This happened a few weeks ago, but I still get upset thinking about it. My sister suffers from Cystic Fibrosis, coupled with severe rheumatism, and has been retired for many years now due to her poor health. It is important to my story to emphasize that my sister is a real trooper, probably the toughest person I know. Despite all her pain and countless afflictions, she doesn’t complain and is rather focused on being there for others. I love this about her, but it can be problematic at times when she fails to be honest about how she feels so as to not cause any inconvenience for people.
Like many people with Cystic Fibrosis, she’s been having problems with coughing up blood due to perforations in her lungs. The rule of thumb is to observe the course of the bleeding for a couple of days and, if it persists or is abnormally strong, go to the emergency room since there could be a rupture, for example. Several times I’ve urged her to go to a clinic and have it checked out when it would not subside, so have other family members and friends. But, as mentioned before, she doesn’t want to be trouble, so she would always wave it off and deal with it.
This time, however, the bleeding went on for over a week and got heavier by the day, so FINALLY she got worried and decided to go to her local clinic and have it checked out. It was a Friday afternoon, and the reception she received there was icy. She had to wait for a long time, even though there wasn’t really anyone else there from what I understood, but she didn’t mind. When the doctor finally came, he made it a point to show her how annoyed he was by her presence. She was, as he admitted, his first ever patient with Cystic Fibrosis, and he told her point blank that there was nothing he could do for her, as he had no idea how to treat such bleeding. So he asked her why she had even bothered coming (the next CF clinic is 2 hours away by train). And then he added: “And just a little advice for the future: you don’t make friends here when you decide to show up on a Friday afternoon”, and sent her home.
She ended up laughing about the remark, but also felt guilty for going. I tried to convince her to report this clown, but she would not want to get him into trouble. I’m so angry at how unprofessional he was. From now on, my sister will even be more reluctant to seek help in dangerous situations. 1116-16
I try to not inconvenience people either but there is a line in the sand beyond which I will not go. It is not being unreasonable to expect a clinic and its doctor to treat patients with professionalism and courtesy without any attending guilt trips.
So he doesn’t know how to treat your sister’s condition. That calls for a referral to a doctor who does so the response should have been, “So, please me refer me, Dr. Rudy, to a doctor who would know how to treat my problem.”
As for the “advice” that your sister would not be making friends with the clinic staff for committing the heinous act of actually showing up during working hours at the clinic, to me that sounds like a subtle threat of not receiving proper care for having the audacity to crimp the staff’s expectations of an easy Friday afternoon of work. It’s “advice” that should be reported to supervisors/bosses since it represents a serious flaw in the staff’s attitudes that threatens to undermine the success of that clinic. I can bet your sister is not the first person to hear such “advice” from this lousy excuse of a doctor and he needs to find a new profession.
Unless the rules are completely different where you are (unless you are also Australian) family members can make complaints on behalf of patients, you don’t even have to mention her by name. I would suggest telling her your going to make the complaint firstly to the clinic mangers and then continue up the line until a appropriate response is given. I would hope that the managers would at the very least contact your sister and reassure her that she should not feel bad for attending and to please continue to attend during business hours when she is unwell. The only time you should not attend a doctors office is after hours and frankly it must be after hours. I’m a nurse and have lost count of the times I have remained late as a patient has turned up one minute to closing, it’s what I’m paid for and so is he.
I hope she can.
Doesn’t want to get him in trouble? He DESERVES to be in trouble. He didn’t refer yOP to anyone, the entire reception was icy, and he was a complete-… jerk. He needs to get in trouble for this! Yes, people have bad days, but you don’t take that out on customers, and even if you can’t treat it you refer to someone else!
I hope OP’s sister went to the hospital or something after this because CF is serious business, especially when it’s that bad.
As a nurse practitioner, I am not trying to make friends with my patients. (Not that I am not polite, caring, & discuss relatively innocuous topics like the weather, etc.) But I am not trying to become best friends. Patients cannot control when they get sick. You are in a caring profession & you are supposed to provide care.
And this doctor & staff need to be reported ASAP because they could literally kill someone with the attitude.
