I just recently found out that a doctor said that I was difficult. It was a veterinarian, a specialist. He suggested that my dog be put to sleep. I was emphatic about the fact that he was addressing this in a thoughtless, callous way. He told me he was being facetious. I needed records forwarded to another vet and found out that the specialist wrote a letter to another specialist saying I was difficult. Then I find out that, that vet forwarded the letter that the specialist wrote to yet another vet! Anyone ever have something like this happen? I was absolutely blown away by this. I am very compliant with any vet that I encounter. Unless of course it is from a vet that arrogantly suggests that I put my dog to sleep!
I was accused for asking for allergy testing for my daughter rather than just giving her a prescription allergy medication for my daughters perpetual sniffles. No voices were raised or inappropriate/sharp/rude/insulting remarks made and it was a clinic of residents, so little chance of seeing the same one more than a couple of times ever, but we were fired from the whole practice!
Thanks for your reply. I can’t believe you were fired from the practice! It’s very hard to trust these doctors anymore. There seems to be a lot of arrogance going around with them.
I have to say I was unnerved when the vet said he was being facetious about putting my dog to sleep. I was upset that he said that and he knew it. At one point I was crying I was so upset and he still had the nerve to call me difficult to another doctor. I may go to someone above him in the practice so hopefully he’ll stop writing these letters.
I had plenty of doctors tell me all about how evil and ineffective Primatene Mist(epinephrine) inhalers were, how it was a horrible drug for asthma and had tons of bad side effects like raising heart rate etc. They just didn’t seem to care or listen to the fact that it was the only rescue inhaler that worked for me, and the inhaled corticosteroid inhalers they advised instead had worse side effects for me and were ineffective. It just got really old and felt like talking to a wall.:rolleyes:
And this is second hand but my mom didn’t have enough money to buy all her prescriptions, so she was doing really silly shit like buying a weeks worth of blood pressure and taking it, then next week buying and taking a cholesterol med. :smack:
So I spent time on the phone with her going over the most expensive meds, meds she was being given just in case(BP and cholesterol) and told her to ask for 90 day RXs for the stuff where that is allowed to cut costs.
On her next visit she told her doctor all this, she said he blew up at her and was pretty much shouting. That he had no idea what drugs cost, that he doesn’t care about money just that she get the best meds possible for her care. And that if she wanted a doctor who put money above a patients health she should find another doctor. She had crappy insurance and was kinda stuck so she just shut her mouth and told me she was sorry she listened to me.:smack:
Vets become vets because they like animals. The unpleasant fact that all their paying clients are human beings can come as a surprise later.
No excuse for the residents though.
I think you are focusing on whether the vet was an arrogant jerk or not, in order to avoid thinking about whether or not your dog is suffering. The vet, a specialist in whatever it is your dog has, thinks your dog is suffering and has no positive prognosis. Why wouldn’t you think very very seriously about his opinion, that you paid him to give you? If your dog is very sick, do you think it is helpful to drag him to vet after vet, to be prodded and poked painfully in strange scary places until his last day?
I suggest you think a little bit more about your dog’s needs than your own, and maybe you won’t be considered a difficult client anymore.
I had the same thing happen with my daughter’s allergy doctor. We were fired as well. He DID NOT like me questioning him at all.
On a lighter note:
I once went to a new doctor when I was 40 and he looked at me and said in an accusatory voice “You do not look your stated age.” I mean, who lies about being 40?
I could pas for in my 30’s until I hit 50 and then I started going downhill.
Hate to tell you, but doctors are humans and come with all the flavors of human failings. They have bad days, they can be socially clueless, they can be sweet and generous. Being smart and hard working and good in science is not the same as being a good person. And burnout in any profession does not do good things for one’s social skills.
sajemarriedfortwentytwoyearstoaphysician
Sorry about your pet.
