"Dr terrible bedside manner"

My baby year old fell and hit their head (which they have done many times) but their reaction was very scary and different to usual. They went silent for the first 5-10 seconds, appeared to be holding their breath/not breathing, their eyes widened, pupils dilated, then they finally took a breath but then repeated this behaviour for another 10 seconds before they started crying. 

Even though my baby wasn’t showing any immediate signs of serious injury my partner and I wanted to be sure they were was ok, so we took them to emergency. We live in Fitzroy Crossing in the Kimberley. By the time we had gotten to the hospital our babty was their happy self again. 

Almost immediately when we met the Dr they made us feel silly for being concerned. They asked me to explain what happened and when I said my baby's “pupils dilated” the Dr scoffed and said how do you know. I continued to say “well when my baby's eyes were wide open”, the Dr cut me off and said “eyes aren’t pupils” and proceeded to explain to me what pupils were. I stopped the Dr and said “I know what pupils are” then attempted to finished explaining what happened. By this point I recall the Dr would constant interrupt me to sarcastically say so we were there because our child had a normal reaction to pain.  I kept silent and let the nurses do there checks so that we could focus on making sure our baby was ok. Throughout this process the Dr also continued to rudely interrupt the nurses checks to do things like adjust the bed without warning, then tell me and the nurse off for not moving away from the bed (while we are mid way holding down my baby to take their temperature). 

Once I got the all clear my child was fine we left as quickly as we could. 

I felt this Dr was condescending and seemed to have made up a preconceived narrative about me as soon as they walked in the room. Without being sure, I can’t help but feel like it was because me and my partner are Indigenous. Their assumption that I didn’t know what pupils are tells me the Dr believed we were stupid. This behaviour made me feel a lot of distrust in the medical industry and makes me feel scared to take my child back in fear of being ridiculed. 

Just to add some context here, I grew up in a medical family, 50% of my family and friends are either nurses or doctors and I’d spend a lot of time in our small town hospital as a kid. I am very comfortable around medical settings and practitioners, however this experience and a few more in Fitzroy Crossing hospital in particular have made me concerned about the way people are getting treated. I acknowledge it’s a high stress work environment and even more so in these remote areas, however I can also identify stress from pure prejudice and bad attitude. In my opinion this Dr had a bad attitude and may have some other prejudices.