
• 1:33:05
  who I didn't really know. These girls were all Orthodox
• 1:33:08
  Jewish and so on the Sabbath and so on the Sabbath, they weren't
• 1:33:11
  allowed to do things like turn lights on and off.
• 1:33:14
  So they asked that on Friday evening and Saturday morning, I
• 1:33:16
  leave the light in the bathroom on.
• 1:33:18
  I never ever did it, Not purposely.
• 1:33:20
  It's just this automatic thing where I always shut the lights
• 1:33:23
  off when leaving a bathroom. It was a really hard habit to
• 1:33:25
  break. So I'd often pass by the
• 1:33:27
  bathroom on a Friday night and see one of my hallmates using
• 1:33:30
  the bathroom with the light out. I'd feel so bad, yeah, but not
• 1:33:33
  bad enough to make an actual effort to change your behaviour.
• 1:33:36
  It it's so inconsiderate. She just seems to, in general,
• 1:33:39
  lack consideration for others. So look at this post about whole
• 1:33:42
  things. build-a-bear. This is March 2015.
• 1:33:44
  In her weekly whine about build-a-bear, blah blah blah,
• 1:33:46
  she goes on about the shop call and then at the end she says for
• 1:33:51
  $20 you can get your bear a motorcycle for 10.
• 1:33:53
  You could wear a leather jacket to look cool on his motorcycle,
• 1:33:56
  and if something went wrong when he was driving the motorcycle,
• 1:33:59
  you could get him a wheelchair for $25.
• 1:34:02
  If I ever find myself buying my child a wheelchair for her bear,
• 1:34:05
  you'll know that I've done something seriously wrong as a
• 1:34:08
  parent. Like, I'm sorry, what do you
• 1:34:09
  mean seriously wrong as a parent?
• 1:34:11
  Like, letting your child know that disabilities are normal.
• 1:34:14
  You know, this item that allows kids and adults in wheelchairs
• 1:34:17
  to see themselves represented in the toys and collectibles that
• 1:34:20
  they play with and collect? Like, that's lovely.
• 1:34:22
  That's a great thing. That's really important.
• 1:34:24
  I don't get why she's complaining about it.
• 1:34:26
  Yeah, a lot of the buildabear items can be a bit expensive.
• 1:34:29
  That's understandable. But I don't think, like,
• 1:34:31
  complaining about the fact that, like, oh, I'd never buy a
• 1:34:34
  wheelchair for a bit. But like, it gives me the same
• 1:34:36
  vibes as, you know, the people who come complain about, you
• 1:34:40
  know, things like tools for opening bottles or like
• 1:34:42
  fastening buttons or whatever. They simply can't fathom that
• 1:34:45
  people exist and they live and live their lives with different
• 1:34:48
  needs and experiences to them, you know, they seem to forget
• 1:34:51
  that people with disabilities exist.
• 1:34:52
  And that's that's the vibes I get from this post.
• 1:34:56
  Anyway, here's a few more examples of freedom being angry
• 1:34:58
  about stuff. Umm.
• 1:35:01
  June 2009. Usually I try not to post twice
• 1:35:04
  in a row, but I'm angry about this now.
• 1:35:06
  October 2009. When someone makes a comment
• 1:35:09
  about rich doctors, I want to punch them.
• 1:35:11
  June 2010 While I was walking home from a lunch date with my
• 1:35:13
  daughter yesterday, I inexplicably started to get peed
• 1:35:16
  off about the fact I never had a baby shower.
• 1:35:18
  I don't know what set me off. There are a lot of babies in my
• 1:35:20
  neighbourhood, so maybe it was that.
• 1:35:22
  And then she goes on an angry rant about a colleague of hers,
• 1:35:27
  like having a baby shower. But she didn't and blah.
• 1:35:29
  And yeah, she gets angry about it for paragraphs.
• 1:35:32
  November 2010. I don't like working weekends.
• 1:35:35
  Well, who does, right? I mean, there are probably a few
• 1:35:37
  people who like it for some reason, but I'm guessing most
• 1:35:40
  people don't enjoy working weekends.
• 1:35:42
  But I really, really don't like working weekends.
• 1:35:44
  When I have to get up to work at the weekend, I usually spend
• 1:35:46
  much of my time at work on the brink of tears, accompanied by a
• 1:35:49
  steady stream of resentment towards all people who don't
• 1:35:52
  have to work that day. Then I usually come down with a
• 1:35:54
  cold the next day. So I feel like I might dislike
• 1:35:57
  working weekends more than average, but I could be wrong.
• 1:35:59
  That could be average. February 2011.
• 1:36:02
  Man, I love doing this weekly wine.
• 1:36:04
  I could do this every day and never run out of things to
• 1:36:06
  complain about. Every hour maybe.
• 1:36:08
  And it's not like she's not aware of her whining anger
• 1:36:11
  either. October 2010 Being judgmental.
• 1:36:14
  In my last two posts, a handful of people felt that I was being
• 1:36:16
  judgmental. My official reply to that, I
• 1:36:19
  suppose, would be wow wow wow. Meaning this.
• 1:36:22
  We all get judged all the time for everything, whether people
• 1:36:26
  mean it or not. Women, whether people mean it or
• 1:36:28
  not. Do women get judged more than
• 1:36:30
  men? Possibly.
• 1:36:31
  Do female physicians get judged more than non physicians?
• 1:36:34
  Actually, I doubt it. And no matter how much you
• 1:36:36
  protest that you do not judge others, we all do.
• 1:36:38
  One person commented that we must be supportive of all women.
• 1:36:41
  Supportive of all women? What about a female patient who
• 1:36:44
  comes into our clinic pregnant and drinking vodka?
• 1:36:46
  Obviously we wouldn't support this decision just because she's
• 1:36:49
  a woman. I know that seems like an
• 1:36:50
  extreme example, but there are lots of crunchy Internet mums
• 1:36:53
  who think giving your baby formula is just as bad as
• 1:36:56
  guzzling vodka during pregnancy. We judge any decision we didn't
• 1:36:59
  we don't agree with that we think is potentially harmful.
• 1:37:02
  The point I'd like to make though is not that we should all
• 1:37:05
  try to be less judge mental and more supportive of each other,
• 1:37:07
  because let's face it, that's never going to happen.
• 1:37:10
  The one thing I've learned though is that you must try to
• 1:37:13
  be happy with your own choice choices.
• 1:37:15
  The judgements that really hurt me were the ones where I wasn't
• 1:37:18
  sure I was doing the right thing and already felt guilty about
• 1:37:21
  it. Are you giving formula?
• 1:37:23
  So while it would be great if we could all support each other,
• 1:37:25
  what I'm really trying to say is that we should try to support
• 1:37:28
  ourselves. And she left a comment on this.
• 1:37:31
  Like before anyone could reply saying my husband, who I now
• 1:37:34
  think is incredibly wise, read this post and told me I'm
• 1:37:37
  probably the least judgmental person he's ever met he's ever
• 1:37:40
  met. But what else are you supposed
• 1:37:42
  to write about on a blog aside from your opinions?
• 1:37:44
  I think he's right on the mark with that one.
• 1:37:46
  But if I'm forced to make a post that are completely devoid of
• 1:37:49
  judgments and opinions, what am I supposed to write about?
• 1:37:52
  My kids poop. Because I can do that.
• 1:37:54
  I could easily write like 5 pages about her poop if that
• 1:37:57
  would be preferable. Oh my God.
• 1:38:00
  Which would be funny except when she writes about interactions
• 1:38:03
  with her kid. She's also really like judgy and
• 1:38:06
  nasty and seems to lack compassion too.
• 1:38:09
  I just oh God I can't believe it.
• 1:38:11
  OK before we get into that though, I'm going to take
• 1:38:13
  another break because I'm exhausted so I'll be back in a
• 1:38:15
  bit. I'm not used to this talking for
• 1:38:17
  an hour at a time thing. Need to rest my voice a bit.
• 1:38:19
  Thanks for understanding. Hi everyone.
• 1:38:21
  Day 2 of filming. I'm gonna try and fit this in
• 1:38:22
  before and I'm gonna go see one of my favourite bands tonight,
• 1:38:25
  which is exciting. They're called The Feeling and
• 1:38:27
  it's their 20th anniversary of their first album, 12 Stops and
• 1:38:30
  Home, so I'm really excited for it.
• 1:38:32
  I've got the like extra package where like, you see a little
• 1:38:34
  extra show beforehand in your little Q&A with the bands.
• 1:38:37
  So yeah, I'm looking forward to it'll be good.
• 1:38:39
  I need need something to make me happy at the minute.
• 1:38:42
  And this, this feels good. And tomorrow I'm seeing Lily
• 1:38:44
  Allen, which is very exciting. I can't wait for that.
• 1:38:46
  OK, so where were we with this? And we're talking about
• 1:38:49
  interactions with her kids and how she seems to lack a lot of
• 1:38:52
  kindness and consideration there, even though, like, she
• 1:38:54
  goes on about how much she loves her kids, when she actually
• 1:38:56
  talks about the interactions with them, it's a little little
• 1:38:59
  off. You know it, just this was a
• 1:39:01
  January 2016 in a post called Art Every Day the daycare gives
• 1:39:07
  me at least three or four pieces of my younger daughter's artwork
• 1:39:09
  to bring home with me. Well, it's nice to see her work.
• 1:39:12
  Let's be honest here, I'm going to throw it out.
• 1:39:14
  If I didn't throw out 99% of her artwork, my house would have
• 1:39:17
  dissolved into one of those hoarder shows where I'd have to
• 1:39:19
  navigate between mountains of popsicles, stick towers, and
• 1:39:22
  hills of macaroni art. I still feel bad when I throw
• 1:39:24
  out her pictures though. I have to put them in a separate
• 1:39:26
  trash from the regular trash so she doesn't find out.
• 1:39:29
  Except one day my husband was changing our alternative trash
• 1:39:31
  can and she and she saw all her pictures lying on top of the
• 1:39:35
  garbage pile. What are all my beautiful
• 1:39:36
  pictures doing in here? She cried, incredibly offended.
• 1:39:39
  We then had to rescue all her paintings from the garbage.
