Believing inpseudoscienceis often harmless, and ifit does affect anyone, it’s usually limited to the believers themselves.However, things take a different turn when those believers turn out to be licensedhealthcareprofessionals who are supposed to actually help people.
As one Redditor shared, she found it wildly inappropriate when she discovered that her radiology station coworkers believed their patients were sick because of the so-called ‘bad energy’ they ‘put out into the universe.’ And yet, when she confronted them, they had the nerve to take it up with the managers. Scroll down to read the full story!
More info:Reddit
Being a pseudoscience believer usually does no real harm as long as you’re not a licensed healthcare professional who is supposed to take care of patients
Image credits:Karolina Grabowska (not the actual photo)
A woman worked as a radiology assistant andwas taskedwith guiding the patients as well as cleaning and tidying the station
Image credits:Helpful_Run_1984 (not the actual photo)
All of the woman’s coworkers were into “The Secret,” which said that people get back what they put into the universe, implying that their patients’ illness was their own doing
Image credits:Mizuno K (not the actual photo)
The woman found it highly inappropriate and tried to confront some of her coworkers, but the situation didn’tchange
Image credits:Robert Bye (not the actual photo)
The coworkers started disliking her for it and decided to complain to their managers, accusing her of improper attitude and throwing out their “The Secret” books and materials
Image credits:Manglewood
The woman was calledinto a meeting, which concluded with herbeing forbiddento touch anyone else’s stuff, which meant that she would no longer have to clean for them
The story occurred around2008when the OP worked as a radiology assistant in amammographyunit.Her tasks involved guiding and instructing the patients, as well askeeping the station clean and tidy.
However, among all the complaints about her attitude, there was also one aboutthe wayshe handled their “The Secret”magazines. In responseto that, the assistantwas forbiddenfrom touching anyone else’s stuff. But for her, that was an absolute win-winsituation, as it meant that she could no longer tidy the radiology station, and thus, the believers would sit in theirownmess.
Most of the commenters agreed with the OP, saying that while positivityis a great thing, “The Secret” was not about it at all. It made people think that they deserve good things just because theythinkgood thoughts and that those who suffer are inferior to them and deserve what they get, which is wrong, even if you’re not a doctor.
Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, but there is a fine line between faith and delusion. Healthcare professionalsblindlyfollowing pseudoscientific tales like this would likely put off most rational-minded people, but for the OP, this also went on a personal level.
“Their obsession with ‘The Secret’ bothered me for personal reasons beyond what I felt on behalf of patients because my mom and I havesystemic lupus,”u/Manglewood, also known as Molly Hodgdon, opened up whenBored Pandareached out for an interview.
According to Molly’s ex-coworkers, her and her mother’s disease was a form of cosmic retribution for having so-called ‘negative energy.’ “Whenever I tried to talk to any of them about it, they would just say the whole conversation was an example of the negativity causing my genetically-influenced autoimmune disorder. It was truly outrageous victim blaming.”
After theevents of the story, the woman didn’t linger in her ex-workplace for too long, leaving after roughly half a year. However, it seems that her disbelief in “The Secret“left adeepermark on her workers than their belief left on her, as they were still gossiping and making up stories about her even after she no longer worked there.
“Now that I’m old enough to have annual mammograms, I dread the possibility that one of them might be my tech, but I also look forward to the opportunity to ask incredulously, ‘You’re still working here?? I thought you guys were going to use ‘The Secret’ to become millionaires!‘”Molly shared.
So, inthe end, just because someone is a licensed professional doesn’t automatically mean that they’ll act that way. It pays to judge people equally, regardless of their titles in our society,because even the most educated people can fall for the most ridiculous promises and vice versa.
Most of the commenters were very supportive of the poster, saying this kind of behavior from trained healthcare professionals is absurd
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