He really ticked me off when he called me sweetheart. He wasn’t an old boyfriend, and I wasn’t in a fight with my husband.

I was talking to a consultant.

A freaking consultant.

I’m not sure what thought entered his mind to think he could call a physician “sweetheart,” so he apparently was a small-minded misogynist. So I called him on it. And he didn’t expect me to.

I had a patient with a NINE-millimeter stone stuck in her UPJ. She was in pain and had little resource for follow up. Regardless, it was a NINE-millimeter stone. Her creatinine was kind of borderline, and I knew that if I sent that lady home, she might not tolerate the pain, and she might not get the follow-up she needed. She needed to be admitted. We usually admit the big stones.

The urologist I work with at the other facility just says, “Lisa, I trust you; just admit them, and I will see them in the morning. You don’t even need to call me unless you need me.” He has a specific order set, and he is always super nice to me.

The other day he brought me some Cheetos while I was working.

First of all, it took an hour to get in touch with this guy. An hour. The phone was busy. Finally, I got a hold of him, and he didn’t even let me tell him about the patient. Not a word about the patient.

“Listen here, sweetheart,” he condescended.

“Uh – hold up,” I said. “First of all, don’t call me sweetheart.”

“I’ll call you anything I want to call you,” he retorted.

In all fairness, he’s pretty intolerable to all the docs. I told him, “You know, I don’t have a problem with any physician here but you.”

“What problem is that?”

“Well, everyone else actually wants to take care of patients.”

To us women physicians, this type of exchange is nothing really new. Luckily, it is becoming less frequent, except for those dinosaurs left over from the 19th century who have somehow survived with cryogenics or maybe have gotten into Marty McFly’s time machine. But we still feel it every day.

We still feel that Boys’ Club mentality. Leave the female gyno problems in the rack for the women; procedures and trauma are for those with the Y chromosomes.