Yes, they could easily kill someone with that attitude. I have the lovely acid reflux that a lot of people have. Mine manifests not in pain, but in esophageal spasms, which a lot of times mimics a heart attack. However, there is a strong history of heart disease in my family. Someone else could be in the same boat, and the one time they really think they are having a heart attack, they could get turned away by this quack (seriously, who makes it to being an ER doc and doesn’t know how to treat a CF patient?) because he thinks that the person is bothering him when it’s only reflux. But it could be the one time that yes, they really are having a heart attack. So report, report, report, report him!
Yes, they certainly can.
I just deleted a whole story, because I was just too wound up to be polite about it, but yeah! They certainly can!
I think the OP really needs to reconsider the assessment that the ill sister “fails to be honest about how she feels so as to not cause any inconvenience for people.” This is not ‘being a trooper,’ this is ‘being a martyr and a drama llama.’ The sister is not only failing to be an advocate for herself, she is making herself the center of worry and attention for extended periods of time until the situation is or may be dire (heightened drama) instead of being responsible and taking care of her health when she should have. (My mother used to play games like this with her diabetes. One morning she didn’t wake up again because of this kind of BS). Frankly, it sounds to me like a new doctor finally told her to stop playing these games and she didn’t like it one bit. That the OP was not actually at the doctor’s and only has the sister’s report as to what was said makes me take it with a big grain of salt.
As for the supposed issue, yes, if the doctor said what was actually reported (and only what was reported) the doctor was unprofessional. If the doctor instead said ‘why did you only come in now, right before we closed for a problem you have had all week, why did you come to a weekday only clinic that is not equipped to handle your medical needs, why did you not call your regular doctor who would actually know how to handle this, and if you think this is an emergency, why didn’t you go to the ER? it sounds much more reasonable, but a person who is accustomed to being fretted over might only hear ‘you’re spoiling my weekend’ and not ‘I can’t help you and you’ve gotten yourself in a pickle’. It’s particularly noteworthy that the sister neither moved up the care chain, nor complained about the doctor herself. This isn’t about a rude doctor and a health scare, this is an emotional game.
Exactly what you said.
This is assuming a lot about the OP’s sister, whom we don’t know and the OP does.
Yeah, I think it’s a good point that the doctor probably said something more like “why didn’t you go to the ER?” (though I doubt she’s making up the line about not making friends) and I think it’s a bit silly that she DIDN’T go to the ER, but she doesn’t at all sound like a martyr/drama queen. Probably genuinely doesn’t like to impose on people or make a big deal, and that’s why she chose the more low-key option of going to a clinic. It’s maybe not the best approach to dealing with her illness, but to assume she’s a passive-aggressive martyr is a reach.
It seems we may be in the minority, but that’s the impression I got as well.
I don’t think there’s any evidence that the sister is “a drama llama” and lying about the doctor’s behaviour. Self-advocating is *hard* when you’re the one who is scared about your own illness and about the toll it’s taking on other people. Some compassion might be warranted here.
I have to disagree with you. In addition, I feel your tone is very condescending and dismissive of the OP’s sister and her medical concerns.
It’s not your place or the doctor’s to second guess a patient as to when he or she decides it’s time to seek medical attention. Nor is it “drama” to seek medical attention on a Friday afternoon after having had a certain amount of pain for a week. Only the patient knows how he or she feels and when he or she feels it. It’s not up to you or anybody else to second-guess that decision. Full stop.
This doctor went to medical school with the full knowledge that medicine isn’t a Monday-Friday, 9-5 job. People get sick and call in the middle of the night or – gasp! – Friday afternoon. There are professional and governmental agencies that oversee the conduct of medical professionals. Report him. If he has the maturity to realize his mistakes and correct course, he’ll thank you for helping him become a better doctor. If not, he’ll probably eventually be fired anyway due to malpractice or negligence.
Yes, agreed.
I’ve had customers who would tell you that I didn’t want to fix their car, and that I was being unhelpful and rude. The complaint was really that I’m not a miracle worker. It’s not that I didn’t want to help, or that I don’t like them, its that they put off fixing a coolant leak for two weeks, until there are 2 hours left in the day on a Friday. My parts ordering deadline has long since passed, I don’t stock what they need, and now they just “need” to take the car out of town on their big trip. No amount of me commiserating with them or letting them cry on my shoulder is going to fix their problem. I’ve had to say on a Friday, many, many times “You are welcome to tow your car here, but I wont be able to fix it until Monday, if that doesn’t work for you, you should find somewhere else. I know X place is open Saturday”. 50% of people, for some reason, think that is rude. I don’t know what they want me to say. The world has limitations and consequences, the only thing that you can do to make your life better is try to work within those rules. If it’s not a car, but a medical thing, literally life and death, then people should be even more aware of this.
