beenie

What do people do?

I tried to make a doctor's appointment today. I called Office A. No new patients, but you can try Office B. Called office B. Well, we have one doctor accepting new patients, but she's on maternity leave until February. Try the hospital, they should have a list of doctors taking new patients. Called the hospital, they gave me the names of four doctors accepting new patients - the one on maternity leave, and three others I've been to and don't care for. I asked her what people do when they're new in town or have problems with the available doctors. She said "oh, well we have the emergency room and urgent care." Sorry lady, last time I went to urgent care, I was grossly misdiagnosed by a physician's assistant who took one look at me when she walked in the room and told me that X,Y and Z were wrong with me because I was fat (I was later properly diagnosed by a regular doctor), refused to pay the bill, and while I was working with the hospital regarding the error, they sent me to collection for $300.00. No thanks.

I even explained my situation to the two clinics I called, as well as the hospital. I'm 27. I'm severely overweight. It hasn't been much of a hindrance as far as my health in the past, but it's starting to catch up with me. In the last month or so, I can feel my heart beating, sometimes it feels like it's skipping beats every now and then. I'm always tired, sometimes I have random shortness of breath - not after any sort of exertion, just sitting around. I know this means there could be a very serious problem. But nobody cares. They're not taking new patients. I can go to one of the doctors I don't like, or I can go out of town. But sorry, we can't help you.

Here's the three doctors I don't like:

Dr. C is also an obstetrician in addition to taking GP patients, and treats you like you're a waste of his time if you're not pregnant. He's also tried very hard to convince me to take weight-loss pills, even after I've expressed my desire to have him work with me to develop a plan to lose weight while avoiding pills. He keeps going back to the damn pills. I DON'T WANT PILLS!!!

Dr. Kh barely listens to a word you say and diagnoses everything as something that requires a big honkin' bottle of cough syrup with codeine. I have never had a visit with him where I didn't get a prescription for cough syrup with codeine.

Dr. K, while taking a lot of time to talk to his patients - though not necessarily about anything remotely medically-related - is also a district sales rep for a company that manufactures medical supplies and a line of weight-loss/healthy-eating bars/shakes/etc. I have never been in his office without getting some sort of sales pitch. Not to mention that since he yammers on and on about nothing important to his patients, I've never sat in his waiting room for less than 90 minutes. I've even called to see how late he's running - 10 minutes before my appointment - and been told there was only one person ahead of me. And I STILL sat for 90 minutes. And his office manager is very rude, like how dare I ask something that might remotely be construed as criticism.

Is it understandable that I don't like any of these folks? Am I just that picky?

WTF?!?!?!

Posted by beenie at December 5, 2003 09:43 AM