• 1:39:41
  Don't worry, I threw them away again that night when she was in
• 1:39:44
  bed. I'm not sure what to do about
• 1:39:45
  this. Obviously I can't save her
• 1:39:46
  artwork, but she seems so hurt the few times she's realised
• 1:39:49
  I've been throwing it. Throwing it all away.
• 1:39:51
  Is this the sort of thing she's going to be describing 20 years
• 1:39:53
  from now in therapy sessions? Yes.
• 1:39:56
  So I have a similar story to this.
• 1:39:59
  Back when I was in school, we had to do like DT classes, which
• 1:40:02
  is design technology. And we had different rotations
• 1:40:05
  that were like cooking, textiles, woodwork and metal
• 1:40:08
  work. And so I, in the woodworking
• 1:40:10
  one, spent like 7 weeks once making this little like handmade
• 1:40:14
  game for my mum. And I spent ages picking out
• 1:40:16
  pieces in like the colours that she'd like.
• 1:40:18
  And I like worked through my break times on it and stuff to
• 1:40:20
  get it finished in time. And I gave it to her for
• 1:40:22
  Mother's Day and I was so damn proud of it because.
• 1:40:25
  I'm good at DIY. I'm not good at like building
• 1:40:28
  from scratch. So like me doing woodwork age
• 1:40:30
  12, that was like a big, big thing me like making this thing
• 1:40:33
  that actually looked like the thing it was supposed to.
• 1:40:35
  That was huge for me. And and then a couple of years
• 1:40:37
  later I saw that she'd given like the base of it to my dad
• 1:40:41
  when he needed some scrap wood and he'd basically like ripped
• 1:40:44
  it apart and used it for something else and thought
• 1:40:46
  nothing of it. And I was like, what the hell?
• 1:40:49
  Like, what? Do you know how long I spent on
• 1:40:51
  this? I spent hours on this, like 15
• 1:40:53
  plus hours. And I'd like, like I say it
• 1:40:56
  stayed behind my break times and stuff.
• 1:40:57
  And they just like, carelessly torn it apart and reused it for
• 1:41:00
  something that like, I don't even know what, something not
• 1:41:03
  important. And they didn't even understand
• 1:41:06
  why I was upset by it. And to this day, like, if I
• 1:41:08
  think about that too long, it still makes me cry.
• 1:41:10
  When I was working on the script, I had a cry over this.
• 1:41:13
  And to this day, I don't think my parents realised why upset me
• 1:41:15
  so much. And yeah, I did end up, like,
• 1:41:18
  speaking to my therapist about this in my sort of like, mid to
• 1:41:21
  late 20s. And like, it taught me that,
• 1:41:24
  like, I couldn't rely on my parents, that they wouldn't have
• 1:41:26
  this level of gratitude that I needed from them.
• 1:41:29
  And I eventually, like, just stop giving my mom and my dad
• 1:41:33
  Mother's Day and Father's Day gifts because I realised, like,
• 1:41:35
  they don't actually give a damn. And if I spend all my time and
• 1:41:37
  effort on something, it's just going to get thrown in a corner
• 1:41:39
  and forgotten about or it's going to get broken apart and
• 1:41:42
  they're not going to care about it.
• 1:41:43
  So why should I bother putting in so much love and effort when
• 1:41:46
  they're not going to bother caring about it?
• 1:41:48
  And to this day, I still don't give them presents for Mothers
• 1:41:50
  and Fathers Day because they don't appreciate it.
• 1:41:53
  So yeah, this stuff, like, it does stick with you.
• 1:41:55
  But like, on the other hand, I used to draw pictures with and
• 1:41:59
  for my granny all the time when I was a kid.
• 1:42:01
  And like, especially when she was ill, we used to play this,
• 1:42:03
  like, silly game where she would, like, do some scribbles
• 1:42:06
  or doodles on a piece of paper. And then I would make, like, a
• 1:42:08
  picture out of it and be like, oh, you know, I can see a
• 1:42:10
  Penguin in this. I can see this.
• 1:42:11
  I can see, you know, that sort of silly stuff.
• 1:42:13
  And we play a lot of those games.
• 1:42:14
  And I just thought they were like, little scrap paper doodles
• 1:42:17
  and stuff like that. But then I'd also do like
• 1:42:19
  bigger, more like, you know, special pieces of art for her
• 1:42:22
  and stuff. And, and I think, I think when
• 1:42:25
  she died, I must have been around 7 or 8, something like
• 1:42:28
  that. And after she was gone, like my
• 1:42:30
  dad and his siblings were like going through her stuff and
• 1:42:33
  clearing out her bungalow and everything.
• 1:42:35
  And they found in this drawer, she'd kept every single piece of
• 1:42:38
  art that I'd made her, all that we'd done together, even those
• 1:42:41
  little like doodles on scrap paper.
• 1:42:43
  She had kept them all. And, and they were in perfect
• 1:42:46
  condition and they were all like stacked up neatly and like she,
• 1:42:50
  she kept them and she kept them safe and she treasured them.
• 1:42:53
  And that meant so much to me. And they gave them back to me
• 1:42:56
  afterwards. And I still have them to this
• 1:42:57
  day because she knew how much love I put into those drawings
• 1:43:02
  and she knew how much fun we had making them together, some of
• 1:43:04
  them. And she treasured them.
• 1:43:06
  And so now I treasured them too, because it reminds me how much
• 1:43:08
  she loved me. And that's what I think Frida's
• 1:43:11
  kind of forgetting. Like when you just start your
• 1:43:14
  kids artworks, you're being practical.
• 1:43:15
  Like a kid doesn't understand that.
• 1:43:17
  They just think they've made you something special.
• 1:43:19
  They put love into something and you're tossing it away.
• 1:43:22
  That's all they see. You know what I mean?
• 1:43:23
  So when I read Freda being this callous about her kids upset,
• 1:43:27
  which I think is very valid, it makes me kind of angry because I
• 1:43:30
  know just how that kid feels and how much that pain will stick
• 1:43:33
  with them. So this did upset me a little
• 1:43:35
  bit. And there's other examples of
• 1:43:37
  this too, of her just being quite calloused.
• 1:43:39
  So October 2016, my older daughter's latest thing is
• 1:43:42
  accusing me of not being genuine.
• 1:43:44
  Like she got angry at me because she showed me her drawing and
• 1:43:46
  she felt that my oh sounded phoney.
• 1:43:49
  Well, it was kind of phoney, but what the hell was I supposed to
• 1:43:51
  do? It was a drawing of a cat.
• 1:43:53
  Maybe show an interest, be like, oh, that's great.
• 1:43:56
  Like encourage her. Be like, what inspired you to do
• 1:43:59
  this is a particular cat? What like medium did you use to
• 1:44:02
  draw it? Show an interest, you know, like
• 1:44:05
  August 2010 Mummy Daughter Day. So this is a bit earlier than
• 1:44:08
  the others, but same thing. For the first time in over three
• 1:44:10
  years, I have a day off during the week to spend with my
• 1:44:13
  daughter. It's heaven.
• 1:44:14
  It's what I've always wanted, except I'm not sure what the
• 1:44:17
  hell to do with her all day. After less than an hour in the
• 1:44:20
  park I was ready to shoot myself in the head.
• 1:44:22
  We ended up fighting a lot and I eventually just plopped her down
• 1:44:24
  in front of the television. You have no idea how glad I feel
• 1:44:28
  to like not be Freda's daughter reading this stuff.
• 1:44:31
  Like if I was her daughter and I grew up and I read this stuff
• 1:44:33
  afterwards as well, I would literally never speak to her
• 1:44:35
  again. In a comment on another post she
• 1:44:38
  wrote. It's funny because after I
• 1:44:39
  posted this I was putting my daughter to bed too late as
• 1:44:41
  usual and just as soon as the lights were out she said I'm
• 1:44:44
  hungry and I snapped it's too late go to sleep.
• 1:44:47
  And she immediately burst into tears and said, I don't like it
• 1:44:50
  when you yell at me. Now you're making me cry.
• 1:44:52
  I don't know if this is a typical child response to
• 1:44:53
  getting yelled at, but it always breaks my heart.
• 1:44:56
  Again, I'm so glad I'm not her kid.
• 1:44:58
  In her latest book, Dear Debbie, which is definitely a self
• 1:45:00
  insert because as we'll see later, Freda always inserts
• 1:45:03
  herself into a story is like, anyway, and I've just finished
• 1:45:07
  my script for the review of that as well, so I'm going to fill me
• 1:45:09
  after this one. But in in that book.
• 1:45:12
  And she's just like 40 something year old mom like Freda with a
• 1:45:15
  daughter who's 17. And I think at the point of
• 1:45:18
  writing it, Freda's daughter is like 18 or 19 or something.
• 1:45:21
  And the 17 year old is like snappy with her mum.
• 1:45:24
  She's like really held back and she doesn't want to spend time
• 1:45:28
  with her mum and all this sort of saying.
• 1:45:29
  And it's like, well, yeah, if this is like a natural cell
• 1:45:32
  phone insert of Friedra and her daughter, I understand why her
• 1:45:34
  daughter's being like this when I read this stuff about her
• 1:45:37
  childhood. Do you know what I mean?
• 1:45:38
  Anyway, just to jump back again to her being aware of how much
• 1:45:41
  she complaints. January 2011.
• 1:45:44
  Bitter. Well, a little.
• 1:45:45
  For those of you who read my posts, such as my rant about how
• 1:45:48
  much it sucks to work weekends and how the bright light is the
• 1:45:50
  end of the tunnel is a big fat lie.
• 1:45:52
  You probably think I'm incredibly bitter and unhappy,
• 1:45:54
  that I'm some kind of cranky old Doctor Who sits on my porch
• 1:45:57
  confiscating the wayward basketballs.
• 1:45:58
  Sorry, the wayward baseballs of little children.
• 1:46:01
  Some of you have suggested I switch fields.
• 1:46:03
  Well, really, you don't need to worry so much about Fizzy.
• 1:46:05
  The truth is, I kind of like my job.
• 1:46:07
  It's not perfect. You're not going to catch me in
• 1:46:09
  my job alone in a closet, doing unspeakable things.
• 1:46:11
  I worry about some of you, really, but I'm quite satisfied.
• 1:46:14
  For starters, I don't work weekends.