People like to help, but they can only help within the context of what is physically possible. I really hope the OP’s sister is ok after this, but if a clinic isn’t equipped to help, then it isn’t equipped to help. Sitting there hoping that some business will be kind and solve your problem using a wave of a wand is not a good way to go through life. “The next CF clinic is 2 hours away by train”… It sounds like THAT is the closest CF clinic, as this one isn’t equipped to treat CF. Now if the clinic actually said the “make friends” comment, that is pretty cold, but I’d need to hear it in the context of the actual conversation, not as a stand alone statement, in order to justify making a complaint.
Ernie – I saw some of the same red flags you did, and your examples of customers waiting too long are familiar to me and most of my friends and relatives. It’s a common complaint in any industry and suggests we are a spoiled society, believing our needs will be met on short notice. It makes things very frustrating for businesses and service providers, that’s for sure.
The OP explains the situation better, farther down in a couple of posts, and that helps with the things that didn’t add up for me. OP’s sister is still quite young and most people need to age a bit before they start to get comfortable asking for what they need in a timely manner. Unfortunately, CF usually doesn’t allow people enough time to really age and mature well. And OP’s sis may be just sick and tired of always being hospitalized and that could factor into how quickly she seeks assistance, instead of waiting things out to see if they get better on their own.
I have done contract (art) work for years. I am 300 miles from home and no I can’t whip out that anklet in an inch shorter, my stock and supplies are a long ways away and no I didn’t bring everything with me on the road. No, the ribbon for the pew bows has to be ordered from a supplier then I have 80 hours of labor to do. You can’t talk to me on Thursday afternoon and expect to pick up 24 custom designed pewbows on Friday morning at 8 am. I don’t have a magic wand to grant your wish, if I had a wand like that I’d use it on me, thank you anyways!!!!!
I think you have made quite a few interesting assumptions based on your personal experience.
That is a HUGE assumption. I have a chronic medical condition that I quite often down play. It’s not because I’m a ‘drama llama’, or ‘playing games’, or any other charming term you’d like to assign to it. I don’t seek help, sometimes for far too long, because I think that by mentioning it sooner I’m a nuisance. I’m working hard to change it, BUT the absolute last thing in the world that I want is to be ‘fretted over.’
There is absolutely nothing in the OP that would indicate that any of your assumptions are true, or that the sister was lying about the doctor.
Thank you so much for this comment. You get it. Not wanting to always be fretted over has a lot to do with it. And wanting to participate in normal life, even if it might mean walking through the pain on a hike, or cuddling with your germ-laced nephew, or staying out late and risk exhaustion and infection…it’s a balance act.
There is absolutely no evidence to support that, and it’s pretty arrogant of you to think that you know OP’s sister better than OP him/herself does. It sounds like you’re projecting your own experiences onto a stranger’s story.
That doctor needs to improve his bedside manner. He needs to remember that while it might be an ordinary day for you, it’s often a patients worst day.
I don’t understand why you would not go to the ER instead. Clinic s are just that clinics , not specialized Dr . They were not equipped to handle something so serious. I don’t imagine in her past she has gone to a clinic. You would have been better to call your own Dr and or the ER not any clinic. Yes they were not professional. Hope you do feel better soon .
I’m wondering if she is in a country where the setup for medical care is different. In the US most of us have a regular doctor. If something serious comes up after hours or on a weekend you go to an urgent care facility or the emergency room at a hospital. If an urgent care doctor felt they couldn’t handle a problem they would send you to the ER, calling an ambulance if necessary. In this incident, the OP talked about a CF clinic 2 hours away. That makes me think that the structure for medical care is different.
Seriously. Thank you.
This appalled me! Here in the UK we have NHS GP surgeries and our expectations of standards of care are pretty low (we expect, for example, to turn up on time to our appointments but wait a significant amount of time to actually see the doctor – they are always behind!), but even we wouldn’t put up with this kind of behaviour! This surgery should be reported for failing to meet appropriate standards of care!
