Dirty secret about an industry that you have worked in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am no longer a doula but was an active one for over 10 years. The blatant lies that OB Nurses and Doctors tell mothers are terrible. Women are taken advantage of every single day and damaged and sometimes don't even know it for years after a birth. Choose your provider and birth place carefully!

Like what? As a doula, did you tell the woman they were being lied to?

We speak about the risks prior to labor and there is only so much a doula can do if the mother/partner are bullied into procedures or interventions that were not medically necessary or ended up causing more interventions. I cannot speak for the mother, I support her choices. When an intervention is suggested, I try to give my clients a review of pros and cons but it's up to them. Panic sometimes sets in and Obs know how to manipulate. The majority of the births I supported went well but there are a few that haunt me. Also, what I see is sometimes
different than what the mother experiences. If she feels good about her birth but I have seen her Ob do something damaging to her IMO, I am not going to ruin her memory of her experience. If she does not feel great about it and asks me, I might offer my obeservations and notes.

I have attended over 200 births, question everything your medical provider does and unless it's medically necessary, don't induce.

I don't understand-what is the ulterior motive of the OB

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am no longer a doula but was an active one for over 10 years. The blatant lies that OB Nurses and Doctors tell mothers are terrible. Women are taken advantage of every single day and damaged and sometimes don't even know it for years after a birth. Choose your provider and birth place carefully!

Like what? As a doula, did you tell the woman they were being lied to?

We speak about the risks prior to labor and there is only so much a doula can do if the mother/partner are bullied into procedures or interventions that were not medically necessary or ended up causing more interventions. I cannot speak for the mother, I support her choices. When an intervention is suggested, I try to give my clients a review of pros and cons but it's up to them. Panic sometimes sets in and Obs know how to manipulate. The majority of the births I supported went well but there are a few that haunt me. Also, what I see is sometimes
different than what the mother experiences. If she feels good about her birth but I have seen her Ob do something damaging to her IMO, I am not going to ruin her memory of her experience. If she does not feel great about it and asks me, I might offer my obeservations and notes.

I have attended over 200 births, question everything your medical provider does and unless it's medically necessary, don't induce.

I don't understand-what is the ulterior motive of the OB

NP but their time, money.

This isn't rocket science. Take a natural birth class like Birth Bootcamp. Watch The Business of Being Born. You'll get there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most doctors are burned out and hate their jobs and hate their patients.

Therapists and psychologists always come from screwed up families and often have way more issues than their own patients!

I like most of my patients.

I know an eating disorder therapist that regularly contributes to pro-ana sites and fitspo sites under another name.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am no longer a doula but was an active one for over 10 years. The blatant lies that OB Nurses and Doctors tell mothers are terrible. Women are taken advantage of every single day and damaged and sometimes don't even know it for years after a birth. Choose your provider and birth place carefully!

Like what? As a doula, did you tell the woman they were being lied to?

We speak about the risks prior to labor and there is only so much a doula can do if the mother/partner are bullied into procedures or interventions that were not medically necessary or ended up causing more interventions. I cannot speak for the mother, I support her choices. When an intervention is suggested, I try to give my clients a review of pros and cons but it's up to them. Panic sometimes sets in and Obs know how to manipulate. The majority of the births I supported went well but there are a few that haunt me. Also, what I see is sometimes
different than what the mother experiences. If she feels good about her birth but I have seen her Ob do something damaging to her IMO, I am not going to ruin her memory of her experience. If she does not feel great about it and asks me, I might offer my obeservations and notes.

I have attended over 200 births, question everything your medical provider does and unless it's medically necessary, don't induce.

As a nurse, I will second this. Question everything! Do not just take your doctors word at face value- this is your life or your loved ones. I cannot tell you how many borderline dangerous orders I've had to follow up on or to prompt the doctor to order meds/tests that were vital for the patient's safety.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I worked in a nonprofit where they got government and private funds to do educational programming and most of the charges to the government were fabricated. They made up nonexistent people and billed for a percentage of their salaries. I was asked to sign off on something where I was doing all the work and getting about 50K and they billed the government for a nonexistent employee who was supposedly getting 95K and then they pocketed the difference. I found another job.
And the head of the nonprofit was using donated funds to pay his mortgage on his house and his car payments. Claimed they were business expenses.

I currently work at a nonprofit, and this runs very contradictory to my experiences working with federal funding and donations. Reputable non-profits undergo auditing each year and have a Board that is very invested in the nonprofit's work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am no longer a doula but was an active one for over 10 years. The blatant lies that OB Nurses and Doctors tell mothers are terrible. Women are taken advantage of every single day and damaged and sometimes don't even know it for years after a birth. Choose your provider and birth place carefully!

