I've had a couple of bad experiences many years ago that have taught me to speak up more. Most of them were for my medically fragile son so that gave me the incentive I needed. The first time was when I was visiting my son in the NICU. This particular time I was by myself as my husband had to be at work that day. Most of the doctors and nurses were phenomenal. But one wasn't. He chose that time to come over and try to push me into signing a DNR for my infant son. He kept saying, "what quality of life can he expect?" The thing is, they had NO CLUE at that point what was even wrong and the only machine he was on at that time was a ventilator. I was livid. The next time was a follow up to an Endocrinologist a few months after the NICU. I told him my son was urinating more than what was normal. He barely glanced up from his paperwork and said in a very condescending tone, "He's fine. How would YOU know what is normal?" "Well, you mean aside from the fact that 1. your collegue's at the NICU diagnosed him as such; 2. because he is medically fragile, I measure/monitor/record everything, and 3. this is my second child so I do have a reasonable comparison-while you, sir, have laid eyes on him for a grand total of 30 seconds and read one paragraph on him." I had a home health nurse with me as I needed the help and she too looked like she was about to strangle him. We left and found another doctor. I have learned to trust my gut and follow through more as I have gotten older.