I’m in the UK too, and having so many bad doctors has put me off going to see them unless it’s dire. I’ve even had to request to never see my current GP again after he berated me over the phone for 1. Questioning his decision to prescribe medication he would not tell me what is for or what it does, 2. Wanting an appointment (As this was when I just changed to this surgery) to go over the changes in my physical disability, and 3. For crying and having an anxiety attack when he started yelling that I am too young to be disabled.
I’m about to move home and I dread with every fibre in my being getting a new doctor. I don’t have a good rapport with this current one, but the unknown terrifies me to think I could end up with doctors who are neglectful, rude and dangerous for the rest of my life! And it doesn’t seem complaining does anything when they throw survey figures at you about the quality of service and say they will ‘have words with the staff’
You should complain to your Primary Care Trust. That isn’t acceptable behaviour!
As terrible as it sounds, though, there does seem to be a pattern to the type of doctor that behaves badly, though. Racism isn’t as pronounced in the UK but it is there in lots of subtle ways – people are very ‘cliquey’ and if you aren’t a member of a certain community, people from that community tend to ostracise you and it applies in doctors surgeries too. Certain demographics tend to treat people who aren’t from that demographic poorly.
But then you’ll go somewhere else and experience something totally different. So it seems to be a really localised thing.
Before my (now) Husband and I bought our house, I was living at home and my local doctors surgery was horrendous! It was so hard to get an appointment! The waiting times were insane! When I was young, there were 3 doctors in the surgery: Doctor D, Doctor RJ, and Doctor B. Doctor B retired and a succession of locums filled his appointment slots. I always saw Dr D (who was lovely) and Dr RJ for ‘Ladies things’. She was quite brusque but perfectly fine. After a while they employed a Dr LB – a pretentious man who thought he was the Universes gift to General Practice. He NEVER prescribed the right things for me (I’m allergic to ‘Cillins’ and ‘Mycins’, and has a reputation for the ‘3rd times a charm’ rule – you see him once, and he sends you away to try some half-baked home remedy. You see him a second time and he sends you away to ‘see how it goes’. It’s not until the THIRD visit that he’ll actually bother to treat you – whether it is to refer you, or prescribe something, or even just to look at the problem. It was very frustrating.
So when Hubby and I bought our house, I was worried about the Doctors surgery situation. We didn’t have enough money to buy a house in a ‘nice’ area (you know, low crime, no anti-social behaviour, polite neighbours, well performing schools etc), so we bought a lovely home in a ‘not-so-great’ area (some minor crime, plenty of Anti-social behaviour, fly tipping, and neighbours who vandalise your car when you park in the public layby that they think is ‘Their’ space… lots and lots of barking dogs, terrible, badly performing schools etc) not far from where Hubby grew up. So close, in fact, that he didn’t bother changing surgeries.
I registered with the same surgery with very very low expectations, and I have to say that it is clear my childhood surgery was terrible! My current surgery has a great appointment system, and it’s really easy to see a doctor. There are 5 GPs – Dr A, Dr Y, Dr S, Dr M and Dr C and ALL of them are lovely in their own way. Dr C is the lady I see about ‘ladies problems’, I usually see Dr A because I like him, but both Dr Y and Dr S are nice too. Dr M is a bit brusque but perfectly professional.
My ‘new’ surgery (I’ve lived here 6 years now, so hardly new) is a revelation! Considering they operate in a less economically prosperous area, with a high proportion of elderly residents and smokers (who seem to forever need appointments for their chest infections), you’d expect it to be difficult to get an appointment, long waiting times, frustrated doctors etc. Not so much – all the doctors are great and the practice is managed really well.
I tell you this because you mention being worried about switching practices – given your experience, I’m pretty sure your new practice can’t be any worse than the old one, and you might be pleasantly surprised!
The Dr was rude and unprofessional for sure. But your sister did not behave well either and you are hearing this second hand. Perhaps there has been some creative editing in the retelling to gloss over her justified scolding?
By your words your sister should head to an emergency room (which to me means a hospital, staffed 24/7 with all multiple Drs and specialized equipment) after a couple of days. Instead she waited over a week and went to a limited scope local walk-in clinic. The Dr might mot have been familiar with your sister’s illness, but your sister us and she exactly the wrong thing. It must be incredibly frustrating for the clinic staff to have a patient who purposely makes things more difficult.
I hope your sister is feeling better, and I hope she learns from this and stays on top of her illnesses by following recommended protocals going forward.
