A doctor has been unable to move for ten days straight after encountering a patient who is both fat and autistic.
Dr. Lloyd Didcot, 57, was about to tell Ben Espenson, 32, that the only treatment for his ear infection would be for him to lose two stone, when he saw in Espenson’s notes that he had recently been diagnosed as autistic.
Espenson recounted: “It was like he just ground to a halt. He started saying stuff like ‘it’s all in your gut… I mean you need to lose your mind… it’s overdiagbese…you’re making up fat’ and then he just seized up totally, mid-word.”
Consultant medical patronisologist Emma Bernard, 35, commented: “While obviously most general practitioners are able to discount people’s problems for any one of myriad reasons, when a non-specialist is faced with a complex multi-dismissable case like Espenson’s, the medical professional’s natural urge to fully ignore anything an autistic person says and their drive to fat shame anyone with an ounce of lipose tissue come into conflict, and they are unable to function.”
At the time of publication, Dr. Didcot is reportedly able to function again, as his deadlock was broken when a woman entered the consulting room with a menstrual issue.
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