• 1:46:16
  I sometimes really help people. So your next question is
• 1:46:19
  undoubtedly. But Fizzy, you're always whining
• 1:46:20
  and moaning. If you're happy, why don't you
• 1:46:22
  shut the hell up already? Well, it's a good question.
• 1:46:25
  It is a good question, although quite rudely phrased.
• 1:46:28
  You phrased it it. It's sort of like this.
• 1:46:29
  Say you spent the whole day cleaning your giant house.
• 1:46:32
  It sucks, but when it's done you can maybe finally relax.
• 1:46:35
  Except you can't relax because you pulled a muscle in your back
• 1:46:37
  and have excruciating pain for the next several weeks.
• 1:46:39
  It's sort of like that. I don't get it, but OK.
• 1:46:42
  And she keeps going on moaning and moaning blah blah.
• 1:46:45
  And yet then also she goes on and writes posts like this.
• 1:46:48
  May 2011. I might be one of the most
• 1:46:50
  polite doctors in the world. You might be surprised to hear
• 1:46:53
  that, considering I can sometimes be a bit of a bitch in
• 1:46:55
  my online posts and comments. But I promise that in real life
• 1:46:58
  I'm pretty much ridiculously nice to everyone.
• 1:47:01
  To a fault, really. I think the worst thing though,
• 1:47:03
  is her habit of being really mean to people that she knows
• 1:47:05
  and people that she's worked with in her posts.
• 1:47:08
  And she even posts and she even points out that she does it
• 1:47:10
  because she doesn't think they'll ever read it, so she
• 1:47:12
  thinks she can just say anything about anyone and it's just a bit
• 1:47:15
  mean. June 2012 Weekly wine Jenny.
• 1:47:19
  This is a story about one of the most annoying residents I've
• 1:47:21
  ever had to work with. I've been hesitant to post it
• 1:47:24
  forever because I was nervous about Jenny discovering it and
• 1:47:26
  realising I was writing about her.
• 1:47:28
  Actually, I got to like Jenny a lot later and I don't want to
• 1:47:30
  hurt her feelings. But then I just figured F it,
• 1:47:33
  she'll never read this, what the hell?
• 1:47:36
  Or in another post. For starters.
• 1:47:38
  My first resident as an intern was a cruel bitch who tore me
• 1:47:40
  down on my first day and continued to bat me down every
• 1:47:43
  time I tried to recover. Funnily enough, she ended up
• 1:47:46
  writing a book about this woman, but we'll get to that later.
• 1:47:49
  And this isn't the only time she's called a colleague a
• 1:47:51
  bitch. She does like quite a lot.
• 1:47:52
  It's very common. Every woman she doesn't like is
• 1:47:54
  a bitch. It's bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch
• 1:47:56
  but yet she has the audacity to complain about the word bitch
• 1:47:59
  being used on TV. So October 2013.
• 1:48:02
  I find it really shocking and upsetting that the word bitch
• 1:48:05
  does not get censored on general TV.
• 1:48:07
  My daughter really enjoys cooking shows.
• 1:48:09
  She's really into cooking and making taste tests and we're
• 1:48:12
  totally watching MasterChef Junior this year.
• 1:48:14
  But I'm always on the edge of my seat because people on
• 1:48:16
  MasterChef and other adult cooking shows will come out
• 1:48:19
  using the bitch, which is a word she otherwise would never hear
• 1:48:22
  in our house. We never swear, but apparently
• 1:48:24
  Frieda does all the time in her blogs.
• 1:48:27
  And I mean, I just want to watch a cooking competition.
• 1:48:29
  It's not like freaking, I don't know, South Park.
• 1:48:32
  I'm just going to flick through quickly some of the other things
• 1:48:34
  she has to complain about, which include but are not limited to
• 1:48:38
  flowers, gifts, hyphenated surnames, people who won't
• 1:48:42
  apologise, and people enjoying their lunch break.
• 1:48:46
  On a more positive note, though, to end this section, she did
• 1:48:48
  seem to have a slight change of heart years later.
• 1:48:51
  This was November 2018 titled Don't Stop Reading, She says I
• 1:48:55
  was reading some of my old blog entries I've written here years
• 1:48:58
  ago. Sorry, ages ago.
• 1:48:59
  It shocked me how brazenly I criticised my Co residents and
• 1:49:02
  attendings. I was fearless and all stupid.
• 1:49:05
  I didn't care if they discovered these posts.
• 1:49:07
  In fact I hope they would because then they would see what
• 1:49:10
  a Jackass they were for complaining to the female
• 1:49:12
  resident who had taken time off to have surgical repair for her
• 1:49:15
  4th degree. Teared during childbirth that
• 1:49:18
  you just had a vacation. Vacation equals maternity leave.
• 1:49:21
  But now I care. I wouldn't insult people from my
• 1:49:23
  current job or even my last job. It's a small field and I respect
• 1:49:27
  those people too much. And I don't want to talk about
• 1:49:29
  my family. This is not a mummy blog.
• 1:49:31
  I don't want to be the author of a mummy blog.
• 1:49:33
  So there's still a little bit of like backhanded stuff in there,
• 1:49:36
  but it's, it's an improvement. It's better.
• 1:49:38
  And while she didn't stop complaining at this point
• 1:49:40
  entirely, she did stop calling specific colleagues bitches and
• 1:49:44
  other cruel names. So that is a positive.
• 1:49:46
  And I have to give it to her. There is some growth there and
• 1:49:48
  we love to see that. I think the thing that annoys me
• 1:49:51
  most about all this, and I've had time to think about this
• 1:49:53
  recently because, you know, wallowing in grief and it's the
• 1:49:56
  but Freda comes across as really immature in her meanness.
• 1:49:59
  And this is something that really bothers me.
• 1:50:01
  When she was writing most of this mean stuff, she would have
• 1:50:04
  been between the ages of 30 and 38.
• 1:50:07
  I could understand if she was like an immature 20 something
• 1:50:10
  year old, but she's a grown adult and a mother in her 30s
• 1:50:14
  acting like this. And it just feels a bit like be
• 1:50:16
  immature, you know? There was, however, a really
• 1:50:19
  bizarre period of time where Freda would get really weird
• 1:50:21
  about people, especially women that she thought was were good
• 1:50:24
  looking. And so in the next section, I
• 1:50:26
  want to take a look at a few of those posts.
• 1:50:28
  Obviously we've already seen the Pretty Girls Don't Need to Be
• 1:50:30
  Doctor's post, which was horrific, but there's a few more
• 1:50:34
  in the same vein. For example, February 2011
• 1:50:38
  Residency match versus hotness. I know.
• 1:50:41
  So apparently residency match is coming up in the next month.
• 1:50:44
  Eek. Aren't you guys excited?
• 1:50:46
  In honour of the upcoming match, I did a little exercise
• 1:50:48
  involving the match list from my graduating Med school class.
• 1:50:52
  Inexplicably, still saved on my hard drive, I picked out the
• 1:50:55
  hottest 10 girls girls in my class and the hottest 10 guys
• 1:50:58
  and I wrote down what each of them matched in.
• 1:51:00
  I was bored and possibly drunk. I don't think I've ever done
• 1:51:03
  something this odd when I was drunk.
• 1:51:05
  And again, I'll remind you she was like 31 when she was doing
• 1:51:07
  this, so not much younger than I am now.
• 1:51:10
  It was really easy to pick out the top ten hottest girls in my
• 1:51:13
  class. Maybe female beauty is just more
• 1:51:15
  objective. Within a minute I had a list and
• 1:51:17
  could have added a few more even.
• 1:51:18
  I mulled over the top ten guys for a long time, struggling to
• 1:51:21
  come up with 10 guys in my former class that I actually
• 1:51:24
  thought were attractive. It was hard because I didn't
• 1:51:26
  want on my own personal preferences about the opposite
• 1:51:28
  sex to get in the way of this extremely important objective
• 1:51:31
  exercise. I like nerdy overweight guys
• 1:51:34
  with glasses. That probably not any universal
• 1:51:36
  standard of male attractiveness though.
• 1:51:37
  Or, I don't know, maybe my class just had a lot of unattractive
• 1:51:40
  guys. Anyway, here were the results.
• 1:51:42
  The top 10 girls went into general surgery, paediatrics,
• 1:51:45
  paediatrics, medicine, medicine, psychiatry, neurology,
• 1:51:48
  anaesthesia and radonk. Oh, probably something to do
• 1:51:52
  with oncology I think. Top ten guys Ortho, ortho,
• 1:51:55
  urology, plastics, dermatology, anaesthesia, EM, general
• 1:51:58
  surgery, paediatrics, radiology. So from these lists we can
• 1:52:01
  deduce that the hot guys did much better in the match than
• 1:52:04
  the hot girls going for far more competitive specialities.
• 1:52:07
  So if you're a guy, it helps your career to be hotter.
• 1:52:09
  If you're a girl, not so much. Although really that's not the
• 1:52:12
  case at all. Looking at the general list, it
• 1:52:14
  seems like the guys just match more competitively in general.
• 1:52:17
  The also matches are all guys of course, so are the so are all
• 1:52:20
  the urology matches. Even radiology was most guys,
• 1:52:23
  derm, ophthalmology all guys. The only competitive specialties
• 1:52:27
  that match a good number of females were anaesthesia and EM.
• 1:52:31
  So in summary, being hotter probably wouldn't have helped me
• 1:52:33
  match in a more competitive specialty.
• 1:52:35
  Growing a penis might. I would actually really
• 1:52:37
  appreciate her calling out these gender differences like this and
• 1:52:40
  how often men, especially CIS straight white men, have it so
• 1:52:44
  much easier in general. But it's all undermined by her
• 1:52:46
  lists of hot people and the way she continually talks about
• 1:52:50
  people's look in this and her other posts, and the weird
• 1:52:52
  objectification of people you know.
• 1:52:54
  For more examples, let's move move on.
• 1:52:57
  This one is called the Pretty Weird Med student.
• 1:52:59
  When I was doing an author elective during my residency,
• 1:53:02
  there was a Med student also rotating with us named Chelsea.
• 1:53:05
  Chelsea had a lot going for her. First of all, she was really
• 1:53:08
  beautiful. Not in an intimidating way, but
• 1:53:11
  in a really cute way. On top of that, she was also
• 1:53:13
  incredibly smart. She was probably one of the
• 1:53:15
  smartest Med students I'd come across.
