Rant about Medical Establishment

[escargome]

Mass General is one of the finest teaching hospitals in U.S. and I certainly have choice of which doctors to see. When in hospital for surgery/care, interns and residents are present and part of the care team but the attending is the doctor of our choice. Most of the finest hospitals in the U.S. are teaching hospitals including Cleveland Clinic, John Hopkins, Brigham and Womens's.......

I don't know what you are talking about.
Sorry.

Well if the type of teaching hospital that Protimenow was seen in, then I would surmise that it was a county run facility, where in fact you (the patient) are not allowed to select a particular doctor. You see whomever the doctor(s) assigned to particular clinic are. Having dealt with that type of hospital with my mother, I found that sometimes you get lucky and see a doctor who listens and is helpful and sometimes no so much.

 

[Protimenow]

Yes, it was a County hospital. One of these guys seemed to freak when I told him that, in addition to warfarin, I take an 81 mg aspirin. I tried to explain that the method of action was different from that for warfarin, and when I mentioned platelets, his eyes seemed to gloss over.

No - I didn't argue with these nitwits -- I just felt a bit insulted after I got home and thought about it.

(The talk about slang also got me wondering: If Aggressive is Agro, what is Assertive?)

 

[escargome]

Yes, those hospitals are quite an eye opener. My mother suffered with pain in her abdomen for about 3 months. They never did an ultrasound, they would just give her the brush off. Now my mom was totally old school and felt that if the doctor told her something than it was written in stone. I had a different word in mind (horsehockey). Anyway, I finally convinced her to sign up for one of those Medi-Cal senior plans. Got her a new doctor and within 1 week she had surgery to have her gall-bladder removed. It had matasticized. Anyway, went back to advise the clinic that she would not be returning and what had been discovered. The woman to whom I spoke, looked at me and said "Wow, you really are articulate" I just looked at her and got up and left. Good Luck in any future dealings you may have with these people.

 

[pellicle]

...
No - I didn't argue with these nitwits -- I just felt a bit insulted after I got home and thought about it.

I do btw share with you great reservations on the unbridled trust we (well not you and me we, but the 'societal' we) place in these who are often nitwits.

I have more than one instance of "it can't be more than a headache, oh you must be developing epilepsy" diagnosis on people I know and care about who have had brain tumours.

(The talk about slang also got me wondering: If Aggressive is Agro, what is Assertive?)

Aussie?

;-)

 

[Superman]

I find the ACT clinic here tends to work fairly well with me and leaves dosing and such open to discussion as appropriate.

Things I find frustrating are that they don't seem to keep dosing changes up to date in the file so they always think I'm taking something different than what I'm taking. They also can't figure out that I'm the one patient they have that takes it in the morning because evening dosing just doesn't work for me. Tried early on for a little while, but missed too many doses.

Most recently the clinic I report my self-testing results to via email seemed to have missed my email and reported to my lab four days after I tested. My lab took that as I tested today and started trying to change dosing as though I hadn't make a correction already. Had to clarify that I got the result four days ago and already adjusted.

This holiday food is really messing with my times. Kind of annoying, but the food is worth it. Went from 1.9 to 2.4 to 4.0 in three tests covering two weeks. Now I have to decrease my dose, but I also know I had a broccoli heavy diet this week - so I might end up to too far down again.

The thing many of us need to keep in mind is that we don't fit the mold of their typical elderly patient that takes a small dose due to a-fib. It's not as common for them to dose younger, more physically and socially active individuals with inconsistent schedules. I remember receiving my home testing kit for which my clinic required an in house training session. I was the only young mechanical heart valve patient in the room with about six other individuals. All were in the senior a-fib patient category. In fact when I used to test in lab, I never saw another person my age getting tested.

All due respect to our physically and socially active seniors on the board with inconsistent schedules!