Like what? As a doula, did you tell the woman they were being lied to?

We speak about the risks prior to labor and there is only so much a doula can do if the mother/partner are bullied into procedures or interventions that were not medically necessary or ended up causing more interventions. I cannot speak for the mother, I support her choices. When an intervention is suggested, I try to give my clients a review of pros and cons but it's up to them. Panic sometimes sets in and Obs know how to manipulate. The majority of the births I supported went well but there are a few that haunt me. Also, what I see is sometimes
different than what the mother experiences. If she feels good about her birth but I have seen her Ob do something damaging to her IMO, I am not going to ruin her memory of her experience. If she does not feel great about it and asks me, I might offer my obeservations and notes.

I have attended over 200 births, question everything your medical provider does and unless it's medically necessary, don't induce.

I don't understand-what is the ulterior motive of the OB

NP but their time, money.

This isn't rocket science. Take a natural birth class like Birth Bootcamp. Watch The Business of Being Born. You'll get there.

Just to put the other side out there, I have a relative who was a doula for years who ended up getting out of it in part because she felt a lot of her fellow doulas were more interested in validating their own ideological beliefs about childbirth at the expense of their client's health. She got tired of having to establish trust with each new OB/nurse/hospital staff because a prior doula had put ideology over health and she also felt like a lot of her fellow doulas misled their clients into believing in an idealized version of birth that, when it didn't occur, resulted in PPD, trauma, and deep feelings of failure on the part of the woman. The doulas set unrealistic expectations but weren't there for the realistic aftermath.

She knows there are other doulas who quietly feel the same way, but many doulas subscribe to an orthodoxy about birth that is rigid and unyielding and does not benefit their patients, and they reject any fellow doulas who don't subscribe to the same orthodoxy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am no longer a doula but was an active one for over 10 years. The blatant lies that OB Nurses and Doctors tell mothers are terrible. Women are taken advantage of every single day and damaged and sometimes don't even know it for years after a birth. Choose your provider and birth place carefully!

Like what? As a doula, did you tell the woman they were being lied to?

We speak about the risks prior to labor and there is only so much a doula can do if the mother/partner are bullied into procedures or interventions that were not medically necessary or ended up causing more interventions. I cannot speak for the mother, I support her choices. When an intervention is suggested, I try to give my clients a review of pros and cons but it's up to them. Panic sometimes sets in and Obs know how to manipulate. The majority of the births I supported went well but there are a few that haunt me. Also, what I see is sometimes
different than what the mother experiences. If she feels good about her birth but I have seen her Ob do something damaging to her IMO, I am not going to ruin her memory of her experience. If she does not feel great about it and asks me, I might offer my obeservations and notes.

I have attended over 200 births, question everything your medical provider does and unless it's medically necessary, don't induce.

I don't understand-what is the ulterior motive of the OB

NP but their time, money.

This isn't rocket science. Take a natural birth class like Birth Bootcamp. Watch The Business of Being Born. You'll get there.

Just to put the other side out there, I have a relative who was a doula for years who ended up getting out of it in part because she felt a lot of her fellow doulas were more interested in validating their own ideological beliefs about childbirth at the expense of their client's health. She got tired of having to establish trust with each new OB/nurse/hospital staff because a prior doula had put ideology over health and she also felt like a lot of her fellow doulas misled their clients into believing in an idealized version of birth that, when it didn't occur, resulted in PPD, trauma, and deep feelings of failure on the part of the woman. The doulas set unrealistic expectations but weren't there for the realistic aftermath.

She knows there are other doulas who quietly feel the same way, but many doulas subscribe to an orthodoxy about birth that is rigid and unyielding and does not benefit their patients, and they reject any fellow doulas who don't subscribe to the same orthodoxy.

I am the PP Doula and totally agree! It has gotten worse, especially with some of the newer birth education programs. There is one birth educator in my local area who shames mothers who do not have a natural birth. Doulas and Birth Educators oftentimes have been injured in their own births and are in this work to help "save" others.
It is so destructive.

I got out of the doula business mainly due to the treatment that I witnessed in hospitals. Pushing inductions, pushing interventions, denying food/water and movement from the bed, unnecessary episiotomies, keeping a mother from pushing as Doc wasn't there yet resulting in mother/baby exhaustion and emergency at birth (several times). Telling a mother she will need a c-section because she is overweight. There are dozens more examples. I have a great relationship with the providers at the hospitals I worked in but I am powerless. As a doula, I am a guest and am hired by the family to support the mother. I feel lucky my own births went as well as they did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work as a govt contractor for almost 20 years now and there are so many feds that do NOTHING. They are just dead weight and they can't be fired! They are protected by a union. I had no idea. They just move these people around to different departments. Also, people get promoted to like GS14s and then sometimes their job is eliminated for some reason so they just invent new jobs that requires a GS14 or 15 just so this person has work. I never knew how much power these unions have. You can get rid of anyone! So inefficient and wasteful. Pathetic.