• 1:53:16
  And she was from a Stella Med school.
• 1:53:18
  She was only a Med student and knew she was only a Med student
• 1:53:21
  and knew way more or so than I did.
• 1:53:23
  I figured this girl could do no wrong.
• 1:53:25
  Interestingly, one afternoon I heard two male residents talk
• 1:53:28
  about Chelsea while she was in the OR and they didn't have good
• 1:53:31
  things to say. I was shocked.
• 1:53:33
  I mean, he is a Med student who's really smart and
• 1:53:35
  conscientious and eager and most importantly, popped.
• 1:53:40
  Why weren't they drooling all over her?
• 1:53:42
  The senior resident remarked that Chelsea was weird that when
• 1:53:45
  he addressed another resident to ask him a question about his
• 1:53:47
  patient, she would answer for him.
• 1:53:50
  That is sort of weird. The other resident remarked that
• 1:53:52
  Chelsea was annoying and he was trying to interview a consult
• 1:53:55
  patient and she was tagging along and kept interrupting the
• 1:53:57
  interview to ask her own questions.
• 1:53:59
  She did that to me too and I found it really annoying, but I
• 1:54:01
  thought it was a problem with me since she was clearly so
• 1:54:04
  awesome. It was a nice vindication to
• 1:54:06
  find out other people found her annoying too.
• 1:54:08
  And in all the bitching about Chelsea, neither of them
• 1:54:10
  mentioned how hot she was. I have to say I was impressed
• 1:54:14
  with those guys. I mean they were autopods.
• 1:54:17
  Like, I'm sorry you're impressed because grown adult men are
• 1:54:20
  being mean about a colleague and putting her down, but hey, at
• 1:54:23
  least they didn't sexually objectify her while they were
• 1:54:25
  doing it. What?
• 1:54:26
  It's almost like she enjoys seeing women that she perceives
• 1:54:29
  as pretty being put down in some way.
• 1:54:31
  I don't get it. I don't like reading it, and
• 1:54:34
  like I say, it happens quite a lot in the blog.
• 1:54:36
  I think actually this might be the weirdest 1 though.
• 1:54:39
  You ready? August 2011 Deanie.
• 1:54:41
  For years, whenever I heard anything about scoliosis, I
• 1:54:44
  thought about Deanie. Deanie is a book by Judy Blume
• 1:54:46
  about a beautiful 13 year old girl who's trying for a
• 1:54:49
  modelling career until it's discovered she has scoliosis.
• 1:54:52
  As a result of this curvature of her spine, she must wear a
• 1:54:55
  Milwaukee brace going down from her neck to her hips for the
• 1:54:58
  rest of high school. This pretty much kills her
• 1:55:00
  modelling aspirations. Suddenly she goes from being the
• 1:55:02
  prettiest girl in school to being given permission to take
• 1:55:05
  the bus for disabled kids. This book definitely served to
• 1:55:08
  fill me with fear as a child. Every time the paediatrician
• 1:55:11
  told me to bend down and touch my toes I knew what they were
• 1:55:13
  looking for. It was terrifying.
• 1:55:15
  I didn't want to end up like Deanie.
• 1:55:17
  Luckily I did not have scoliosis and my modelling aspirations
• 1:55:20
  were realised. Not really a fine start.
• 1:55:22
  I think this makes sense. I can see this being exactly how
• 1:55:26
  a self-conscious 13 year old girl would think.
• 1:55:28
  I have no problems with this, however.
• 1:55:31
  Anyway, when I was rotating in paediatric orthopaedics, we had
• 1:55:34
  a 13 year old patient in our clinic who was absolutely
• 1:55:37
  gorgeous. She was so beautiful that the
• 1:55:39
  attending felt a need to comment on her looks no less than three
• 1:55:43
  times while we were in the room, and once straddled her in a way
• 1:55:46
  that was borderline and appropriate to demonstrate her
• 1:55:48
  scoliosis to her parents. And she knew she was hot.
• 1:55:53
  I could tell by the way she flipped her hair back after she
• 1:55:55
  stood up from touching her toes. OK, how about instead of writing
• 1:55:59
  a complaining blog post about this, we called out our
• 1:56:01
  colleagues who make creepy comments towards literal
• 1:56:04
  children and touch them in inappropriate ways?
• 1:56:07
  How about we just call that out on the spot?
• 1:56:09
  And how about as well, we don't say things like she knew she was
• 1:56:14
  hot about a literal sick child? Can we not please?
• 1:56:18
  I don't. I don't think that's too much to
• 1:56:20
  ask for. No, you couldn't tell from a few
• 1:56:22
  feet away, but she had a 35° scoliosis, which is pretty
• 1:56:26
  significant. It calls for bracing, especially
• 1:56:28
  in a female when the curve is likely to progress.
• 1:56:30
  But instead of being offered the life ruining Milwaukee brace,
• 1:56:33
  she was given two different options.
• 1:56:35
  One was a Boston brace, which she could wear 20 hours a day,
• 1:56:38
  taking it off only for some sports activities.
• 1:56:40
  The other was a Charleston brace, which she could wear just
• 1:56:43
  at night while she slept. The attending said that most
• 1:56:45
  girls opted for the night brace. Both the Boston and the
• 1:56:48
  Charleston braces are TLS OS, which only go up to the
• 1:56:51
  thoracic, which only go up to the thoracic spine.
• 1:56:54
  The Milwaukee brace is a CTLSO which goes all the way up to the
• 1:56:58
  cervical spine neck. I'd read that the Milwaukee is
• 1:57:01
  indicated for curvature above the T8 level, which our patients
• 1:57:05
  scoliosis certainly was. So why wasn't she prescribed the
• 1:57:08
  Milwaukee? My attending's answer?
• 1:57:10
  Have you seen the Milwaukee brace?
• 1:57:11
  So apparently in this day and age they don't force hot teenage
• 1:57:14
  girls to wear cumbersome life ruining braces.
• 1:57:17
  Too bad Dini wasn't 13 in the 20th century.
• 1:57:20
  Again. She's like 31 writing this.
• 1:57:23
  Can you please stop saying phrases like hot teenage girl
• 1:57:26
  please. Like just no stop it.
• 1:57:28
  And how about we celebrate that there have been advances in
• 1:57:31
  medicine that we can now offer people a variety of options that
• 1:57:35
  will actually fit their lifestyle and their needs
• 1:57:37
  instead of whatever the hell this is.
• 1:57:39
  It almost sounds like Friedra is jealous of a child.
• 1:57:42
  It's it's bizarre and I don't like it at all.
• 1:57:45
  OK, I promise, we're very nearly done.
• 1:57:46
  We're nearly done. The final section I want to
• 1:57:48
  cover is Freda writing about her experiences as both a reader and
• 1:57:51
  a writer, and kind of linked to this, her inability to take
• 1:57:54
  criticism both about her blogs and her books.
• 1:57:57
  Chronologically, Freda's first post about this was in November
• 1:58:00
  2009, when she complained that Jane Austen was pretty heavy
• 1:58:03
  stuff and that the thought of reading Pride and Prejudice made
• 1:58:07
  her I'll Online drama can be very hard to resist.
• 1:58:09
  Recently someone online was recommending that I read Jane
• 1:58:12
  Austen's Pride and Prejudice and the thought of it made me ill.
• 1:58:15
  I try and do a little reading when I can, but Jane Austen is
• 1:58:18
  pretty heavy stuff. I jokingly replied that I was a
• 1:58:20
  working woman, that I couldn't focus on anything that couldn't
• 1:58:22
  be read in 15 minute spurts with a toddler screaming in my ear.
• 1:58:25
  Jane Austen doesn't really fall into that category.
• 1:58:27
  The person replied that she was a working mum too.
• 1:58:29
  And I'm sure I'm not the only one who's managed to read Jane
• 1:58:31
  Austen or other books with at least a little substance.
• 1:58:34
  Ouch. It took every fibre in my being
• 1:58:36
  to end that conversation and not get drawn into an argument.
• 1:58:39
  Every fibre of my being. But of course, I then went to
• 1:58:41
  look at my bookcase to verify that my reading list is not
• 1:58:44
  completely vapid, although I've been getting most of my books
• 1:58:46
  from the library lately. All right, there was perhaps an
• 1:58:48
  overabundance of books with the word shopaholic in the title.
• 1:58:51
  Recently read Kinsella's Remembered Me So good I've been
• 1:58:54
  making the rounds on the New York Times bestseller list with
• 1:58:56
  The Time Traveler's Wife and Prep.
• 1:58:58
  I've also got a book called Murder on the Rehab Unit, which
• 1:59:01
  as a rehab doctor I was compelled to purchase, although
• 1:59:04
  apparently not read. All in all, I'm not entirely
• 1:59:06
  sure I've read anything of substance lately.
• 1:59:08
  Actually, I don't think I've read anything of substance in
• 1:59:10
  years. Unless of course, you count all
• 1:59:12
  the zillions of articles that I read from work, the textbooks
• 1:59:15
  and of course E medicine and up to date.
• 1:59:17
  I guess that's why when I read something for myself, I like it
• 1:59:20
  to be fun and light. What about you?
• 1:59:22
  Is Jane Austen something you trudge through in your spare
• 1:59:25
  time? Do you try to go for books for
• 1:59:26
  substance or do you unwind with guilty pleasures?
• 1:59:29
  Mixed feelings about this here. I wouldn't exactly call Jane
• 1:59:32
  Austen heavy or difficult. You know, Austen's know James
• 1:59:35
  Joyce and I feel like class. I feel like as classics go,
• 1:59:39
  she's pretty simple. I mean, there is substance
• 1:59:43
  there, but it's, it's fairly simple to read.
• 1:59:46
  And you know, again, it's no Chaucer, you know, I mean, like
• 1:59:49
  no one's saying you have to sit there and read the Canterbury
• 1:59:51
  Tales in like the original Middle English.
• 1:59:52
  You know what I mean? Jane Austen is not hard to read
• 1:59:56
  in that respect. That says, I don't begrudge
• 1:59:59
  people wanting something more digestible or modern, you know,
• 2:00:03
  just just to read for funsies. If period lit isn't your thing,
• 2:00:07
  there's nothing wrong with that. I do think first and foremost,
• 2:00:10
  reading should be fun. It should be enjoyable.
