Tweet
Sucky Doctor Sucks
So I moved to NC here a little over a year ago, and my mom got me set up with her doctor, so we were seeing the same doctor. Apparently the woman was nice and lovely to my mom, so I was looking forward to things.
Fast forward to about a month ago. I've seen this doctor five times (one visit every three months, plus the initial visit for the first tests and then a follow-up where she prescribed things) In these five visits, I've spent an average of 15-18 minutes with the doctor, and 1-2 hours between the waiting room, the nurse taking my vitals and asking me questions, and the phlebotomist taking my blood. It's more than a little frustrating.
Especially as the nurse asks me this slew of questions every time I visit, and I feel like a new patient there every time.
I've decided after this last visit to switch to the same doctor 'group' but one closer to home, so I won't have to start over as a patient, they can pull my files with no problem and no need for my doctor to hand them over.
My final straw visit went like this: I arrived at the doctor's office 10 minutes early for my appointment, and checked in with the front desk. I waited in the waiting room for nearly 45 minutes. I spent about 11 minutes being weighed, temperature checked, blood sugar checked, and asked a thousand questions, and then offered an STD check, AIDS test, flu shot, shingles shot, and whether I wanted an obgyn appointment. I tell these people every single time that no, and please note my file that I say no to save 5 minutes of everyone's time, but they never do, and ask me every time.
Next we wait in the exam room for another 40 minutes. My doc comes in with her nose buried in her little netbook laptop that they use instead of having a chart file. She ignores me a full two minutes, then says "Hey Jenni, how are you feeling today?" She tells me my blood sugar is high (it always manages to be when I visit her, I'll have blood sugars in the 110-150 range for a month before, I go in her office and test a 222, and yes I've checked my meter for accuracy with a control fluid, and against my mother's meter) so she lectures me that my A1C had better have dropped or she is putting me on insulin. I tell her my sugars are doing much better at home but I forgot my notebook with my sugar log, and she just goes "mhmm" at me rather disbelieving, and tells me "We'll see when your A1C comes back, it's at a 9.1 right now and it needs to come down to below 7, if it hasn't come down to at least 8.5 I'm calling in an insulin prescription for you"
I tell her my shoulder has been hurting rather severely badly and she pokes at it like a curious child pokes at a dead thing to see if it moves, and then tells me "Oh it's probably inflammation put ice on it" even though it's not inflamed at all that I can tell. My partner pipes up saying that application of heat and deep massage has helped temporarily but it continues to hurt again after just a couple of hours, whereas ice just makes the muscle tense up and hurt even more (He's a trained massage therapist, with a degree and everything) and she makes a dismissive gesture at him and says very condescendingly "Actually medical professionals have found that ice is the most effective therapy for inflammation, okay hun?" She then turns to me and says "Maybe if you lose some weight your shoulder won't hurt as bad. You still need to lose weight, you've gained three pounds since your first visit"
She tells me the rest of my bloodwork is fine, and shoos me off to the phlebotomist, telling me she'll put when my next appointment needs to be in the computer so the front desk can schedule me.
I go do my blood draw, go up to the front desk, and go to check out. There is no information in the system for when I need to be seen again. We wait a couple of minutes, and the front desk lady calls on the phone to the nurse that checked me in and got my vitals, asking if my doc was in her office. The nurse says yes, and the front desk lady asks her to ask my doc if she will put in my next appointment time, please. Nurse said doc says she's doing it right now, so front office lady says thank you and hangs up.
Ten minutes later my appointment info finally pops up, and I finish my checkout and can leave.
A week and a half later, I call my pharmacist to refill my pravastatin, and they ask me if I'm supposed to take 10mg or 20mg, because they have a new prescription for each one So I call my doctor's office, and the nurse that I speak to says "Oh yeah according to your bloodwork your cholesterol was a little higher than Yourdoctor wanted to see so she upped your dose" and I said "Well I hadn't heard anything about that, so it was really confusing to hear about it from my pharmacist who wasn't sure which one to fill for me.." and she says "Yeah, we just haven't gotten around to calling you about it.." 
and I said "But you had time to call it in to my pharmacist?" and she says "Oh that's just a fax we send, we don't have to talk to anyone" ... I just sighed and hung up the phone, called my pharmacist and told them to fill the 20.
I come home and my mom decides that rather than see her for her own appointment in two weeks, she will switch to the other rural health group doctor office, since it's a smaller town, and a small bit closer than the one we've been visiting (one is 30 minutes west, one is about 25 minutes southeast)
She goes to see this doctor and he is rather shocked to hear that our previous doctor told my mother she could take her metformin all at once in the mornings after breakfast. She is not on an ER metformin, and she's told by the new doctor "take one with the first bite of breakfast, one with the first bite of dinner. Right now I'd want to put you on another to help lower your sugars but instead let's try having you take it properly for a while"
He also called her personally three days after her appointment to tell her about her bloodwork results (Doing relatively okay, her A1C has managed to drop half a point despite her taking her medicine wrong, so he feels more assured in his decision to have her take it correctly for a while and see how it helps)
I'm on four a day of the same pill and I did not know I was to take it just before eating, either. She told me I could take all four at once in the morning, too, but I have been taking two after breakfast, two after dinner, because four at once is a lot.. I think I will take one with breakfast, one with lunch, two with dinner for now, and set up my new appointment with him in two weeks..