I can’t imagine anything that would justify a doctor telling a patient not to come to the clinic at a time when it’s open just because the doctors would rather not work on Fridays.
I would suggest next time she has to go, go with her if you can. You will obviously be more inclined to use the thumb presses on him when he indulges in such misconduct. And that is what it is at the very least. What he basically did was refuse service to a patient in need and possibly endanger her life and well-being.
I may not be a medical professional but I also like my easy Fridays but if it doesn’t happen, I DO MY JOB! He needs to grow up and do his.
No, the sister endangered her own life and well-being by ignoring bleeding for over a week and then going to a clinic instead of the ER she had been advised to go to.
Reading your comment, I went back and re-read the letter. OMG! You’re right!
The doctor was still rude, as reported here. However, you’re right, that she had no business being at a local clinic, rather than the emergency room, anyway.
This absolutely makes my blood boil. If your sister will not report him, I hope you or another relative will.
I agree with Admin that it’s a subtle threat to not receive proper care if you dare to show up on Friday afternoon, as if you can schedule your illnesses. This is the worst thing I’ve read in a long time.
You sister sounds like a nice person. But, I am sorry to say that taking abuse from doctors is crossing into the territory of being a doormat. Especially given that she has a chronic condition, it can be particularly dangerous. Please make her report the doctor (or you report if you can). And it is not for herself alone, but also for the wellbeing of all the patients who visit the particular doctor/clinic. Doctors might know that a patient’s condition is not serious, but he/she shouldn’t expect the patients to know that too. And they are being paid for the visits, so if the doctor and the staff don’t want someone bothering them on Friday afternoons, they are in the wrong profession.
I would put it this way to your sister if something like this happens in the future. She isn’t getting the doctor in trouble – she is helping the next family with a serious or chronic issue that doesn’t have her experience.
So … the thing about “work” is that it’s not always fun. If it were, no one would pay you to do it. Sometimes that means you do work when you don’t to, like say a Friday afternoon. It’s part of being a grown-up.
Does your sister have a doctor she sees regularly for her Cystic Fibrosis? I was curious as to why she didn’t go there versus a clinic that may not have her history on file.
At any rate, yes this doctor was rude and unprofessional. I would have not have given reporting them a second thought, just picked up the phone and made sure someone was aware of this clinic’s attitude towards patients.
I am too horrified to even think of a comment to make.
… she was coughing up blood. For a week. How the *beep* has SHE inconvenienced anyone?! My goodness. What a horrible “doctor”, and awful staff. Being a nurse and a doctor, I thought was a calling, typically be those who are more compassionate and caring. But jeeze louise – those awful clinic people and their reactions are terrifying and beyond scary, and disgusting.
So, your sister won’t complain…but why can’t you register a complaint? Granted, you weren’t there, but someone higher up needs to be aware that this is happening before a lawsuit hits them square in the face. I mean, what if their attitudes resulted in someone dying? Maybe you should point that out to your sister: which is worse? The inconvenience of dealing with patients on a Friday, or death?
I’m not “sue happy” but I am a strong believer in reporting bad behavior, especially if it creates danger for someone else.
By the way, a big round of applause to your sister in general. One of my best friends from high school had CF and she, like your sister, was a real trooper. *hug*
I lost a cousin to CF, and miss her terribly. One thing she learned along the way was to demand care. She didn’t hesitate to tell a nurse or doctor that they weren’t up to par for treating her. I have to add that she was reasonable; she just had no patience for things like professionals quoting incorrect statistics or making comments about her ‘getting better.’ Most of the care she received was excellent and inspired her sister to become a nurse.
I hope your sister can take on a bit of this attitude. She owes nobody an apology for asking them to Do. Their. Job. She owes nobody an apology for asking a doctor to refer her to another doctor who is competent in her area of need.
I would also absolutely report the doctor and staff. Not necessarily for the long wait an unfriendly reception, but for a doctor who sent her home and questioned the need for her to come in *because he didn’t know how to treat her*. And the ‘not making any friends’ comment is way over the line.
As Carolyn said above, “they could literally kill someone with the attitude.”