• 2:00:12
  You shouldn't feel like you have to.
• 2:00:14
  Read something just because other people are like I get
• 2:00:16
  that, but I did just want to include this post because I
• 2:00:18
  think it tells us a lot about where Freda gets her writing
• 2:00:21
  style from, why it is what it is, who she draws inspiration
• 2:00:25
  from like Sophie Kinsella and so on.
• 2:00:27
  We first saw freda's aspirations to be an author in a 2010 blog
• 2:00:31
  post called My Secret Life of Blogging.
• 2:00:34
  She says. Ever since I was a little kid, I
• 2:00:35
  always wanted to have a diary. During college, the Internet was
• 2:00:38
  becoming pretty big, although clearly just a fad, and I found
• 2:00:40
  a new and I found a few interesting blogs online.
• 2:00:43
  In the In the midst of studying for my midterms during sophomore
• 2:00:46
  year, I decided to give it a go. Everyone I knew was informed
• 2:00:49
  about this blog, which was how I found readership.
• 2:00:51
  My parents would make comments like, you sound a lot more
• 2:00:53
  bubbly and happy on your blog posts than you do in real life.
• 2:00:55
  In real life, I'm apparently chronically depressed, which is
• 2:00:58
  funny because she says the opposite now she's like, no, I
• 2:01:00
  moan online, but I'm so happy in my real life.
• 2:01:02
  Honest. My blog is also a good way to
• 2:01:04
  inform my boyfriend that I was peed off at him.
• 2:01:07
  But for the most part the entries were poop, brief random
• 2:01:10
  musings that had nothing to do with anything, blah blah blah
• 2:01:12
  blah blah. But somehow knowing people were
• 2:01:14
  reading kept me going and I wrote in the blog all through
• 2:01:16
  college. Then in Med school I took my
• 2:01:18
  blog offline. But I kept writing and I now
• 2:01:21
  wrote in depth entries about my experience going through the off
• 2:01:24
  times. Fun, but mostly pretty horrible
• 2:01:26
  training process. Anyone who says I love Med
• 2:01:28
  school, just know that I hate you.
• 2:01:29
  You in Med school should go get a room.
• 2:01:31
  After Med school I discovered Live Journal and I moved my
• 2:01:34
  blogging over there. It has a great format in that
• 2:01:36
  not only can you lock individual entries, but you can philtre
• 2:01:39
  entries so that only a handful of trusted people can read the
• 2:01:41
  more personal, gut wrenching stuff.
• 2:01:43
  I've been blogging there for the last five years with all entries
• 2:01:46
  locked. That way I don't have to worry
• 2:01:48
  about that thrill or fear in the pit in my stomach when a
• 2:01:51
  colleague or family member discovers my blog.
• 2:01:53
  It's nice to have a public web presence, though, which is why I
• 2:01:55
  like blogging from Mothers in Medicine.
• 2:01:57
  But does my family know about it?
• 2:01:59
  Other than my husband, no. There have been tonnes of times
• 2:02:01
  when I wrote an entry that I would have loved my mother to
• 2:02:04
  see, but then I realised that if I showed it to her, I'd have to
• 2:02:06
  constantly be censoring myself here.
• 2:02:09
  I do censor myself somewhat though.
• 2:02:11
  It's a mistake to think that anyone on the Internet is
• 2:02:13
  completely anonymous. Whenever I wrote an entry, I
• 2:02:15
  asked myself if I would be in any trouble if everyone I knew
• 2:02:17
  saw this entry. If the answer is yes, I don't
• 2:02:19
  post it. A few times I've complained
• 2:02:21
  about resident colleagues on here, but I was secretly hoping
• 2:02:23
  they'd find the entry and realised what a penis they'd
• 2:02:26
  mean. When I saw my cartoon blog I
• 2:02:27
  fully intended to tell my parents about about it.
• 2:02:29
  However, I showed my father, a psychiatrist, one cartoon and he
• 2:02:33
  declared it not funny. I see where she gets her
• 2:02:36
  parenting style from and I decided that I'd prefer to stay
• 2:02:39
  anonymous than deal with any more negative critiques.
• 2:02:42
  My husband reads the blog though, and he says he
• 2:02:44
  appreciates my really immature sense of humour.
• 2:02:47
  I think the best thing about blogging is looking back on old
• 2:02:49
  entries. After my intern year, I went
• 2:02:50
  back and collected all the entries into a book which I
• 2:02:53
  published on Lulu for myself. And this is intern year by name
• 2:02:57
  redacted. And this was Frida's first book.
• 2:03:00
  How cute. And we can see here not only
• 2:03:02
  like her wanting to write books and how people read and, you
• 2:03:05
  know, write all the time, that that seems to be her passion,
• 2:03:08
  even if she's not very good at it.
• 2:03:10
  And this was something that was quite important to her very
• 2:03:13
  early on. And also her wanting to be
• 2:03:15
  anonymous online was a thing that she started with very early
• 2:03:18
  on and something that she obviously still maintains to
• 2:03:20
  this day with her pen name and bad wigs and is not actually
• 2:03:23
  knowing her real name or who she is or anything really about her.
• 2:03:27
  The next person we're going to look at was January 2011.
• 2:03:29
  Doctor Chick, Lip question mark. I was used to read a lot as a
• 2:03:33
  kid, but when I started Med school, I decided that anything
• 2:03:35
  I read ought to be medicine related.
• 2:03:37
  So I pretty much gave up on reading for fun.
• 2:03:39
  What do you mean? Reading Robin's Pathological
• 2:03:41
  Basis of Disease wasn't fun, but in my last year of residency I
• 2:03:44
  was sufficiently bored that I decided to open myself back up
• 2:03:47
  to fiction again. I'm mildly embarrassed to admit,
• 2:03:49
  but I love chick lit. I don't know why, because I hate
• 2:03:51
  fashion and flowers and jewellery and everything else
• 2:03:53
  girly, but I love these books. It's especially shocking because
• 2:03:57
  I used to be such a little book snob when I was a teenager, and
• 2:04:00
  I'm sure I would have mocked older me mercilessly for reading
• 2:04:02
  a book about a woman who helps her quirky ghost Great.
• 2:04:05
  And find a lost necklace. Bonus points if you know the
• 2:04:08
  book I'm talking about. I don't, but if you guys do, let
• 2:04:10
  me know in the comments. But I don't have anything to
• 2:04:12
  prove anymore so I'm going to read what I want, damn it.
• 2:04:14
  I recently discovered a list of the ultimate Top 100 chick lit
• 2:04:17
  novels and nothing that I've already.
• 2:04:20
  And noting that I've already read and enjoyed seven of the
• 2:04:22
  top ten, I decided to make my mission for 2011 to work my way
• 2:04:26
  through the list. Come on, who's with me?
• 2:04:28
  But you know what books me about chick lit?
• 2:04:30
  But you know what books me about chick lit?
• 2:04:32
  How none of the female protagonists are ever doctors.
• 2:04:34
  Seriously. On that list of 100 books,
• 2:04:37
  you'll find women who are lawyers, teachers, PR reps, a
• 2:04:39
  popular chick lit career, eye bankers and basically eye
• 2:04:43
  bankers and basically tonnes of great careers.
• 2:04:45
  No doctors. There are no chick lit books
• 2:04:47
  about doctors. Does anyone else start to see
• 2:04:49
  for you to get inspired here? Yeah.
• 2:04:51
  So I'm going to get slouchy here for a second.
• 2:04:53
  I'm just get comfy cosy. Why the hell not?
• 2:04:55
  There are lots of doctors writing memoirs.
• 2:04:57
  There are lots of thrillers written about doctors.
• 2:04:59
  I used to be a big Robin Cook fan until I realised the villain
• 2:05:01
  was always evil. Managed care.
• 2:05:04
  There are tonnes of TV shows about doctors, some of which
• 2:05:06
  involve doctors hooking up a lot.
• 2:05:08
  Grey's Anatomy. There are comedies about
• 2:05:10
  doctors. Scrubs.
• 2:05:10
  So I don't know why female doctors can't be protagonists.
• 2:05:13
  Protagonists in chick lit. The devil can wear scrubs, can't
• 2:05:17
  she? Funnily enough, or not so
• 2:05:20
  funnily enough, Frida's very first novel that she ever wrote
• 2:05:23
  was called The Devil Wears Scrubs.
• 2:05:24
  So it's clear that this is something she'd been thinking
• 2:05:26
  about for a long time, because she wrote this in 2011 and the
• 2:05:29
  book didn't come out until 2013, so 2 years later you can
• 2:05:34
  probably tell. This really bothers me.
• 2:05:35
  Why can't someone write a novel about a female Doctor Who's
• 2:05:38
  riding on a plane, ends up telling all her secrets to the
• 2:05:40
  cute guy next to her, Then it turns out he's her new boss and
• 2:05:43
  she also has a shopping addiction.
• 2:05:44
  What's up with that? Do you notice how Rita, I don't
• 2:05:47
  know why want to call her Rita then do you notice how Frida is
• 2:05:49
  way more passionate about talking about books and writing
• 2:05:53
  and reading than she's ever been about anything medicine related
• 2:05:56
  and that interesting and like clearly medicine is not her
• 2:06:00
  passion. She does not like being a
• 2:06:02
  doctor. She does not like medicine.
• 2:06:04
  Reading and writing is her passion is just a shame that her
• 2:06:07
  books are so poor quality because she clearly loves it.
• 2:06:09
  You know, let's look at another example.
• 2:06:12
  December 2011 love of reading. I've loved to read ever since I
• 2:06:15
  was a kid. When I was 8 years old I
• 2:06:17
  discovered the Babysitters Club, I'm embarrassed to admit, sucked
• 2:06:20
  me in and got me reading regularly.
• 2:06:21
  Like for me Goosebumps. Loved the goosebumps books and
• 2:06:25
  Point Horror as well. They were great.
• 2:06:27
  In grade school I read like crazy kids books.
• 2:06:29
  Oh and Jacqueline Wilson, I've made videos about her before
• 2:06:32
  that she's great. Sorry.
• 2:06:33
  Anyway, in grade school I read like crazy.
