Me and My Doctors

Okay, so …  I posted yesterday that having to go to a doctor about my left wrist is the one factor that outweighs all others in determining whether I actually seek treatment or not.

And maybe that sounds silly. I can understand that. Our society thinks highly of doctors, and seeks their counsel for practically everything. And we’re encouraged to do so. And that’s probably not a bad thing. But I’ve had such bad experiences with doctors that I’m very, very reluctant to go visit one.

First of all, there’s the wait time. You make an appointment for, say, 13:30. If I make an appointment to meet someone at 13:30, it’s a pretty reasonable expectation that they will be available at 13:30. Not so with most doctors. (And I do have to say most, because I have a doctor, a dentist, and a chiropractor who are spot-on with appointments. But they are the exception, not the rule, in my experience.) I have “fired” several doctors simply because the wait time in their office was outrageous. I don’t mean in minutes, either. I’m talking hours past my appointment time, and I’m still sitting in the waiting room, unseen.

Second, the indignity. You have to undress and put on a paper envelope that doesn’t fully cover any part of you. And then they want you to walk down the hall, past a bunch of strangers,  so they can weigh you in a public place.  So you are freezing cold (why are doctor’s offices always so cold?) and naked and parading up and down halls with strangers staring at you. Yeah, that’s a comfortable experience.

And then there’s the attitude. The doctors insinuate that you are lying.  They treat you like a child or a half-wit. They act like you don’t know your own body and how it behaves. God forbid you should question how much something will cost or if it’s necessary or if there’s an alternative.

The stories I could tell! Like the endocrinologist I consulted about suspected thyroid issues, who told me I should go on a diet of no more than 1100 calories a day, and who laughed when I told him that I passed out if I ate less than 2000. Or the doctor whom I took my mother to, who was so busy treating her like an imbecile that he failed to notice  a two-inch polyp in her colon — dude could have killed my mother! Or the doctor whom I consulted about a rash on my chest. Who blushed and got all embarrassed and refused to examine the rash, even when I suggested that it might be easier to diagnose if he actually looked at the rash, instead of listening to me describe it. (I mean, okay, I’m a girl, and I don’t go around baring my chest to just anyone. But don’t you have to see  what you are diagnosing?) And the doctor who, when he read my weight on my chart, practically shouted it aloud, and then marched me back to the scale while announcing to God and everybody that there was no way Ms. Editormum weighed 248 pounds. Thanks, doc.

But the most egregious example was my former GP’s office. I called to make an appointment to see the nurse practitioner after catching my toe in a table leg and hearing an audible snap, followed by excruciating pain. “She doesn’t have an opening for three weeks.” I protested that I thought I had a broken toe, and maybe a broken bone was a little more urgent than that. “Okay, we will fit you in tomorrow.” Okay, that was cool. But I remind the scheduler that I think I have a broken bone, so I will most likely need an x-ray. “Okay, I will make a note. We will see you tomorrow at 16:00.”

So I work through my lunch hour and arrive at the doctor’s office ten minutes early.  (Ha! There’s always a ream of paperwork to fill out, and since most doctors’ offices won’t fax or e-mail the stuff ahead of time, I always plan to be early.) I fill out the forms. I pay my co-pay. I sort through my mail. I sit and watch the medical propaganda channel. I read my book. It’s 17:00. I remind myself that they are “fitting me in” and that the wait may be a little longer than usual. The waiting room slowly empties.

At 17:45, there are only two people left in the waiting room, me and another woman. The nurses come through and being locking up. No one speaks to us. I look at my co-waiter and she says, “I’ve been here since 15:00. I hope they haven’t forgotten us.” I laugh and say, “Yeah, I don’t really want to spend the night here.” I call my chiropractor to reschedule my 17:30 appointment.

At 18:05, the nurse finally calls us back to the examining rooms. She asks me to undress. I ask why I need to undress if I’m here for a broken toe. She insists. Whatever. Don’t fight them, just do what they say so you can get out of here. They weigh me. They take my blood pressure, which is going to read high because I am becoming more and more angry as the minutes pass. At 18:30, the nurse practitioner comes in and looks at my toe. She hears the gritting noise and feels the click as she bends it. First she tries to tell me I’m overweight. I know this. I’m on a diet. Being overweight has nothing to do with tripping over a table leg and breaking my toe. “I’m going to need to x-ray this.” DUH! I knew that. I told your assistant that. “But the x-ray tech has already gone home for the day. I need you to come back in the morning.”

I think this is why they have you undress. It puts you at a disadvantage. I’m not going to launch myself off the exam table and throttle someone if I’m stark naked except for a paper envelope that doesn’t even wrap around me. It would be so embarrassing on the evening news.

I complain about having to take off from work again, and the doctor tells me that their x-ray tech arrives at 09:00, so if I can be at the office by 08:45, they will make sure I get to go first. Should be in and out.  No problems.

Don’t you believe it.

First of all, explaining to my boss why I have to leave in the middle of the morning for another doctor’s appointment, when I had to leave early yesterday for the same thing. Yeah. That went well. I can imagine it would have been much worse had I been in one of my previous jobs. But it was still uncomfortable and unpleasant. And assuring her that the doctor said it would be “in and out” didn’t really help much.

So I get to the doctor’s office at 08:30. Sometimes, if you are early, you get lucky, get seen, and get out. No such luck on this day, though. I sit in the waiting room from 08:30 to 09:15.  I go to the desk to remind them that I am there, that this is my second trip to their office, and that I am taking unpaid leave from work for something that they were supposed to have been prepared to do yesterday. I get the “yeah, yeah, yeah” attitude, and the “we’ll call you soon” stall tactic.

At 09:45, I tell them that if I don’t get seen in the next ten minutes, I’m leaving, and not only will I not be back, ever, but I will write to my insurance company and the BBB and the Chamber and the medical board and explain why. They take me to an exam room to shut me up. And they tell me to undress and put on another paper “gown.” Now I’m naked and in their power again. Sigh.

At 10:15, they finally take me back to the x-ray area, where a complete hag take the x-rays. She was so rude that I’m surprised they have any patients left. Seriously. I finally leave there at 10:45. So much for “in and out” and “a quick trip.”

Now, the kicker to all this is that this doctor referred me to a foot surgeon, because she thought that the x-ray showed a hairline fracture of the hallux. (Another half-day off from work!) When I went to the surgeon’s office, the first thing he says on looking at these x-rays is “These are useless. I can’t tell anything from this. We will have to take new x-rays.” And the new x-rays showed no break, but a number of bone chips in the joint.  So not only did I spend the equivalent of a full work-day in the GP’s office, but I had to pay for two sets of x-rays.

That is just one example of the kind of thing I go through when I have to visit a doctor’s office. So is it any wonder that I am reluctant to make an appointment to see one for a somewhat inconvenient wrist issue?

Tags: challenges, doctors, medical issues, pain, True Stories