‘Right to Repair for Your Body’: The Rise of DIY, Pirated Medicine

I was a nurse's assistant. A pretty damn good one, and one that managed to get partway through two degrees before running out of money both times (rn and psychology), but kept to with reading via the medical library I had access to at one employer.

In other words, I tended to stand out from my co-workers, but ain't qualified to do shit other than personal care, blood draws, and sweating.

But it might disgust people how often someone asks me to do some kind of procedure I'm nowhere close to qualified to perform. Anything from the simple stuff that's safe for anyone to do, like removing stitches; all the way up to pulling teeth, putting stitches in, cutting out cysts, removing ingrown toenails, setting broken bones, and pretty damn much anything they think I'm magically able to do because I worked in nursing.

And I always tell them they're crazy if they think I'm qualified to do it. And they pretty much always say something along the lines of it being better than nothing, and they can't afford a doctor.

And they'll even offer me money to do the stuff. Not as much as doctor would cost, but way less than the legal fees would cost if I did it.

No bullshit, about five years ago, a guy that lives down the street comes knocking on my door one afternoon. We know each other, but aren't friends. Dude has a rag wrapped around his hand, dripping blood. Says he's got a bad cut. I start going for my phone to call 911, and dude says nah, just stitch me up, I can't afford an ER bill.

Like, dude, what the absolute fuck?

That is the state of US healthcare. People are willing to let some rando stitch them up than go to the ER because it's too damn expensive.

It's also both sad and interesting that people just assume I can get the job done. I mean, I could do some of the stuff I get asked, not all of it is difficult. But I'm not the typical NA, most of us don't bother stepping outside of personal care in our off time. But some of that stuff, an RN isn't qualified for either. Folks don't really have an understanding of what the various certifications and degrees mean.

It's crazy

Oh boy, looks like we're going to have American medicine shows all over again!