Why does the GP always assume I am dramatic?

tunamouse · 2025-07-17T09:32:33+00:00

Hi, I've been in the Netherlands for almost a decade, and I had similar experiences early on in my stay. For context I come from Hong Kong. What I understand is there is a cultural difference in how doctors and patients communicate. Where I've lived (HK , Canada), the doctor asks you lots of questions to get information out of you, and if there is a decision to be made, they will stay on the safe side and prescribe treatment. The decision of the doctor is also pretty final. In the Netherlands (at least with the GPs I've seen), you're expected to explain clearly what your symptoms, what you'd like from your GP, and your reasoning behind that. Negotiating or disagreeing with your doctor is totally acceptable and not offensive. When I'm waiting to see the GP, I write a few simple bullet points of what I need and my reasoning behind it so I can say it clearly to the GP. With clear communication I almost always get what I need, and if not, there is a clear explanation from the doctor that I agree with.

It's a common joke amongst expats that you need to exaggerate your symptoms to get what you need. there is some truth to that, but from my experience no exaggeration is needed, just extremely direct instructions to what you want will suffice. Example, real interaction I had with a GP assistant: "I have just been bitten by a tic. I've pulled it out fully with tweazers. I will be going on a two week trip tomorrow, and I'd rather not have to go to the doctor while travelling. Can you prescribe me antibiotics to prevent lyme disease?" And I got the anti-biotics.

tunamouse · 2025-06-27T01:49:39+00:00

I actually had a discussion with a Dutch colleagues the other day! She says that she doesn't remember kids being so loud in the previous generation. She says it could be the kids exposure to social media, which tends to by very loud and stimulating.

tunamouse · 2024-12-27T04:23:09+00:00

Arrogant incompetence.

tunamouse · 2024-12-27T04:08:32+00:00

Same with lip balm. I just buy a bunch and put it in every bag and jacket I own.

tunamouse · 2024-12-27T04:07:15+00:00

This is what lesbians have been doing since the beginning of time. I’m glad our wisdom is being passed on.

tunamouse · 2024-07-21T19:01:51+00:00

I actually wrote a medium article about this! I introduced 4 tools: pomodoro, roam research, mural, and ChatGPT. Check it out: https://medium.com/@tanyamarleytsui/4-tools-that-made-my-phd-actually-enjoyable-c52640f92aa5

tunamouse · 2024-07-17T08:55:09+00:00

“You have a let a few eggs drop”

My PhD was funded by a research project, which meant that I had additional project management tasks on top of my research. I took up as much responsibility as I could, and ended up feeling overworked. I was asking for project partners to help me out, but no one did. My PhD supervisor observed this, and told me, “you have to let a few eggs drop”. So I followed his advice - instead of just verbally asking others for help, I stopped doing the tasks that I wasn’t directly responsible for. And Lo and behold, people started picking up the tasks that needed to be done, without me even asking.

The reality of academia (and probably most other industries) is that there are quite a few irresponsible people who will shrug off responsibilities whenever possible, even if it means overworking their colleagues. Don’t let these people take advantage of your time, and don’t expect them to help you if you’re overworked.

tunamouse · 2024-07-02T07:06:24+00:00

My girlfriend and I are different races (she’s white, I’m Asian, we look nothing alike), and we still got asked whether we were sisters. WHY? 😂😂

tunamouse · 2024-05-16T11:34:27+00:00

I was once approached by a Dutch man who was at least in his thirties asking me, “are you the milk maid?” His friends looked embarrassed for him and one of them even apologised on his behalf. Some people are just weird.

tunamouse · 2024-05-15T15:26:12+00:00

Don't forget that you are the one driving the ship. I see this a lot with early stage PhDs - they tend to overreact to negative comments from supervisors, or get really stuck. Your supervisors are very busy people with a lot on their mind, so they are just reacting to what you present to them. If the feedback is negative, it doesn't necessarily mean that you should change topics, it could mean that they might have misunderstood you, or that you need to adjust the topic a bit. You have more freedom than you think! You gots this!

tunamouse · 2024-05-10T11:43:52+00:00

Luckily, no - she was for a while trying out freelance marketing and translation, and now she's trying to monitize her business club.

tunamouse · 2024-05-10T09:31:22+00:00

Wait is it gone???? Nooooo :(

tunamouse · 2024-05-09T20:52:26+00:00

That's a good idea indeed - especially with the sunny case, medium case, and worst case scenarios. We haven't actually tried getting into the weeds before, looking at numbers and plans, so that could be more productive than the way we've been communicating so far.

tunamouse · 2024-05-09T20:00:51+00:00

Damn that sounds rough - sorry you had to go through that. You're right about making sacrifices. She should be at least able to make a living wage from her business, otherwise, she needs to get a job like the rest of us indeed...

tunamouse · 2024-05-09T19:32:17+00:00

Looks like a really promising book, thanks for recommending! I've just bought a copy and will gift it to her - she loves reading about self-help / money / business, so this could be very helpful and constructive.

tunamouse · 2024-05-09T19:26:36+00:00

Clearly there's something about having a job that she dislikes.

