Doctor rant...can I please please????

[ultrarunner]

My Grandmother could do things that would make others cringe.

She was quite old and very proper... often with a hat and gloves whenever going out.

Sometimes I would accompany her to her Doctors visits as a child.

Still remember her just barging right in and her firm, no nonsense voice and never loud or agitated.

For instance... if the reception desk told her to take a seat in the waiting room... she would look at her watch and say she didn't want to keep Doctor waiting and march right in and find an empty exam room... when the staff wouldn't know how to handle it... she would say let Doctor know she arrived promptly for her appointment and expects the same...

She was quite a character...

 

[tom4018]

I do get it, Dr's are hardened like Cops because they see and endless line of people every day with problems. They want the facts and not the drivel("Let me do my job and go"). And, they deal with a bunch of folks that are slowly killing themselves by their lifestyle, then come in for help, not to mention the hypochondriac's, the not too bright, bad breath, etc etc. So after a while compassion takes a back seat and it's human nature to clump all your patients into one big category.

But(you knew there would be a "but" right?). We as patients are not all the same, and here is a recent experience that left me perturbed and a little pizzed off. I have been ignoring(when it let's me) my left elbow now going on 10+ years. It clicks, locks & pops, stops working when doing repetitive tasks(ummmm.. like building a house for two years by myself), numbness & tingling, range of motion loss @ 30%, then hurts like heck for a couple of days after using it before a rinse & repeat. Lately I am just losing my superhero power and about 50% is gone on that arm, so I decided to bite the bullet and go in and see if they can do something about all of the above.

I have a $5K deductible so I went right to an orthopedic surgeon which I knew would order a MRI...she did and it is a whole page of "loose material in the joint, Mr. Arthur Itis, several torn tendons, bone spurs, Carpal tunnel likely, a kitchen sink and a bag of rusty nuts & bolts." Off to another surgeon that specializes in elbows, who then tells me, I'm special and will need two surgeons...him for the arthroscopic, and another to repair tendons and possibly move things off the damaged nerves. Dr # 3 looks at everything, then sends me off for a Nerve Test to determine how bad and what nerves are shorting out so he can avoid or attempt repairs.

And, my friends we have now burrowed down into the issue, or let's say Dr #4...the Nerve Tester. First a tech comes in and hooks up some electrodes then proceeds to shock my finger & hand into doing a jumping bean dance while listening to some sounds similar to a needle dragged across a album(remember those?). Turns out, he is not measuring how big of a twitch my fingers/arm/wrist have, but it's more of a resistance test...kinda like an ohm meter. Then he leaves and #4 comes in to stick some very fine needles into my nerves while hooked up to the same machine. She was pretty good and only made it really unpleasant one time. Then she asks me about my neck...any problems there...yep, it's a long-er story, but back in the late 80's while attempting an arrest I lost the battle but won the war. Ended up with 26 stitches on the coconut, which messed my neck up for life...lot's of grinding and popping these days but I deal with it just fine. Bad guy ended up in the ER with two bullets in him...he lived.

Anywhoo, #4 then asks if I have any numbness or tingling on the bottoms of my feet or my toes. Well, by golly we are getting somewhere now, she is right on the money...slight numbness on the ball and pad of the big toe..both feet. She then get's up, says "You have Carpal Tunnel" (which I already knew and expected) and some nerve damage(angin no shocker there), then say's, "Oh, that numbness on your feet, it could be DIABETES, so you need to have your family Doctor run some tests"....then starts to walk OUT! WHOA whoa whoa.......hold on there Doc, whuddaya mean "diabetes", no family history, no weight issues, and I get plenty of exercise? She says, "well, your damaged nerves could be because of that, so have it checked"....poof, out the door she goes.

