Pissed off at arrogant doctors

I am so tired of doctors that don't listen and make preconceived opinions about patients to the point that they don't even hear what the patient is saying or look at the objective evidence that they have in their hands.  Because of doctor's like this my friend, Corina, is on dialysis  for the rest of her life or until she gets a new kidney.  Her doctor kept ordering blood tests to monitor her kidney function and never looked at them.  Corina's functioning kept decreasing, but no one told her about it.  Also, this genius doctor decided to increase the medication that was causing the decrease in function to make her kidneys fail all the sooner.  Told her the pain in her back "could be anything" and just brushed her hospitalizations off as unknowable reasons.  NO ONE on the hospital staff SAID ANYTHING to her about the state of her kidney function until it was too late to do anything about it.  We are one of the most advanced countries in the world, so why is the state of our medicine so poor?  Why do we allow uncaring, incompetent doctors to abound?  Why does the good old boy network of MDs protect their incompetent colleagues?   There was an article about it in the Reader's Digest in 2008 "Doctors Who Do Harm"  I just think it's shameful!

The sad thing is I think Randy's urologist is generally competent.  I trust him to do the procedure that has been scheduled for Thursday.  But I don't trust his judgment in just about anything else.  I think his focus is not on patient care.  I think he is a very skilled technician.  Which, unfortunately, is pretty much what most doctors have become.  There are no M.D.s like House who keep looking at a medical problem until they actually figure it out.  Now if something doesn't fit the norm, it must be in your head.  But what about all the stones I'm bringing in?  What about the pain in areas I'm not supposed to feel pain, but when you x-ray them, they show up right where I say the pain is?  Must be in your head!

Pray for us and pray for his doctor and doctors everywhere.  There are still some good ones out there!  I have to believe that.

Below is a letter I am thinking of sending to Randy's urologist:

Dear Dr. Henry H. Wu:

If you would listen to your patients instead of reading a report from a doctor trying to cover himself for possibly not doing a procedure correctly, you might just be better able to care for your patients.  My husband told you in front of me and again when he saw you the second time that he HAS a pain management doctor seeing him and then YOU suggested that he get one when you scheduled him for his scope on the phone on Tuesday.  He has NOT asked you for any pain medication even though he has had to wait over two weeks for this procedure while in agony. His pain management specialist told him she would give him whatever he needs.  What if he didn't have her?  You would have made a man with a 10 mm kidney stone in his ureter and another one in the kidney to wait in pain for 2 weeks.

By the way, the authorization was in your office last Friday, the day after you requested it, yet you made him wait until Tuesday to schedule it.  That is not an IPA issue, that is your office issue.  If Randy hadn't called on Monday, who knows how long your staff would have made him wait.

If you don't want to treat IPA patients, you shouldn't.  Your patients didn't sign the contract with the IPA, you did.  Perhaps you should take yourself off their roles and allow a doctor that actually cares more about patient care than authorizations for a follow up office visit the next day take your place.  Also, it's quite bad form to complain to the patient about the hassles of the IPA, the way the patient is making other patients wait because of the IPA when you know the patient did everything in his power to follow your instructions.  Including bringing you a worthless x-ray when you hadn't even looked at the CT scan he brought with him from the E.R.  The second visit you insisted on and obtaining the auth for was completely useless and everything could have been accomplished on the first visit, including obtaining the auth for the procedure a day earlier.  You made my husband suffer through an extra weekend and possibly an extra week because of  it.

My prayer for you is that you gain some insight and compassion for your patients.  I think you have lost it somewhere along the way.  I hope God finds a way to show you what you have put people through and reduces your arrogance.


Sincerely,

Pattie Kromrey