If your sister doesn’t want to report this person, then you should. The doctor outright admitted that he and other members of staff do not want to do their jobs and felt inconvenienced by your sister’s presence. Normally, I’m not the type to jump on the “Fire this person!” bandwagon, being understanding that sometimes people just have bad days at work, but in the case of medical professionals who hold the lives of others in their hands, the circumstances are entirely different, and yeah, this doctor should be fired. That attitude could seriously jeopardize someone’s well-being.
Your sister wasn’t asking to be friends, she was asking for a professional service that this jerkwad got paid for. I can bet you that he charged her an office visit for telling her to take a hike, if she has insurance, I’d go to them about this as well, they should not be paying this tacky mess anything for his garbage “advice”.
It’s a clinic, so depending on the size of the area, perhaps they have a problem getting qualified medical professionals who actually want to do what they went to school for. They need to invest in someone with bedside manner, needless to say.
This reminds me of the horrifying reviews I’ve seen for so many urgent care facilities with their revolving door of staff and how callous many are at times.
PLEASE report this clown ASAP!
The doctor’s attitude was appalling, as was his disinterest in referring her to someone who could help, or even phoning a CF clinic to ask for advice. But he had a point despite how badly he expressed it – putting up with a condition for several days instead of choosing to get it seen to and then turning up on a Friday afternoon is ridiculous. Not all services are available at the weekend – labs etc don’t always run out of standard office hours, and if it turns out the person needs those services, either they have to wait till next week, or they might have to be admitted to hospital.
That is really shocking. A complaint to the medical board would be in order. If the clinic is part of a corporation or other network, a complaint to his bosses would be in order as well. Additionally, there are online services that allow you to post reviews of medical clinics — I think you should post a public complaint there as well, so that others know precisely how this doctor values his time versus the lives of his patients.
This burns me up and I don’t even know the OP and OP’s sister. Yes, I would make a complaint whether she does or not. A very strong complaint.
I feel for OP — I had a relative like that, who would avoid making trouble for anyone else, to the extent of endangering herself. It’s sweet to be considerate of others, but no one should go that far with it.
If it’s clinic hours, they need to see the patient. Don’t know the disease? Make a call, use a computer, do something, but don’t send someone away with heavy bleeding. That’s incompetent.
Wow – just, wow. Had that happened to me, or one of my loved ones, the complaint would have started with the clinic director, and gone from there to the state medical board. If necessary, I would go to the media. NO patient should ever be made to feel that he or she is an “inconvenience” to any member of the medical profession. As for the doctor’s cavalier attitude about not being able to do anything because he wasn’t familiar with CF – Ms. Jeanne is absolutely right – the correct protocol would be for him to refer the patient to somewhere that CAN deal with CF. If nothing else, he could have her go to the nearest emergency room. Internal bleeding is NOT something you fool around with. If a doctor doesn’t have the compassion to realize that, he should at least be looking out for his own welfare, since he has left himself open to a serious lawsuit should anything happen to the patient.
I’d have my rear in a warp reporting that doctor and staff.
It doesn’t matter if it’s 4:59 pm right before a massive holiday, you still deserve proper treatment and care. Getting sick or hurt seems to have it’s own schedule…. and if you are in the field of health care, it is ‘whenever’. Of which I am thankful if it’s Sunday and someone comes to sew me up.
Medical people shouldn’t make friends of their patients. You don’t want or need to be emotionally invested with that many people… it’s a professional survival strategy.
Please repeat this on behalf of your sister. Completely Unprofessional. Now she’s liable to not go because of not wanting to bother the staff.
The OP gave her sister bad advice that contradicted prior medical instructions. The sister was supposed to go to the emergency room in these situations. For whatever reason, the OP pressured the sister and put her in a situation where she delayed the proper medical treatment. This clinic and doctor are awful, unpleasant and irresponsible. I would not return there and would submit my feedback to its management. However, the OP should not have interfered with her sister’s medical plan and encouraged her to seek help at the emergency room as her primary doctor ordered. The sister should also have a primary doctor for this condition and contact info for all appropriate care options at off hours, holidays, etc.
Also, in an emergency, my doctor has an answering service that will page him. There should never be confusion about where to turn.
What?
OP and family have historically tried to get sis to see a doctor earlier when the CF acts up and she puts them off. OP didn’t tell sis to go to a clinic instead of the ER, or to wait a week before doing so. That was all Sis.