• 2:06:35
  Kids books, adults books, whatever someone recommended to
• 2:06:39
  me and I could get my hands on. One time I read 3 library books
• 2:06:42
  in one day. It was my passion.
• 2:06:43
  As I got to high school, both my school workload and my social
• 2:06:46
  life picked up and I didn't read as much in college.
• 2:06:49
  I roughly met I'm in college. I mostly read the books I was
• 2:06:52
  assigning class, some of which were great.
• 2:06:54
  That's how I discovered Jane Eyre.
• 2:06:55
  Loved that book. It's one of my favourites too.
• 2:06:57
  When I got to. I'm doing reread actually.
• 2:06:59
  It's been a few years since when I got to medical.
• 2:07:02
  When I got to medical school, I made a conscious decision.
• 2:07:05
  I wasn't going to read for fun anymore.
• 2:07:07
  I felt that if I was reading something, it ought to be
• 2:07:09
  related to my medical education. So I quit reading for eight
• 2:07:11
  years. It didn't feel that big a
• 2:07:13
  sacrifice because I haven't read something I really enjoyed in a
• 2:07:16
  while. Then in my last year of
• 2:07:17
  residency, Casey asked if any of us could review a book for this
• 2:07:20
  blog. I volunteered, and when I read
• 2:07:22
  the book, I remember how much I used to enjoy reading.
• 2:07:24
  So I started up again. Recently I was reading an
• 2:07:26
  article about a woman who read a book a day for a year.
• 2:07:28
  This is not something I could ever do for many, many reasons.
• 2:07:31
  Just reading the article brought on a bit of an eye strain
• 2:07:34
  headache. But I was inspired by this
• 2:07:36
  woman's quest and how her love of reading inspired a love of
• 2:07:39
  reading in her children. My daughter recently observed me
• 2:07:42
  reading and said how and said how come you're not saying the
• 2:07:44
  words out loud. Then she sees my book and
• 2:07:46
  pretended to read it to herself. There's truly nothing like
• 2:07:48
  getting lost in a good book. Unfortunately I've had to wade
• 2:07:51
  through some junk, but it's worth it for the good ones.
• 2:07:53
  I also joined a book club that's inspired me to read some stuff I
• 2:07:56
  wouldn't have read otherwise. I haven't exactly read 365 books
• 2:08:00
  a year, but I have been keeping a list linked to my blog and it
• 2:08:03
  looks like I've read 43 books this year.
• 2:08:05
  Just great. Going for the end of December.
• 2:08:07
  That's brilliant, well done. I always kept a book next to me
• 2:08:09
  for when the baby falls asleep while nursing.
• 2:08:11
  If reading is something you love, you can always make time
• 2:08:13
  for it. And I kind of, I loved reading
• 2:08:15
  this. That positivity is what's
• 2:08:16
  missing in her blog post about being a doctor.
• 2:08:19
  Yeah. This is what we like to see,
• 2:08:21
  someone being passionate about their life and career and the
• 2:08:23
  things that they're doing day-to-day like this is this is
• 2:08:26
  great. Chevil Wears Scrubs was her
• 2:08:29
  first book, which was announced September 2013, two and a half
• 2:08:33
  years after she first dropped that idea for a title and
• 2:08:35
  concept in that blog post that we read a minute ago.
• 2:08:38
  This book is technically fiction, but she admits it's
• 2:08:40
  pretty autobiographical. As she says, I did it.
• 2:08:43
  I wrote that book about my intern year, The Devil Wears
• 2:08:46
  Scrubs by Frida McFadden. Obviously a pen name.
• 2:08:49
  It's fiction, but it kind of isn't, you know.
• 2:08:51
  In any case, if you're enjoying my writing, I feel certain
• 2:08:53
  you'll enjoy reading it. Here's the blurb.
• 2:08:56
  Newly minted Dr Jane McGill is in hell.
• 2:08:59
  Not literally, of course. Between her drug addicted
• 2:09:01
  patients, sleepless nights on call, and battling wits with the
• 2:09:04
  sadistic, charming, sexy surgeon, Jane can't imagine an
• 2:09:07
  afterlife much worse than her first first month of medical
• 2:09:11
  internship at County Hospital. And then there's the devil
• 2:09:14
  herself, Jane's senior resident doctor, Alyssa Morgan.
• 2:09:17
  When Alyssa becomes absolutely hell bent on making her new
• 2:09:20
  interns pay tenfold for the deadly sin of incompetence, Jane
• 2:09:23
  starts to worry that she may not make it through the year with
• 2:09:25
  her soul or her sanity intact. Please buy it.
• 2:09:29
  Sadly, she got a few negative reviews about this book along
• 2:09:32
  with some good ones. There were some good ones and
• 2:09:35
  she decided to address them. And what, nine months?
• 2:09:39
  Oh, no, sorry, no. A month later.
• 2:09:40
  Just one month later, I'm getting my dates mixed up.
• 2:09:42
  Just one month later in a blog post titled The Devil Wears
• 2:09:46
  Scrubs addressing comments. I'm overwhelmed by the number of
• 2:09:49
  nice comments I've gotten on The Devil Wears Scrubs.
• 2:09:51
  I love that. But there have been a few
• 2:09:53
  persistent negative comments I've got on Amazon that I wish
• 2:09:55
  to address here. One, it's too short.
• 2:09:57
  That's legitimate. If I had to do over again I
• 2:10:00
  would have definitely written an epilogue.
• 2:10:01
  Kind of bothers me here because like when people are saying like
• 2:10:04
  it's too short, they mean like it's probably not developed
• 2:10:06
  enough. The story moves too quickly,
• 2:10:08
  like there wasn't enough detailing bits.
• 2:10:10
  Like, not just you need to stick an epilogue on it, you know?
• 2:10:13
  To Alyssa, the evil resident isn't too much of A stereotype.
• 2:10:17
  Yep. Except nearly everything she did
• 2:10:19
  was actually done to me by a particular resident.
• 2:10:21
  Maybe there's a reason things are stereotypes because they're
• 2:10:23
  real. Three, We never find out why
• 2:10:25
  Alyssa doesn't like Jane. How many times in your life has
• 2:10:28
  someone been a jerk to you and you found out it was because,
• 2:10:30
  like, you reminded them of their great aunt who never believed in
• 2:10:33
  them? Most of the time, when someone
• 2:10:34
  doesn't like you, there's no real good reason, and you never,
• 2:10:39
  ever find out why. I refuse to come up with some
• 2:10:41
  contract reason that didn't feel real to me.
• 2:10:43
  And I feel like this whole post highlights a couple of problems
• 2:10:46
  with Freda. One, she's not great at taking
• 2:10:48
  criticism in general, and she doesn't tend to take it on
• 2:10:50
  board. She's just kind of makes excuses
• 2:10:52
  for it and moves on. 2 She seems to get an idea for a book and
• 2:10:55
  wants to write just that thing rather than be willing to adapt
• 2:10:58
  and edit and improve it to make it a better reader.
• 2:11:01
  Reader experience for the readers. 3, Just because
• 2:11:05
  something is realistic in Freda's mind, that doesn't mean
• 2:11:08
  it works well in a book. Generally, books have to make
• 2:11:11
  more narrative sense in real life.
• 2:11:14
  In real life, you don't necessarily have a beginning,
• 2:11:16
  middle, and end to every scenario, but in a book, you
• 2:11:19
  kind of need that for it to be satisfying and it to be well
• 2:11:22
  written and for readers to actually enjoy it.
• 2:11:24
  You know, people want their questions answered and loose
• 2:11:27
  ends tied up. This isn't a memoir.
• 2:11:29
  You chose to make it a novel, you chose to make it fiction.
• 2:11:32
  So you generally need to stick to the main conventions of that
• 2:11:35
  format if you want people to like it.
• 2:11:37
  You're right that in real life we don't always get the answers
• 2:11:39
  to every question we have, but in a novel, readers want those
• 2:11:43
  answers. In a good novel, we should get
• 2:11:45
  those answers. You know, Obviously there's a
• 2:11:47
  few exceptions if you're breaking rules on purpose, but
• 2:11:49
  speaking generally and 4. She seems quite lazy.
• 2:11:52
  I don't think it's that she felt it was wrong to come up with a
• 2:11:55
  reason. I think she was just being a bit
• 2:11:57
  lazy. Freda seems to like everything
• 2:12:00
  to be over and done with quickly, whether that's reading
• 2:12:02
  or writing. She wants the instant
• 2:12:03
  gratification and she doesn't seem to have much patience for
• 2:12:06
  actually taking time and developing ideas.
• 2:12:08
  So I feel like even when she has got feedback from people, she's
• 2:12:11
  not really done much to to change her writing.
• 2:12:14
  She doesn't really like work on improving things.
• 2:12:16
  She just wants to be like, oh, written a book, done, put it out
• 2:12:18
  next 10. Written a book, done, put it out
• 2:12:20
  next one. You know what I mean?
• 2:12:22
  She also seems very stuck in her ways as we see in this next
• 2:12:24
  post. And there's a line in this which
• 2:12:26
  I feel borders on, if not racist, then at least a little
• 2:12:30
  intolerant. And it made me feel icky.
• 2:12:32
  This was June 2014. Weekly wine.
• 2:12:35
  You'd like this book. I do like to read a lot and I
• 2:12:38
  admit I'm usually on the lookout for new books.
• 2:12:40
  I've been into mystery and thriller books.
• 2:12:41
  I recently read Everything The Library Had to Offer by Tess
• 2:12:44
  Gerritsen and so yes, I'm looking for new books to read.
• 2:12:47
  But it baffles me the kind of recommendations that people who
• 2:12:50
  know me quite well seem to make to me.
• 2:12:51
  For example, someone who knows me very well and everything I
• 2:12:54
  like was recommending an Indian writer to me who writes about
• 2:12:57
  early life in India. I don't know, maybe it's great,
• 2:13:00
  but it does not on any level seem like the kind of book I
• 2:13:02
  would read. My father-in-law is always
• 2:13:04
  recommending these weird guy books that I would never read.
• 2:13:07
  Like authors that like, like by authors that if I have read a
• 2:13:10
  book by them I hated it. Philip Roth Dondelelo,
• 2:13:14
  Dondelelo, Dondelelo, If you know me and you actually have a
• 2:13:18
  decent book to recommend me, fine.
