Posted by Casey on 6/6/2005, 9:16 am, in reply to "Re: questions not just for colonoscopies" There used to be a bond between doctor and patient. Now most of us don't have a family doctor or even a doc we've seen more than twice in a row. There is little compassion because, truly, there is no connection. Clem, your mom will probably never see that lousy doctor again or any of his assistants. Docs change clinics and insurance companies all the time: a clinic that was in your plan last month isn't this month, and the doc who was an approved provider last week isn't this week. As more and more docs joins HMOs or other large medical affiliations, the personal has disappeared from the "personal" physician. I haven't seen the same doctor more three times in the past 10 years. So...if you won't be seeing the patient again, why bother with that little extra care? Besides, even a little skimping on analgesics saves big bucks over a year's worth of patients. I've even had doctors say "now wouldn't it be a great tradeoff to have 10 minutes of discomfort (try getting ANY medical person to use the word 'pain') in instead of sitting around in recovery for 2 hours if we give you something?" Where are these guys going to medical school???? I include women in "guys"--a couple of the most unfeeling, gruff, and just plain mean docs I've ever had were female. My sympathies to your mom, and a sidenote that I think the very elderly (over 75) are often undermedicated because they have a tendency to "buck up and bear it." It's something they grew up with, and the medical community knows that. Our elderly are easy targets for medical bullies. Are there good docs and nurses? Yes, but they are becoming the exception, and they used to be the rule. How do doctors get away with this? It's the patient's word over the doctor's. I confronted a doctor once about a urology procedure that he couldn't complete until 3 nurses held me down. In a later phone call, he said he did remember that I had seemed to be under a "bit of discomfort." He assured me that I had been given adequate anesthetic. I said I hadn't. He said that I didn't respond properly to what I'd been given. Basically, he tried to make it MY fault. And the medical community is puzzled that people don't go to doctors earlier when they're sick? Who wants to risk it?
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My opinion of the entire medical community is quite jaded--from YEARS of screw ups with myself, family, and close friends.
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