tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-920088055149678592.post4344788604075519161..comments2023-11-25T05:26:19.762-06:00Comments on Pain Sufferers Speak: Has this happened to you?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17876116405242105453noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-920088055149678592.post-21861797436035121402011-07-11T19:41:24.451-05:002011-07-11T19:41:24.451-05:00Liz - I’m laughing (you tell him, girlfriend) and...Liz - I’m laughing (you tell him, girlfriend) and crying (why can’t a woman get respectful care when she is in so much pain?)<br /> Yes, Yes, Yes. Baby Docs are particularly good sources for lousy experiences when seeking medical care (although it was a few supposed “experts” who have probably done the most damage, probably due to their intersecting traits of omnipotence and legitimacy in the medical domain, which allows their behavior to have more long reaching consequences). <br /> The top of my "Baby Doc’s to avoid list" is Doc NY. He looked to be no older than my undergraduate college students (I was a sociology professor at a liberal arts college), and had the apparent maturity to match. Doc NY was new to the pain clinic that I had been a patient at for about three years; I had met him briefly once before during a previous visit and I remember thinking he was particularly condescending, especially for someone who had apparently only finished his medical training in the recent past. At any rate, I was at the clinic for my monthly follow up visit, which was necessary to get a prescription renewal for my pain medications. I didn’t have an official diagnosis yet, although it seemed that it was likely that I had an auto-immune condition or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I am also very careful about allowing doctors to label my condition as I have been really hurt by those labels in the past. So Doc NY saunters in, straddles the back of the rolling chair, glances at me and said “so what brings you in today,” Now recall, I’ve been coming here every month for three years, and over the years I have had to “tell my story” about a hundred times too many. And with a maximum of five minutes with the doctor, I really didn’t want to waste it as I had a list of symptoms including a new difficulty with swallowing that my primary physician felt could be side effects of methadone or evidence of MS. I barely began to describe the symptom when Doc NY interrupts with, “well, you’ll have to see a specialist about a swallowing problem, we don’t deal with that kind of thing here.” I was dumbfounded, I stammered, then began to suggest that perhaps this symptom was somehow connected to my health problems or medication. Doc NY looks at me like I’m stupid, and says, nope, you have fibromyalgia, and that has nothing to do with swallowing. I immediately begin to protest, “I haven’t been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, that we were still trying to figure out what I had. Again, he interrupts, and with some equivalent of an obnoxious eye roll/sigh, demands why I can’t just accept that I have fibromyalgia. Now, I admit that maybe I was being a little sensitive, but this infant was really making me upset. So I again began to protest, and in response, this obnoxious little brat rolled his chair over next to me, jumped up and began poking at me hard and quick all over, repeating “does this hurt, does this hurt,” in his nasally baby Brooklyn mean voice. I blew up. And I did Cuss. Loudly. And I Cried. Because I always cry when I get really mad. And I told him that he could not talk to me that way, that not only was I a patient, an adult (unlike him) but a PH.D. with tenure (which means I’ve got more education and intern/probation time under my belt than he does) to boot (yeah, my own status conceit). He pulled back his shoulders, pushed out his chest, and in his most demeaning voice, told me that I needed to get myself under control (ok, so I’ll give him that one, I was out of control). He marched out the office, went to get Daddy Doc (the lead Physician/neurologist) and brought him into the room to show him what a bad girl I had been. Sadly, Daddy Doc tended towards being condescending himself (with his “hi darling” and other sorts of familiarities) so I got a verbal spanking for cussing. <br /><br />I suspect that I was not the only one dissatisfied with Doc NY as he was no longer working at the Pain Clinic a few months later.Rhondahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15849537421185807771noreply@blogger.com