• 2:13:20
  But don't play up something that you've read that is obviously
• 2:13:22
  something that wouldn't interest me.
• 2:13:23
  So it kind of feels like the only author she wants to read
• 2:13:27
  are straight white American women.
• 2:13:29
  And that's a little, I don't say problematic, but like, she's not
• 2:13:33
  really expanding her worldview at all, is she?
• 2:13:35
  She's not allowing herself to be open to other possibilities.
• 2:13:38
  Her line about like not wanting to read something because it's
• 2:13:40
  written by an Indian author who writes about life in India.
• 2:13:43
  I'm like, that got to me a bit felt icky.
• 2:13:48
  You know? Her last blog post about what
• 2:13:50
  book she likes to read was this one on September 2014.
• 2:13:54
  And again, I think it explains a lot about where Freda gets her
• 2:13:57
  inspiration from and why she has such a poor writing style in her
• 2:14:00
  novels. This is called young adult.
• 2:14:02
  Lately, I've been reading a lot of young adult books.
• 2:14:04
  They're sort of addictive in that it's hard to go back to
• 2:14:06
  normal books after reading a few of them.
• 2:14:08
  And I'll say this, I I don't haven't show it all with young
• 2:14:10
  adult books. I think they can still be
• 2:14:11
  written. Well, they can still be and
• 2:14:13
  ageing they can still be like brilliant books, nothing against
• 2:14:16
  them. The things I don't like are what
• 2:14:17
  she says she likes about them, so we'll get into it.
• 2:14:20
  What I like about young adult books?
• 2:14:21
  The language is simple and easy to read.
• 2:14:23
  For example, these are the first two sentences of a regular adult
• 2:14:26
  book I recently tried to read and I see Rush of Eyre, a
• 2:14:29
  freezing slipstream on the newly exposed skin.
• 2:14:31
  She is with no warning outside the inside, and the familiar wet
• 2:14:34
  tropical world has suddenly evaporated.
• 2:14:36
  I had to read that like 3 times in order to absorb it.
• 2:14:39
  I am way too tired for a book written like that.
• 2:14:41
  So one, that's not to the start of the book, there's a chapter
• 2:14:44
  beforehand and and two, I'm pretty sure that's Life
• 2:14:47
  Afterlife by Kate Atkinson. And I read that years ago.
• 2:14:50
  We're talking like 10 years ago. So I don't remember all the
• 2:14:52
  details, but I do remember it not being especially difficult.
• 2:14:57
  It's just just a book, you know, in general.
• 2:14:59
  I don't think it was that hard. Anyway.
• 2:15:01
  So back to the what's good about young adult books.
• 2:15:03
  They're never boring. Yes, sometimes silly or
• 2:15:05
  annoying, but not boring because kids don't have the attention
• 2:15:08
  span for boring and neither does Freda.
• 2:15:10
  For example, I recently read an adult book that was about 10.
• 2:15:13
  For example, I recently read an adult book that was spending
• 2:15:15
  about 10 pages going nowhere about this random drunk guy in a
• 2:15:18
  bar. If this were a young adult book,
• 2:15:19
  that scene would have ended 9 pages earlier or left it out
• 2:15:22
  entirely. The ones adults managed to
• 2:15:23
  remember from their childhood are usually pretty amazing.
• 2:15:26
  I mean, if something sticks with you for 20 years, it's got to be
• 2:15:29
  pretty good. So does anyone have any
• 2:15:30
  recommendations for a really amazing young adult book?
• 2:15:33
  If you want to see what I've already read and enjoyed, you
• 2:15:34
  can look at my reading list. Blah blah blah, Hurry oh hurry
• 2:15:38
  before I have to read something meant for people my own age.
• 2:15:40
  So what we can see from the rest of this post is like she, he
• 2:15:43
  seems to just want something quick and simple.
• 2:15:45
  The instant gratification again is quite revealing.
• 2:15:47
  In May 2015 she wrote and released another book.
• 2:15:50
  This was Co written with a friend of hers and it's called
• 2:15:52
  Baby City. There are only three things in
• 2:15:54
  the world that are certain. Death, taxes and babies.
• 2:15:57
  Not for me. I will be avoiding the babies.
• 2:15:58
  Thank you. Nobody knows this truth better
• 2:16:00
  than Emily McCoy, a third year resident working in Baby City,
• 2:16:03
  the affectionate nickname for the busy labour and delivery
• 2:16:06
  unit at a New York City hospital.
• 2:16:08
  On a typical day in Baby City, Emily delivers more babies than
• 2:16:11
  the number of hours of sleep she might just to squeeze in that
• 2:16:14
  night, and definitely more than the number of dates she's been
• 2:16:16
  on since she started her training in OBGYN two years
• 2:16:19
  earlier. As Emily works tirelessly to
• 2:16:22
  safely herald baby after baby after baby after baby into the
• 2:16:25
  world, she becomes well acquainted with three hard facts
• 2:16:28
  of babysitting. One, babies never come when you
• 2:16:30
  want them to. Two, babies always come when you
• 2:16:33
  don't want them to. And three, you don't know who
• 2:16:35
  your true friends are until your baby is sliding down the birth
• 2:16:38
  canal. This was written by Freedom
• 2:16:40
  McFadden and Kelly Stowdart. Baby City was a joint effort
• 2:16:44
  written by myself and Doctor Wu of OBGYN Kenobi.
• 2:16:48
  OBGY. Oh, I get it.
• 2:16:49
  Yeah. Like Obi Wan Kenobi.
• 2:16:50
  OBGYN. Yeah.
• 2:16:51
  That's funny. And that's a blog, I think.
• 2:16:54
  Do you remember the wonderful Doctor Wu who used to blog here?
• 2:16:58
  Well, now she's back in book form.
• 2:17:00
  This book is all about the real events that take place on a
• 2:17:02
  labour and delivery unit. Based on true stories, this book
• 2:17:04
  is the ultimate book for mothers and medicine because it's about
• 2:17:08
  mothers, both all the new and it's written by two female
• 2:17:11
  physicians who are also mothers. It's light reading, but it deals
• 2:17:14
  with a lot of issues that are important to women and mothers
• 2:17:17
  and physicians. Side note, we are donating 25%
• 2:17:20
  of the profits from the book to the Fistula Foundation, a
• 2:17:22
  nonprofit organisation that does great things for women in third
• 2:17:26
  world countries. I appreciate the charity
• 2:17:28
  donation. That's lovely.
• 2:17:29
  I cannot fault that, but I do find it funny that so in the
• 2:17:34
  last video I made, and it was about Colleen Hoover and her
• 2:17:37
  book woman down. And it's about how well my my
• 2:17:40
  whole point in the video was about how she wrote the self
• 2:17:42
  insert book, but kept going on about how like, you know, you
• 2:17:45
  don't always need to have the experience of something to be a
• 2:17:48
  good author or do you? And then like I make this video
• 2:17:51
  and I cover this in every single book so far.
• 2:17:53
  It's just Frieda writing about herself and her own experiences
• 2:17:56
  and like self inserting herself into her books.
• 2:17:59
  Same with her next one, which came out in June 2017, and it
• 2:18:02
  was a sequel to her first novel, The Devil You Know.
• 2:18:05
  Being a working mum who's also a physician isn't easy, as most of
• 2:18:08
  us know. Casey made a blog about it.
• 2:18:10
  I have now written a fiction book about it, The Devil You
• 2:18:12
  Know by Freda McFadden. This is almost embarrassed.
• 2:18:16
  This is an almost embarrassingly autobiographical book about how
• 2:18:19
  it's tricky balancing a busy career and family and how it can
• 2:18:22
  do a number on your marriage. It's a sequel to The Devil Wears
• 2:18:25
  Scrubs, but I wrote it so you don't have to read the first
• 2:18:28
  book to enjoy it again. Embarrassingly autobiographical.
• 2:18:33
  She then released another book called Brain Damage and then
• 2:18:35
  wrote another book. So between June 2017 and June
• 2:18:39
  2018 she wrote and or released three whole books.
• 2:18:43
  That is madness. And here's her plea for beta
• 2:18:47
  readers for her book. After Brain Damage and a little
• 2:18:50
  bit of drama surrounding it. Little help.
• 2:18:53
  Inspired by a recent burst of sales of my book Brain Damage, I
• 2:18:56
  decided to write something new. My newest book is a departure
• 2:18:59
  from my other in that the protagonist is not a doctor.
• 2:19:02
  It's my first book that is a straight up women's thriller.
• 2:19:05
  The title is The Surrogate Mother.
• 2:19:07
  The last time I published, I asked for help with beta reading
• 2:19:10
  and got some pretty good opinions.
• 2:19:11
  It's already gone through four people, so I'm asking for help
• 2:19:14
  once again. Anybody interested in reading a
• 2:19:16
  thriller written by yours truly and offering a constructive
• 2:19:19
  opinion, you must actually want to do it.
• 2:19:22
  Please don't do it out of obligation or because you feel
• 2:19:24
  sorry for me. You must have read and enjoyed
• 2:19:26
  at least one of my other books. The one beta reader I got last
• 2:19:29
  time who hadn't read anything by me got halfway through and quit.
• 2:19:33
  You must be able to read it in under one week and after reading
• 2:19:35
  it, be able to e-mail me your opinions in a coherent way and
• 2:19:38
  not vanish instantly when I ask a follow up question.
• 2:19:41
  If these things hadn't happened to me repeatedly, I wouldn't
• 2:19:43
  have to say them. And you must enjoy thrillers.
• 2:19:45
  Sorry, but if your beta readers are so bored that they're
• 2:19:48
  quitting halfway through, that should maybe tell you something
• 2:19:50
  about your book and having. You must have enjoyed one of my
• 2:19:53
  other books before I let you read.
• 2:19:54
  This is just kind of wild to me. That's honey.
• 2:19:58
  And while they're on and while we are on the theme of free that
• 2:20:01
  not liking negative feedback. January 2019.
• 2:20:04
  I don't get it. I recently wrote a new women's
• 2:20:07
  thriller. I thought of this really great
• 2:20:08
  twist for the ending and then kind of worked my way backwards,
• 2:20:10
  which is what she does in most of her books, to be honest.
• 2:20:13
  It's something that I discuss, I think in my Dear Debbie video
• 2:20:16
  that I'm going to have coming up.