Upon reading the title of your thread, I thought of Elaine Benes’ experience with her dermatologist.:smack:
If I was a vet and there was a suffering dog, and I made what in my professional opinion was a suggestion re the pet’s quality of life that the client needed to think about, and they started crying and yelling and accusing me of being thoughtless and callous … yeah… you might be a difficult client. This is the description *you *gave of your behavior in the vet’s office, and you sit there dumbfounded that anyone would think you as difficult? Seriously? Where do you get off thinking that kind of behavior toward a professional is OK? How much kid glove handling do you need?
If I was a vet I might well give the next vet a heads up about your potential reaction to news you don’t like. It would borderline irresponsible not to.
To be fair, doctors do get their share of difficult patients. (Not a doctor, but I’ve worked with them for almost 20 years.) For instance, it’s awfully stressful to end up with a patient who reveals that he’s sued his share of doctors in the past for supposed malpractice (even being accused of malpractice, not even successfully sued for it, has to be reported every time you apply for privileges at a new hospital and is a Very Bad Thing) and you’re walking on eggshells every time you see them.
The docs I’ve worked for take medication costs into consideration. No, they don’t know exact costs (you don’t know what they are until you try to fill with each particular pharmacy), but they try to consider stuff that’s long been generic vs. new drugs, etc.
As noted, some doctors have worse social skills than others. Where I’ve worked, patients were not sent elsewhere lightly - referrals to specialists to better treat their condition, absolutely, but not dismissed entirely. Even Mr. I’ve Sued Plenty of Docs was kept around (though held at arms’ length and eventually eagerly took the suggestion that Other Doctor might be an awesome doctor), mostly out of fear that booting him would provoke a legal response.
As for the vet in the OP, I’m sorry you felt the vet was being callous. It’s possible he lacked the appropriate bedside manner, and that’s always unfortunate. However, if he felt that was the way to go instead of interventions, I suspect there may have been no real hope. I’ve had vets suggest alternatives when they existed, but they were realists about chances. Please do not let your dog suffer needlessly.
I’m also sorry you were offended, but that letter to the other vet was for the vet’s benefit, not to make you feel better. Plenty of people (doctors, vets, business people, whatever) will formally or informally give heads-up to others to let them know what’s going on. I’ve never personally seen a doctor put something like that in writing so clearly, so either the vet has serious social skill issues, or perhaps you do. Please consider how you’ve been appearing to others.
By a couple of dental assistants.
The first one kept poking at a spot that hurt like hell, for way too long, then got angry because I kept flinching. Slammed her hands down and yelled at me. I yelled back and told her that she was done with that spot and could damn well change her attitude or I was walking out and would no longer be a patient there. Dentist came in, took her to another room and talked to her for a bit (he and I got along great). She came back and completed the job without the attitude.
Second one (different office, many years later) kept trying to jam the molding compound into my mouth while I was choking on it and turning colors. I grabbed her hands and forcibly stopped her. She stepped back and yelled at me. They could probably hear me screaming and swearing down the block. Dentist came in and started yelling at me, but I was having none of it. A different assistant came in and took the molds. I never went back after that visit, but that was probably more because the dentist tried to tell me that I had 18 cavities that needed filling right then and there, started working on one on my front tooth without my consent, and then tried to sell me on a financing scheme to get all of the rest done. :eek:
This bit makes me wonder what exactly happened during the exchange. Was it something like
Doc: A hangnail? Dear me, I guess we’ll have to put Fluffy to sleep!
Owner bursts into tears.
Doc: Calm down, I was just being facetious.
Owner: How can you be so heartless? (Continues sobbing.)
If an owner reacted like that, a label like “difficult” might be appropriate.
Did the doc say something that most people would recognize as facetious (albeit perhaps in poor taste or insensitive)?
I see people are assuming your pet was seriously ill, but in neither of your posts do you actually say anything about that.