(as a side note, I got a letter in the mail a little while ago stating my A1C was down to 7.4, good job, keep up the good work
)
Fast forward to about a month ago. I've seen this doctor five times (one visit every three months, plus the initial visit for the first tests and then a follow-up where she prescribed things) In these five visits, I've spent an average of 15-18 minutes with the doctor, and 1-2 hours between the waiting room, the nurse taking my vitals and asking me questions, and the phlebotomist taking my blood. It's more than a little frustrating.
Especially as the nurse asks me this slew of questions every time I visit, and I feel like a new patient there every time.
I've decided after this last visit to switch to the same doctor 'group' but one closer to home, so I won't have to start over as a patient, they can pull my files with no problem and no need for my doctor to hand them over. My final straw visit went like this: I arrived at the doctor's office 10 minutes early for my appointment, and checked in with the front desk. I waited in the waiting room for nearly 45 minutes. I spent about 11 minutes being weighed, temperature checked, blood sugar checked, and asked a thousand questions, and then offered an STD check, AIDS test, flu shot, shingles shot, and whether I wanted an obgyn appointment. I tell these people every single time that no, and please note my file that I say no to save 5 minutes of everyone's time, but they never do, and ask me every time.
Next we wait in the exam room for another 40 minutes. My doc comes in with her nose buried in her little netbook laptop that they use instead of having a chart file. She ignores me a full two minutes, then says "Hey Jenni, how are you feeling today?" She tells me my blood sugar is high (it always manages to be when I visit her, I'll have blood sugars in the 110-150 range for a month before, I go in her office and test a 222, and yes I've checked my meter for accuracy with a control fluid, and against my mother's meter) so she lectures me that my A1C had better have dropped or she is putting me on insulin. I tell her my sugars are doing much better at home but I forgot my notebook with my sugar log, and she just goes "mhmm" at me rather disbelieving, and tells me "We'll see when your A1C comes back, it's at a 9.1 right now and it needs to come down to below 7, if it hasn't come down to at least 8.5 I'm calling in an insulin prescription for you"
I tell her my shoulder has been hurting rather severely badly and she pokes at it like a curious child pokes at a dead thing to see if it moves, and then tells me "Oh it's probably inflammation put ice on it" even though it's not inflamed at all that I can tell. My partner pipes up saying that application of heat and deep massage has helped temporarily but it continues to hurt again after just a couple of hours, whereas ice just makes the muscle tense up and hurt even more (He's a trained massage therapist, with a degree and everything) and she makes a dismissive gesture at him and says very condescendingly "Actually medical professionals have found that ice is the most effective therapy for inflammation, okay hun?" She then turns to me and says "Maybe if you lose some weight your shoulder won't hurt as bad. You still need to lose weight, you've gained three pounds since your first visit"
She tells me the rest of my bloodwork is fine, and shoos me off to the phlebotomist, telling me she'll put when my next appointment needs to be in the computer so the front desk can schedule me.
I go do my blood draw, go up to the front desk, and go to check out. There is no information in the system for when I need to be seen again. We wait a couple of minutes, and the front desk lady calls on the phone to the nurse that checked me in and got my vitals, asking if my doc was in her office. The nurse says yes, and the front desk lady asks her to ask my doc if she will put in my next appointment time, please. Nurse said doc says she's doing it right now, so front office lady says thank you and hangs up.
Ten minutes later my appointment info finally pops up, and I finish my checkout and can leave.
A week and a half later, I call my pharmacist to refill my pravastatin, and they ask me if I'm supposed to take 10mg or 20mg, because they have a new prescription for each one
So I call my doctor's office, and the nurse that I speak to says "Oh yeah according to your bloodwork your cholesterol was a little higher than Yourdoctor wanted to see so she upped your dose" and I said "Well I hadn't heard anything about that, so it was really confusing to hear about it from my pharmacist who wasn't sure which one to fill for me.." and she says "Yeah, we just haven't gotten around to calling you about it.." and I said "But you had time to call it in to my pharmacist?" and she says "Oh that's just a fax we send, we don't have to talk to anyone" ... I just sighed and hung up the phone, called my pharmacist and told them to fill the 20.I come home and my mom decides that rather than see her for her own appointment in two weeks, she will switch to the other rural health group doctor office, since it's a smaller town, and a small bit closer than the one we've been visiting (one is 30 minutes west, one is about 25 minutes southeast)
She goes to see this doctor and he is rather shocked to hear that our previous doctor told my mother she could take her metformin all at once in the mornings after breakfast. She is not on an ER metformin, and she's told by the new doctor "take one with the first bite of breakfast, one with the first bite of dinner. Right now I'd want to put you on another to help lower your sugars but instead let's try having you take it properly for a while"
He also called her personally three days after her appointment to tell her about her bloodwork results (Doing relatively okay, her A1C has managed to drop half a point despite her taking her medicine wrong, so he feels more assured in his decision to have her take it correctly for a while and see how it helps)
I'm on four a day of the same pill and I did not know I was to take it just before eating, either. She told me I could take all four at once in the morning, too, but I have been taking two after breakfast, two after dinner, because four at once is a lot.. I think I will take one with breakfast, one with lunch, two with dinner for now, and set up my new appointment with him in two weeks..
(as a side note, I got a letter in the mail a little while ago stating my A1C was down to 7.4, good job, keep up the good work
)
Comment