Yes, PP but it is hardly a secret. The dead weight themselves aren't even secretive about it! You would think that they would at least pretend to work but I have seen far too many who are so blatant about doing nothing. Proud of it even.

90% of the gov't workers I know work very hard and are of above average intelligence. The other 10% are half stupid and lazy, or have nothing to do and are very mad about it – they want to work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am no longer a doula but was an active one for over 10 years. The blatant lies that OB Nurses and Doctors tell mothers are terrible. Women are taken advantage of every single day and damaged and sometimes don't even know it for years after a birth. Choose your provider and birth place carefully!

Like what? As a doula, did you tell the woman they were being lied to?

We speak about the risks prior to labor and there is only so much a doula can do if the mother/partner are bullied into procedures or interventions that were not medically necessary or ended up causing more interventions. I cannot speak for the mother, I support her choices. When an intervention is suggested, I try to give my clients a review of pros and cons but it's up to them. Panic sometimes sets in and Obs know how to manipulate. The majority of the births I supported went well but there are a few that haunt me. Also, what I see is sometimes
different than what the mother experiences. If she feels good about her birth but I have seen her Ob do something damaging to her IMO, I am not going to ruin her memory of her experience. If she does not feel great about it and asks me, I might offer my obeservations and notes.

I have attended over 200 births, question everything your medical provider does and unless it's medically necessary, don't induce.

I don't understand-what is the ulterior motive of the OB

NP but their time, money.

This isn't rocket science. Take a natural birth class like Birth Bootcamp. Watch The Business of Being Born. You'll get there.

Oy. There is so much wrong with that movie it isn't even funny. Please DO NOT get your childbirth information from this movie. Please.

[Anonymous]

At academic conferences, you can present your research as a talk, or on a poster that you stand by for an hour and then people come ask you about it.

Talks are given only to high-ranking PhDs since there are limited presentation rooms. Meanwhile, acceptance rates for posters is 99% since they just throw up some poster boards in a big ballroom.

Why such a high acceptance rate? The conference organizers get kickbacks from the conference hotels like free rooms and so on, but it depends on attendees booking a certain number of hotel rooms. By accepting all posters, those people have justification to go to the conference and will then stay in a room.

I've debated having my 3 year old scribble on a poster board and submitting that. I bet she'd be accepted!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I worked in a nonprofit where they got government and private funds to do educational programming and most of the charges to the government were fabricated. They made up nonexistent people and billed for a percentage of their salaries. I was asked to sign off on something where I was doing all the work and getting about 50K and they billed the government for a nonexistent employee who was supposedly getting 95K and then they pocketed the difference. I found another job.
And the head of the nonprofit was using donated funds to pay his mortgage on his house and his car payments. Claimed they were business expenses.

I currently work at a nonprofit, and this runs very contradictory to my experiences working with federal funding and donations. Reputable non-profits undergo auditing each year and have a Board that is very invested in the nonprofit's work.

Me too. At my nonprofit we have to account for literally every penny we spend from government grants. My executive director is always talking about how we need to be responsible stewards of our funds, and we take it very seriously. I'm sure there are bad nonprofits out there but they're definitely not all that way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All the big environmental / conservation nonprofits are a complete scam . But, I'm not sure this is a secret .

What do you mean?

My spouse works at one of the biggest and best known environmental orgs, and they are the hardest-working, most dedicated people I've ever met. What orgs are you talking about?

[Anonymous]

I worked in churches. A lot of the priests were actually pedophiles.

[Anonymous]

(Cousin works in TV). Reality shows are mostly staged. Yes, the people are real, but for example in Real Housewives, the producers will ask them to talk about a certain topic. If they stray on a tangent, the producer will interrupt, remind them to stay on topic, and have them start from the top again.

Or Survivor. Yes, they're on an island but they park a huge cruise ship right next to it as the crew needs somewhere to stay, and they're union and entitled to certain amenities. That's why you won't really see a view of all sides of the island - you'd see the big cruise ship if you did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All the big environmental / conservation nonprofits are a complete scam . But, I'm not sure this is a secret .

What do you mean?

My spouse works at one of the biggest and best known environmental orgs, and they are the hardest-working, most dedicated people I've ever met. What orgs are you talking about?

np. Might be referring to the ones that make extensive use of canvassers. I did that one summer -- put you in buses and take you around to neighborhoods to knock on doors and ask for money. Dirty little secret is at least 50 cents of what you give me is going directly into my pocket (not as in I stole it, rather in terms of what I was paid).