Sure, I’ll sign it. And add a note;
“Former doctor was an arrogant ass who seemed to believe that he could order me to do things without question.”
I’m needle-phobic. Not just afraid of them. Phobic. I have a lot of anxiety just walking down the hallway to get to my room at the doctor’s office, and often I’ll have a full-blown panic attack before the doctor even sees me.
So I’ve lost a few doctors in my time. The one I have now is kind and tries to understand but she still nags me about wanting to check my blood every time I’m there. I’m pretty sure if there was ever a real need to check my blood and I refused her she’d dump me too.
this is amazing. I’ve gone to the same doctor for 48 years and he always listens to what I say. If I said a medicine was kicking my ass he moved on to the next one. He once admitted that many medicines were a crapshoot of possible results and not fully understood. He’s not so arrogant as to believe he knows how people will react to a given drug. If I research something and want to try it he’s game and if something is too expensive he looks for cheaper alternatives. In short, he gives shit.
He did once infer I was difficult about something when I was a teenager. I broke my ankle and he made a walking cast which I proceeded to ruin by getting wet. He put a new cast on and then brought me in a balloon like I was a little kid. Smartass. I dearly love him.
As for vets, I miss my first vet. He was old when I was young. I liked that he was very compassionate and well read in his field. I remember seeing him leave the room of a client and I could see the pain in his face about the animal. He quietly confided the animal was seriously ill and needed to be put down but that the owner needed to come to terms with it. He was very gentle and loving with the owner. The same vet once prescribed vitamin K for my dog’s ear after it swelled from a busted blood vessel. years later he remembered the event and proudly showed me an article on said treatment.
As for Dentists. I’m only on my second one. Both Dentists have been very upfront about ANY indication of discomfort. She was apologetic for the pain she caused with the shots to deaden the pain. She knew they frickin hurt. You could see it in her eyes that it bothered her.
I find that doctors generally don’t tell me that I’m difficult, instead they just kind of don’t really respond to all my concerns.
Same here. I asked my doc a yes/no medical question when my exam was over; he continued making notes on my chart while I waited for a response. He finished writing, told me to have a good day and left the exam room. As I checked out, I said, “I asked him a question and he never answered me.” The receptionist’s response was, “There’s your answer.” The hell?
I did not return.
I had surgery some years back. The chief nurse told my wife I was the worst patient they ever had.
I wear that with a badge of honor as they were all jerks! And not just to me, I saw them treat other patients crappy.
I will heartily apologize to everybody here that has an asshole doctor - mine is a freaking dream, I have been with him since he left the doc in a box office to start his own almost 8 years ago. I love him, and if we were single I would try to marry him [though he is married, and has the cutest little girl that is just about the same age as his practice … :D] <well, actually not, but he is a really nice guy and a fantastic doctor>
I’ve been on both sides. I’ve discharged many patients, mostly for being loud, nasty, uncooperative, drug seeking or threatening, and was discharged once myself. I was discharged, and I still can’t believe this, for not coming often enough. I wasn’t calling for medications, was being treated by my gyn yearly, a hand specialist for carpal tunnel and a nephrologist for kidney disease but this internist said he should be the gate keeper to all this and was sick of getting reports from other doctors when I wasn’t coming in every six months as he requested. Fortunately, my new Internist is fine if I just see him when I need him.
No, but I’ve come close to beating on one. Phucking eye surgeon didn’t warn me that reattaching a retina tear would be PAINFUL!!!
Not since my long ago D&C have I EVER experienced that much pain. I was in tears the whole time. If the jackass had warned me, I could’ve taken a few of my arthritis painkillers beforehand and suffered a lot less misery during the procedure.
I called him on it at the post-surgery evaluation and he never did come up with a reasonable excuse for not telling me. Still pisses me off and that was a year ago. :mad:
Did you have the D&C without anesthesia? I was put under for mine and holy shit, if you had one awake with no drugs, I want to give you a hug and a salute.
I have had a doctor tell me that my case was difficult, but not me.
OTOH, I once had to go to a specialist, and at the first appointment he asked me a bunch of questions and then told me a bunch of stuff about how he expected my treatment to go. It seemed reasonable so I agreed. He wrote on my chart that I was “labile.” For some reason I found that kind of jerkish.
We docs often comment that a patient’s blood pressures, pulses, glucose levels, moods, etc. are labile, too. It generally doesn’t have a value judgement attached to it.
And “SOB” means the patient is short of breath, not a son of a bitch.
I sure as hell did.
I left bruises on the attending nurse’s hand. :eek: :eek: She made the mistake of holding mine to comfort me during the procedure. Didn’t work.
I don’t know why they didn’t knock me out, but if I EVER have to have one of those again, you can be damn sure it’ll be under anesthesia!!!
I myself actually am a difficult patient.
I tend to want to know why doctors or other medical staff are telling me to do this or that, and to push back if something seems amiss, and this does not make life easier for them.
It comes to the fore mostly when I’ve been hospitalized. One problem with hospitals, from the perspective of difficult patients like myself, is that there are too many cooks stirring the broth. You have routine hospital procedures, stuff ordered by the hospital’s various doctors, and then the opinion of your own doctor.
So like, for example, I had guys coming every morning and taking my blood for tests. So I asked my doctor if he thought that was required and he was adamant that not more than every other day was required. So I started refusing every other day. (Might have been one or two other things like that.)
Then there was the one time that I was in the ER awaiting a bed and guys came over to wheel me in to a CAT scan. I said I didn’t see any reason why I should need a CAT scan, and they said my doctor had ordered it and I said I found that hard to believe and they said well meanwhile we’ll just bring you in and we’ll confirm along the way. After waiting a while for the confirmation they got back word that it had been mistake and I didn’t need a CAT scan after all.
But otherwise I was fine. I remember in particular one nurse who had recently taken over my shift and who remarked in surprise “you’re not such a difficult patient after all” (or something to that effect). 