I’m not a doctor. I don’t even play 1 on TV. My degrees are solely in the communication arts. It is possible that I am the lowest qualified person AT DMU to answer a health question. And yet sometimes I just CAN NOT bite my tongue.
Not to worry, I don’t give medical advice as an expert or to the clinic patients who dial my phone on accident but sometimes when friends or acquaintances mention something…I turn into lil miss know-it-all.
Y’see I end up editing a lot of general health information or writing copy for clinic brochures or magazine stories here at DMU, plus I sit in on a lot of our health experts’ media interviews. So I end up with tons of tidbits of random health facts floating in my head.
Someone’ll mention they got some of the new fitness shoes and I want to tell them to use caution lest they strain their muscles or joints. A friend is traveling to Africa and before I knew it last week I was giving him a lecture on wearing sunscreen, applying it often and BEFORE he applied his bug spray.
I have to admit I come by this annoyingly helpful trait honestly. My mother once told me at a wedding to go up to a perfect stranger and tell her to get a mole on her back checked because it looked pre-cancerous. (I didn’t, btw.) And yet when someone says they have a cold I have, in the past, responded with a question about the color of their mucus and tips on how to recognize a sinus infection. No lie. (And yet somehow people remain my friends. It’s a mystery to me too.)
So, what’s your hot topic or peeve that makes you pipe up with unasked for advice? Or, actual health professionals, what issues or health conditions prompt you to speak up, interject or correct?