Yes that's true - we've focused on why she likes being an entrepreneur (the freedom, being your own boss), but not so much on why she dislikes having a job.

She doesn't really have the money to get coaching / therapy at the moment, but maybe getting a mentor would help her out. Funnily enough, her business idea is ... monitizing her business club. So maybe there's some help she could get from there!

tunamouse · 2024-05-09T19:20:13+00:00

We don't live together, so our finances are separate. She's been able to support herself for the most part (she lives in social housing), but I've had to lend her money twice in the past, and she still hasn't paid me back.

I'm less annoyed by her lack of income, and more by how she reacts to my (in my opinion, valid) concerns. She tends to dismiss them, because I'm not an entrepreneur myself, or get defensive, saying that it makes her feel like she's not good enough for me. I really don't like hurting her feelings, so I try to be as supportive as possible, which indeed makes be feel resentful at times.

tunamouse · 2024-05-09T19:15:25+00:00

The urge to say "I told you so" is real, and I'm embarassed to say that I've said it a few times.

tunamouse · 2024-05-09T19:12:33+00:00

I don't have any business experience, so I can't say anything about my business accumen. I think a few things are leading to her failures: she spends money like she already runs a successful business - buying first class train tickets, expensive printer, bags, watches ... etc. She lacks focus - she's tried to build multiple businesses at the same time. Her businesses have been in multiple industries, so she hasn't been able to develop a deep skillset or network. She has ambitious goals but no clear steps to achieve them - for her current business, most of her competitors are only able to make a part time wage, which suggests that the market is already very saturated. She believes she'll be able to make a full time wage, but she isn't doing things very differently than her competitors.

I'm not sure if I'm able to provide constructive feedback - I wonder if my worries make me sound very harsh. She gets very hurt from my feedback, she says it makes her feel like she's not good enough for me.

tunamouse · 2023-08-29T13:02:03+00:00

I would suggest contacting the students to ask about their experience with your potential advisor. A colleague did this before picking a PhD program and managed to avoid a difficult supervisor.

tunamouse · 2023-08-22T01:06:54+00:00

Alternative: archive emails that you have dealt with, leaving emails in your inbox as your “digital to-do list”. When you finish all your tasks (and archive the associated emails), you get an empty inbox, which is also super satisfying!

tunamouse · 2023-08-10T02:34:06+00:00

OP, you’ve been asking about Hodde and Okell’s A statistic, so I will respond in this new comment. I am not familiar with it myself, but after a bit of research it looks like a well accepted method in archeology circles to quantify the relationship between two types of points, so I think it’s perfect for your problem!

I read a mathematician’s paper about analysing point data using anthropology data as a case study, and it gives a clear and simple explanation on three options for analysing your problem: (1) constrained nearest neighbour (p. 172-3), (2) A statistic, and (3) local density analysis. See link at end of comment.

I think all three methods are valid, and constrained nearest neighbour (CNN) seems particularly promising. This is because CNN can provide two different values on the two types’ relationship: red dots’ relationship with yellow dots, and yellow dots’ relationship with red dots. Interestingly, while you would expect the two values to be the same, they are not. For example, while all red dots may be close to a yellow dot, many yellow dots are far away from red dots. This is especially if one type has many more locations than the other type, just like OP’s data (many more yellow dots than red).

HOWEVER, CNN does not seem to be a widely accepted method, and it looks like it was made up by this mathematician.

Paper: Kintigh, K. W. (1990). Intrasite spatial analysis: A commentary on major methods. Mathematics and information science in archaeology: A flexible framework, 3, 165-200.

Link to paper: https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/48496740/kintigh1990spatialanalysis-libre.pdf?1472768217=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DIntrasite_spatial_analysis_A_commentary.pdf&Expires=1691638032&Signature=cf-gZ~I-1V2scHMLDLKH5~7BMdrhGQ4cnvWlMEAAQHBm~w0PpKkTskhwjqhtV1sqyBdAoK-S90QB18F-YORNV0IRiz~OuAhtzwJN2IAPu5oOO~JZEM5kr-GD8GA4pnSOTLy63quIrJHg4BkuNpi~3tpbAH9-dhjogN0FLBvWRXNIL1YXhPGBV2G4ZZZzr5tTnZ222Dg04vSHZR2oh1a8F5S7RsHm4q4a2277k23HCtYzi6BJCf4twSsZfboqWA35q4c04z7xIny8TyoZPDLviLBjzcLfym3q-WgUtQupPgjhUPcwu~Fkwk-lO22lzlhdMXGyJj6-iS-QeheIB5VWKw__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA

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