I’m compliant but my husband isn’t. He hates doctors, thinks the medical community in the US is a scam, and he’s one of those types where he doesn’t like being told what to do; ergo, if anyone (including a doctor) tells him he has to, say, take X, he won’t get the prescription filled until he absolutely positively 100% needs it because he doesn’t like being medicated.
In all our years being married, you think I’d understand his reasoning. I do, but I don’t. I once asked him, “Well, if a doctor told you that you’d die without X, would you believe him or her?” He replied he’d question the opinion.
I think some of his attitude stems from his best friend refusing most medical attention and dying of cancer back about a decade ago. The best friend was scared to death of hospitals and insisted on dying at his own home on his own couch despite everyone’s protests (at this point his cancer had mestatized but he had had an excellent chance of survival if he had gone into treatment when it was first diagnosed). The story still blows me away…I know there are phobias and such, but gambling your LIFE because you don’t want a doctor telling you what to do???
Things like this can bring even the most caring and compassionate of doctors to swearing point. The majority of medical practitioners really do at least start in the field because they want to help people. There is nothing that makes my husband more frustrated and angry than patients who don’t follow his treatment plan and then complain that things aren’t better/are getting worse. Most of these type also never actually TELL him that they have concerns about a medication or want to explore alternatives - if they did he’d at least have a fighting chance of getting SOME result. Nope, they just say “oh my friend had a really bad reaction so I didn’t take it…” or some such idiocy.
There are incompetent/impatient/burnt-out-but-stuck people in every field from the most menial to the most professional. And somebody’s gotta be at the bottom of the class, even in med/vet school.
The worst GYN I ever had was female - I have had diagnosed PCOS my entire life - I was diagnosed by a doctor who was physically rummaging around my insides when I was just barely post-pubescent who noticed a 1 inch diameter cyst on my right ovary and a baby one on my left while in dealing with my urinary tract. This stupid woman I saw at the age of 20 told me my stabbing ovary pain and monthly cramping that had me out of school monthly my entire teenaged life was all in my head. I didn’t stop with pain, bleeding, not bleeding, bleeding for weeks and weeks and weeks, cramping, hormonal based migraines until I found a doc that put me on norethindrone in my late 40s to stop the whole mess, and who forwarded me to a GYN/oncologist to remove them the second time I ended up with a tumor. [yup, one out in 95, one out a few years back. I really love chemo.]
If the whole damned lot of GYNs in the US would get their heads out of their asses about us delicate flowers all desperately wanting babies and actually give women who want a hysterectomy because of pain and quality of life issues when they are in their early 20s I could have fucking avoided 25 years of agony. I have never wanted a kid, if I wanted one I could adopt a sprog, it isn’t like there are none available.
Thanks for pointing out the bit about the facetiousness, that hadn’t registered for me upon first read.
Although it does make me more sympathetic to the OP. If a specialist vet mentioned putting my pet to sleep, and then it turned out he was just joking … I can completely see myself still upset. I’d be apologetic about it, like “OMG, sorry, that just struck a nerve, don’t mind me …”
But if the vet specialist wasn’t equally, immediately apologetic as well – I’d expect him to apologize on the spot and acknowledge the joke was inappropriate – I’d be the one going back to my personal vet and asking for a recommendation for a different specialist because the first one was difficult.
If you get a call in the middle of the night asking for verification of the spelling of your name, be very worried.
As a young bride I went to a triage clinic on a military base. The woman behind the desk told me to take the plastic cup to the potty, whiz in it and carry it down the hall.
I looked at the hall and young male soldiers lined the walls in chairs. Too shy (and a bit proud) to walk down the hall in front of my contemporaries carrying a cup of pee I asked for a paper bag. She said they didn’t have one. I freaked out. Can’t remember what I said but she stamped the front of my chart in red, “Patient Uncooperative.”
And I still had the privilege of carrying my pee in front of all those cute guys. Don’t think anyone even noticed. I soon learned that nobody thinks twice about human dignity in the military.