She Told Someone They’re Not a Doctor and They Should Stop Acting Like One? Is She a Jerk?

Do you want some life advice?

Well, even if you don’t, here it is: don’t lie about what you do for a living. First off, it’s just bad to lie about anything, and it’ll eventually catch up with you at some point and you’ll end up looking pretty stupid.

But is this woman wrong for calling someone out who’s claiming they’re a doctor?

Read on to get all the details.

AITA for telling a friend’s GF that she’s not a doctor and that presenting herself as one is misleading?

“I (28F) am a radiology resident.

The other day we were hanging out with friends and one of them, let’s call him Jason, brought his new gf, Alice. So Jason asks me to repeat a story from work that I had told him earlier that week, for everyone to listen. Alice interrupted me directly and exclaimed that we are colleagues and she could relate to my story so much being a doctor herself.

I thought great, it’s cool to meet new people who can relate to the hardships of medicine so I asked her if she’s a resident or an attending (she’s a little older). She then said she is a dermatologist, so I assumed she meant a dermatology attending. The conversation continued and I eventually found out that she’s not a physician but a nurse practitioner (NP) working at a dermatologist’s office.

For those of you who don’t know, NPs have the right to practice independently in some states, meaning without the direct supervision of a physician. If you don’t work in healthcare you probably don’t know the situation but let’s say that’s not a good idea. Limited knowledge and education leads to a lot of mistakes and lowers the quality of care.

Obviously that’s not a universal statement, I love the NPs I work with but if you know you know. So I tell her “then you’re a dermatology NP, not an attending dermatologist” and she got offended. Began saying that she can do anything a doctor can and sometimes even better.

I said I don’t doubt your abilities but it’s misleading to present yourself as a physician, especially to patients who don’t know any better. She called me an elitist and left the bar.

Jason called me the next day and asked me to apologize to Alice for offending her profession. As I said I have nothing against NPs but calling yourself a physician and claiming you have the exact same knowledge, if not more, is incredibly misleading.

So AITA?”