Well it seems the saga of my car accident just never ends.
I was trying to justify how this column fits into a Humanist
newsletter and I concluded that how the medical
profession treats us IS a Humanist issue — from
immunizing children to “death with dignity”. So I’d like to
share some of my experiences.
In the past few weeks I have seen over a dozen different
doctors and I continue to be astonished at how differently
they all treat you for the same health problem. (I should say
that the reason I have been forced to see so many doctors is
that my regular doctor has been booked up, or out of the
country teaching doctors in poor Eastern-European
countries how to be better doctors. Now if only he could do
the same with some of the doctors I have run into here at
home!)
Things were going VERY well for me for about a month, but
it seems the improvements were only due to the steroids I
was taking for an outbreak of TMJ. When on the steroids, I
was able to increase my Physical Therapy and decrease my
pain pills. After a week off the steroids, I was in as much
pain as the day of the accident.
So I called my doctor’s office and had to see the “Doctor on
Call”. This was by far the worst experience I have ever had
with a doctor in my entire life. He was rude, and just plain
mean. He refused to give me any more pain medication
and wanted me to stop taking all medications! When I
asked him for a referral to a specialist, he brushed me off
saying I was just too fat and that’s why I wasn’t healing.
After about 10 minutes, he said he was a busy man and
had other patients to see who were more important than I
was and he’d “try” to get around to talking to my regular
doctor about my case — he never did. (I could go on and on
about him — and I did in a three page letter of complaint I
sent to his supervisor!)
The doctor did nothing to relieve my pain, so Reed took me
straight to the immediate care clinic. To give you an idea
on how upset I had become, at the doctors’ office before I
saw the jerk, my Blood Pressure (BP) was 122/70 and at the
clinic it had skyrocketed to 184/110. The clinic doctor was
much nicer and took the time to try to help me, but in the
end what he gave me did not work and I went to the
emergency room the next day.
The ER doctor I saw was GREAT! He wanted to get right
on the case and get me out of pain. He was disgusted to
hear that I was forced to go to the ER when my regular
doctor was in his office (just too busy to see me, but my
doctor did consult with the ER doc to formulate a plan).
The ER doctor saw how much pain I was in and since the
steroids worked before, he put me back on them until I
could see some specialists who can find out what the heck
is going on. He wasn’t afraid to issue me pain meds to get
me through the week — he gave me what I needed and
insisted I get an appointment ASAP with a Neurologist.
So with my doctor out of the country we had to call Dr. Jerk
and tell him he needed to write up the referral. I won’t go
into the entire story, but in the end he wrote the referral and
then ended up cancelling it and our Neurologist
appointment for July 19th without even telling us he did
this!! So I am now left waiting until the first week in
August to see a Neurologist — but with all the errors made,
the clinic has put me on the top of the cancellation list, so I
might get lucky and see someone sooner!
When my doctor consulted with the ER doc, they both
agreed I should see another type of specialist called a
Physical Medicine Physician. From what I understand,
this is a group of doctors who specialize in different areas
of the body. They run all sorts of tests, discuss your case
and try to come up with a solution. I’ll be seeing this doctor
next week so I am hopeful they can help me!
After putting me back on the steroids, all the doctors tell me
I am not to do ANYTHING that might hurt my back in any
way. Until they know what’s wrong, they don’t want to
take any chances. Well, as some of you might know,
steroids cause you to swell up like a balloon if you don’t do
physical activity and that’s just what happened to me. So,
once again, I was back in the ER on Thursday swollen up
and in extreme pain that seemed to be caused by the
swelling. But alas, I was stuck with another doctor who
was willing to take some Xray’s and give me a Demoral
shot, but refused to do anything about the swelling or the
fact that it had caused my BP to soar to 186/115. He said it
wasn’t an “emergency situation”. I refused the Demoral
shot — I already had a bottle full of morphine and Valium
and didn’t see the point of putting more chemicals into my
system that I knew wouldn’t help.
After leaving the ER, I called my doctor’s office and got the
doctor on call. He was useless and said that since I wasn’t
his patient he didn’t want to do anything for me and I
would just have to “grin and bear it” until next week.
This is when I finally decided that most doctors just don’t
care or are so terrified that they will be sued, that they have
shut off their compassion. So, after 3 months of this
nonsense, I decided to take matters into my own hands.
I have a “water pill” I was taking, and the doctor on call
told me I was already at it’s maximum dosage. When I got
home, I found out this was NOT the case (thanks to the
good old Internet) and it turns out I could safely take 3-5
times the amount I was on. So I began to take a much
higher dosage of these pills, and I changed the dosage of
my pain pills and muscle relaxer. It’s now 48 hours later
and my swelling is down 80% and my pain level has gone
down at least 75% I can actually think and function again!
I know there are good doctors out there — I have met some
of them. But it seems the vast majority are not able to cope
with anything that isn’t simple and easy to fix. An ear
infection that takes a few minutes to diagnose and write a
prescription for is what they want. Someone who isn’t an
easy fix, someone who they can’t give an easy answer to,
frustrates them and they don’t want to deal with them.
I realize some of this is due to all the HMO “streamlining”,
that is forcing many doctors to convert to an assembly line
process. HMO’s want to tell doctors you can’t spend more
than 10 minutes per patient and you have to make a quick
and “cost effective” diagnoses. So when patients like me
keep coming back, I think they simply have no idea what
they are supposed to do. They have stopped being doctors
and have turned into robots on the medical assembly line.
My only solace in this is that my regular doctor has told his
co-workers and his patients in no uncertain terms, that he
refuses to do this “assembly line” work. He will see each
patient for as long as they need him, and do whatever is
needed for them. This is why I stick with him. To avoid
getting stuck with Dr. Jerk again, I have thought ahead and
made a weekly appointment with my doctor for the next
several weeks.
I only wish more doctors would take such a stand and I
hope he continues to have the strength to fight this good
fight and put his patients first and not on the bottom line of
some HMO tally sheet. Doctors are supposed to help
people, but not everyone is an “easy fix”. We need more
doctors out there who are willing to understand this and
treat each patient with the dignity and respect they deserve.
Email comments to
Angela C. Byers
Copyright © 1996 - 2006 Angela C. Byers