Need I point out that I am IN A HOSPITAL at that very moment, over an hour away from home. I am pretty sure there is someone there that could take the 3.5min to draw blood and send it off to the Lab that is on the next floor to rule in or rule out diabetes that very same day. Nope, I'm left to ponder my fate until I make an appointment closer to home to get a blood test done, and 6 days later it's confirmed...NO DIABETES. Anyway, I just wanted to rant a little and point out the overspecialization in the medical field fails to recognize common sense and the ensuing 6 day depression of a patient that might have to ponder giving up BEER....f...fffo....forever:laughing:. Thank you Doctor #4 for Mr Toads wild nondiabetic ride. I appreciate you ruling out all possibly related medical conditions to a particular ailment.....but it could have been done quicker and easier on the patient's part. :drink:

I have similar trouble with my elbow less the tendons. Doc that did mine in Nashville is an older doc and said my elbow was the worst he had ever seen. X-rays techs say they never saw one that looked like it. 2 years ago he went in there and cleaned up all the loose stuff he could find, did some nerve work and carpal tunnel work. He made no promises other than trying to improve it. Overall probably 50% better, but on my first visit he stated within 10 years I would probably need a elbow replacement but doing the surgery he did would buy me some time, replacement was not the best option. I got shuffled around to 3 docs before this one would try to help me.

 

[cqaigy2]

This is too funny. How many of us have arrived on time and waited a half hour or even an hour to be put in a little room and then wait another 15 minutes or more?

I'd shave a few points off your last blood pressure reading - mine would have spiked. :laughing:

That's because they're still looking at the guy that was 7 minute late. ..Im only kidding!!!

I feel the same way.

I get a call from the MRI people they say that an earlier appointment opened up and would i like to change my wife's appointment to the earlier time. Why sure i do, sign me up! In i go, early and the waiting room is absolutely pack with people that really look in bad shape. We sit down, an other person shows up, i give them my seat, cause, man, i thought they were going to fall down. It becomes apparent that the people that are there have been there for a long time. Three hours after 'new earlier' appointed time which would have been the original appointment time, my wife is called in. All in all wasted 5 hours on a saturday loitering around a bunch of sick people! On another note though, those sick people renewed my normally positive outlook of people because during this whole time they were helping each other cope and joking around with each other and the staff.

Turns out, somebody really messed up the scheduling and the staff had patients had to cope to make sure everybody that came in got some important testing done.

 

[Grateful11]

I've read this entire thread and I find very interesting. I too think part of the problem with healthcare is people go to the Dr. for anything and everything. Before HMO's with low co-pays people would think twice about going to the Dr., now folks drop $10 on the counter for a runny nose, a stumped toe, a cold, etc. I had major back surgery almost 5 years ago at one of the largest hospital networks in NC, one of my bills was for $100,000 in Misc. Services even though I knew my insurance was going pay it all but a $50 Co-pay I demanded to see an itemized list of exactly what that covered. I was so out of it the 5 days I was in the hospital I barely remember any of it. My wife said the trash that was under my bed on day 1 was still there on day 5. I had no deductible with my so called "Cadillac" insurance through work which at the time cost $200/month for me and my entire family. Basically I could get anything done for the cost of a co-pay. I don't have the answer to the healthcare problems in this country.

I did find the following article very interesting and well worth reading but it is a long one and part 3 of 6 parts:

In Need of a New Hip, but Priced Out of the U.S.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/health/for-medical-tourists-simple-math.html

I have not read the rest of these in their entirety.
Part 1:
The $2.7 Trillion Medical Bill
Colonoscopies Explain Why U.S. Leads the World in Health Expenditures:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/h...s-leads-the-world-in-health-expenditures.html

Part 5:
As Hospital Prices Soar, a Stitch Tops $500
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/03/health/as-hospital-costs-soar-single-stitch-tops-500.html

 

[MotorSeven]

Well sports fans....my "double" surgery is scheduled .....23 April. So I have a month to cut split & stack my firewood for winter. It is good to have a deadline since I usually put it off until July then wonder what the heck I was thinking...... while sweating profusely.

 

[farmgirl19]

Good luck with getting all of your work done, so that you can sit back and heal when the surgery is done!

Keep us posted, as you can. Will be sending thoughts that you have a great surgical team, and that all goes smoothly!

 

[dave1949]

Good luck Rick. Don't be like my brother and rush the recovery.

 

[Bison]

When a patient arrives at Bayonne Hospital Center in New Jersey requiring treatment for the respiratory ailment known as COPD, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, she faces an official price tag of $99,690.

Less than 30 miles away in the Bronx, N.Y., the Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center charges only $7,044 for the same treatment.

A vet does the same thing for probably what....$150,...no appointment necessary .lol