• 2:20:17
  The first person who read the book thought the twist was
• 2:20:19
  pretty cool, but then my mother read it.
• 2:20:21
  I don't understand the ending. She said, what part didn't you
• 2:20:23
  understand? All of it.
• 2:20:25
  I proceeded to try and explain it to her and she still didn't
• 2:20:27
  understand. For several minutes of this, she
• 2:20:29
  said she had a headache and walked away.
• 2:20:31
  So I've come up with a brilliant twist.
• 2:20:32
  So brilliant apparently it's impossible to understand.
• 2:20:35
  I feel like if your reader, even if that is your mum, can't
• 2:20:38
  understand it, maybe it's not that brilliant.
• 2:20:41
  Maybe that's something you need to reconsider.
• 2:20:43
  You know? Based on timings, I'm going to
• 2:20:45
  guess that the book she's referring to is The X, which was
• 2:20:47
  released February 2019, but I can't say for certain.
• 2:20:50
  I've also not read this book myself, so I can't judge too
• 2:20:53
  much. However, I did quickly look up
• 2:20:55
  the reviews and this is one of the first ones that came up.
• 2:20:57
  The ending was confusing and poorly written.
• 2:20:59
  There was no ending. This book was not clever and the
• 2:21:02
  ending was stupid. Too many plot holes and the
• 2:21:04
  female characters were not believable.
• 2:21:06
  Yeah maybe if you want this is book I can look into reading and
• 2:21:10
  reviewing in the future but I just free to write so much it's
• 2:21:14
  impossible to stay on top of all of them.
• 2:21:16
  So I've just finished writing my review of Dear Debbie which came
• 2:21:19
  out in January and she's already got another one coming out in
• 2:21:22
  May. Like why is she releasing 4
• 2:21:24
  books a year? This is way too much.
• 2:21:26
  She's writing these quicker than I can read, didn't review them.
• 2:21:28
  Seriously, I just don't understand how someone can write
• 2:21:31
  so much so quickly and expect it to be of decent quality.
• 2:21:33
  Like, no wonder her books are so bad.
• 2:21:35
  Anyway, the last two blog posts that I want to look at because
• 2:21:38
  don't worry, we are very nearly done and Frieda's complaining
• 2:21:40
  about commenters and people who critique her writing and blogs
• 2:21:43
  again. So we have October 2011 weekly
• 2:21:46
  wine trolls. I really have my doctor grumpy
• 2:21:48
  because among other reasons I've noticed when people make
• 2:21:51
  inflammatory comments on his blog, he just ignores them.
• 2:21:53
  It's really hard to ignore trolls.
• 2:21:55
  They take something you said, often something totally benign,
• 2:21:57
  and twist it as an attempt to get you really upset.
• 2:21:59
  Often the attacks try to get personal, although how personal
• 2:22:02
  can someone who's never met you get?
• 2:22:04
  It always kind of baffles me. I mean, what kind of person is
• 2:22:06
  so pathetic they need to spend their time trying to upset
• 2:22:08
  random strangers on the Internet?
• 2:22:10
  Get a girlfriend or something? Now that this blog has got more
• 2:22:12
  readers, I've gotten a handful of trolls less than I thought
• 2:22:15
  I'd get, to be honest. Should I be insulted?
• 2:22:17
  It is so tempting to take the bait and reply to their
• 2:22:19
  inflammatory comments, but then I remember that that's just what
• 2:22:22
  they want. So my new mantra is that when a
• 2:22:25
  troll comments or emails me, I just laugh at the fact this
• 2:22:27
  person wastes of their time doing this and ignore it.
• 2:22:30
  Thanks Grumpy for showing me the way.
• 2:22:31
  And then June 2012 weekly wine. I'll never read your blog again.
• 2:22:35
  Sometimes I'll write something on this blog or another that
• 2:22:37
  some readers find offensive. I don't think the things I write
• 2:22:40
  are that terribly offensive, so it's probably a matter of the
• 2:22:43
  reader having a bit of a chip on their shoulder.
• 2:22:45
  I certainly don't expect everyone to agree with
• 2:22:46
  everything I say. I always appreciate a respectful
• 2:22:49
  argument without any name calling.
• 2:22:51
  Here's what bugs me though, when the person writes something like
• 2:22:53
  I find your post incredibly offensive and I'm never going to
• 2:22:55
  read your blog again. If I were in a restaurant and
• 2:22:57
  trying to make me threatening to never buy my food again would
• 2:23:00
  totally suck. But I don't make money per
• 2:23:01
  reader. I don't need more readers to
• 2:23:03
  attract advertisers. So why exactly would I want
• 2:23:06
  someone who hates my writing to be reading my blog?
• 2:23:08
  I prefer they didn't. I feel like my response to that
• 2:23:10
  threat should be thank you. Of course, the implication of
• 2:23:13
  writing such a thing is that I will now lose all my readers
• 2:23:15
  because people who constantly say offensive things never
• 2:23:17
  attract an audience or their own radio talk show.
• 2:23:20
  Oh, how times have changed. Tricia Peters Actually, the
• 2:23:24
  truth is, when I write something offensive, it's basically a
• 2:23:27
  guarantee of a big jump in my hits and lots of new followers.
• 2:23:30
  But I don't do it that much because I don't feel like it's
• 2:23:32
  the purpose of this blog. Anyway, here's an idea.
• 2:23:35
  If you ever decide to not read this blog anymore, just stop
• 2:23:37
  reading. No need to inform me of your
• 2:23:39
  dramatic of your decision in a dramatic fashion.
• 2:23:41
  I'm super conflicted about these posts and what I think of them
• 2:23:44
  because on the one hand, I kind of agree with her.
• 2:23:46
  I understand where she's coming from and I think she makes some
• 2:23:48
  great points. If a blog post or something
• 2:23:50
  isn't for you, just move on. You don't need to announce it.
• 2:23:53
  That's absolutely fine when you're consuming content for
• 2:23:55
  free, whether that's on a blog or YouTube or whatever it is.
• 2:23:59
  I don't think you necessarily need to be cruel for the sake of
• 2:24:01
  it and make a point of telling the creator, I don't like you, I
• 2:24:05
  don't want to watch this, I don't want to read this.
• 2:24:07
  You know what I mean? I think it's OK for something to
• 2:24:09
  not be your taste and just move on and find something that is
• 2:24:12
  your taste. You know what I mean?
• 2:24:14
  And I know I've never really felt a need to tell someone
• 2:24:16
  directly that I didn't like their content on like YouTube or
• 2:24:18
  something or a blog because I get, I just think it comes
• 2:24:21
  across as a bit mean, doesn't it?
• 2:24:22
  But on the other hand, when it's a paid for product, like, you
• 2:24:24
  know, a book or a film or something like that or ATV
• 2:24:28
  series you're watching on like a streaming service or whatever.
• 2:24:30
  Like, I think there's a difference between like leaving
• 2:24:32
  a comment directly for the creator and leaving a review
• 2:24:35
  because a review is not for a creator.
• 2:24:37
  A review of like a paid product is for the other consumers.
• 2:24:41
  You know, it's for the readers, consumers, watchers, whatever to
• 2:24:44
  decide whether they want to spend their time or money on
• 2:24:46
  this thing. And so that's what I think the
• 2:24:48
  difference is between like a review and a direct comment to
• 2:24:51
  the creator. I don't, I, yeah, I think
• 2:24:53
  there's differences. And I guess what I'm saying is
• 2:24:56
  like, I have a lot of empathy for Frida having to read
• 2:24:58
  negative comments. But on the other hand, when she
• 2:25:00
  admits that she sometimes writes offensive things to gain
• 2:25:03
  attention, that does bother me and I feel less empathy for her
• 2:25:06
  for that. So overall, it's complicated,
• 2:25:07
  it's nuanced. And that's, that's all I want to
• 2:25:10
  cover for today. I know this was long.
• 2:25:11
  There's a lot to cover. There's still many, many more
• 2:25:13
  blog posts I didn't cover. But if you want to check out the
• 2:25:16
  document, you can. It's linked below and you can
• 2:25:18
  read through and tell me what you think of certain ones if you
• 2:25:20
  want. And I do feel like through
• 2:25:22
  reading these blogs I got to know freedom more as a person,
• 2:25:25
  even if I don't know her name or anything like that.
• 2:25:27
  Still, I feel like I know her more as an individual rather
• 2:25:30
  than just a bad author. Some parts of her actually found
• 2:25:33
  myself really liking and respecting, which surprised me
• 2:25:35
  because I didn't I didn't think I would.
• 2:25:37
  Other parts kind of made me dislike her more.
• 2:25:40
  I liked understanding where she got her inspiration from, from
• 2:25:43
  her books and her writing process and things like that.
• 2:25:45
  And I think that's made me, it's definitely influenced how I
• 2:25:49
  review her books. So my review of Dear Debbie, I'm
• 2:25:52
  not sure if I was more or less critical because of what I
• 2:25:54
  understand now. It's hard to say because I
• 2:25:57
  spoiler Dear Debbie is her worst book yet.
• 2:26:00
  It is so damn bad. It's terrible.
• 2:26:05
  But I don't know if I was harsher because I know her
• 2:26:07
  writing process a bit more, or if I was like a bit more lenient
• 2:26:11
  with her. I don't, I don't.
• 2:26:13
  You know what? You'll have to watch that video
• 2:26:14
  when I do make it, and then you can tell me.
• 2:26:16
  But for now, I'd love to hear your thoughts on these blogs if
• 2:26:20
  you've made it through this far. Thank you so much for sticking
• 2:26:22
  with me. Thank you for being so patient
• 2:26:24
  with me while I've been going through this grieving process of
• 2:26:27
  losing COO and struggling quite a lot.
• 2:26:29
  And thank you so much for everyone who's been kind and
• 2:26:32
  supportive and wonderful. But yeah.
• 2:26:34
  And if you'd like to see more of me, you can go follow me over on
• 2:26:36
  Instagram. I've also got Patreon where you
• 2:26:38
  can support this channel or channel memberships.
• 2:26:41
  And yeah, thank you so much for watching today.
• 2:26:43
  I appreciate you guys a lot and I'll see you again soon.
• 2:26:45
  I hope you have a wonderful, wonderful rest of your day.