The thing about working in the medical profession is that because I wear scrubs my grandmother assumes I can help her with all things medical.

She is always giving me the various symptoms of her brothers and sisters and wants to know what is wrong with them.  “Your Aunt Mary has a bump on her left arm. What do you think it is?”  

Now let’s take into consideration that I work in physical therapy and I am not a doctor.  I live twelve hours away from Aunt Mary and have no access to her diagnostic test results.  There is no photo and no direct conversation with Aunt Mary. My grandmother still wants to know what is wrong with Mary’s arm.  

But when the shoe is on the other foot, and my Grandmother tells me she isn’t using her inhaler because “there ain’t a thing in the world in there but air.” suddenly she knows more than me.  No matter how hard I try to convince her that there is medication in that inhaler that will help her breathe she doesn’t believe it.  After a while I give up the fight.

I may have the scrubs but she will always have seniority.