I’ve seen this more and more, I’m afraid. This summer I had some problems with my legs (I had a cut that possibly got infected; at any rate my knees swelled up like inner tubes), and was bounced from urgent care to a doctor and back again. The final straw came when I went to my doctor to get some tests done to try to figure out what was going on–he never called with the results, and after waiting over a week, I called his office, only to be told that they couldn’t find out what was wrong and, direct quote, “You can come in if you want, but we can’t help you.” No suggestion of what to do next, no guesses as to *why* I couldn’t bend my knees without pain and difficulty, not even a “best of luck, hope you feel better.”
I wouldn’t even begin to know who to report this man to–he’s in private practice, so he’s his own boss. In addition, the way most insurance works these days is that you have to pick a primary care physician (usually sight-unseen), and there may only be one in your immediate area who takes your coverage, and trying to switch to another one requires more guesswork and paperwork and travel time–and how far do you want to travel when you’re sick?
It’s not just me, either. I can’t tell you what my grandfather has gone through with doctors the past year since his surgery. Doctors put him on all kinds of medication (that he never needed before), the medication makes him sick, the doctors tell him the reason he’s not feeling well is because of his advanced age. Grandpa stops taking the medication, he starts to feel better, the doctors say “Oh well I guess the medicine was making you sick” and give him a new prescription. The new prescription makes him sick, and the cycle begins again.
I get that doctors are only human. They make mistakes, they have bad days, what have you. But I can’t tell you how many–a regrettably large percentage–are starting to act like a cliche of bad retail workers: like they can’t believe you have the unmitigated gall to ask them to do their jobs.
Every state has a state medical board – that’s where you would report the terrible doctor. Following that, you should let your insurance company know about how you were treated – especially if you ARE in a situation where it would be extremely difficult to find another doctor. It’s not unusual for providers to be dropped from a network because the insurer has received multiple complaints.
Unfortunately you may be in an area where there are not many doctors. I’m lucky that I had more available. My health insurance plan has a website that lists the doctors who accept their coverage, and also has reviews and ratings from patients. It helps a lot.
What you do is get his licensure and/or certificate number, look him up online for your area and register a complaint with the board. It should be pretty easy to locate – medical staff are required to display their license in a predominant area or give you the number if you request it. Doctors take a vow and he is not following his by being unethical lackadaisical, losing information and most likely billing you for doing absolutely nothing.
With regard to the story, I think the doctor sounds like an ass who absolutely should be reported if the story is exactly true (or even close). But I, like some other posters, think sister needs to develop a spine regarding what she deserves but also get a kick in the pants regarding taking proper care of herself. If she can’t be counted on to do that, maybe she should live somewhere with regular medical care such as an assisted living facility.
There is something off about this story.
People with cystic fibrosis do not usually live to see retirement years. And since it’s a lifelong problem they typically have a regular doctor or practice they go to for treatment. The idea of a CF patient going to a walk in clinic just seems a bit ridiculous.
Also, the notion of a CF patient coughing up blood for over a week and not going to see his/her physician considering that not to do so could be fatal, is also ridiculous.
Sorry, I can’t get past what seem to me factual errors in the story.
Hi there, my sis “retired” from her job when she was 26. She is in her 30s now. I also added a general comment that might clear some things up.
Also, turns out coughing up blood is not always as dangerous as it seems. If there is a lung perforation, it frequently heals over only to be opened again by the friction of the cough. The bleeding can go on for a looong time. I never had that problem, but I know from my online CF community that it is very common. After the described incident we learned that the strain and friction of coughing rarely enlarge the perforation. But it is good to have it checked on now and then.
Experiences may vary– in my experience with a loved one with CF, coughing up blood was not a sure sign that you must see a doctor. You watch it for a while to see if it gets worse, subsides, or persists, and decide what to do from there.
What do you call a medical student who barely scrapes by and finishes last in his class?
Doctor.
There are good doctors and bad doctors, doctors who care and doctors who don’t. (I “fired” a doctor who kept me waiting for twenty minutes in the exam room, wearing one of those stupid paper “gowns”, when I could hear him in his office next door talking to his investment advisor. Not a keeper!)
As a patient, you have the right to be treated with care and consideration by a competent professional who wants to do a great job. Anything less and you start the complaint process. You start by informing the doctor that you find his behavior unacceptable; if that doesn’t fix the problem, you move on up the ladder of management/consumer agencies/licensing authorities, until you’re sure you’ve gotten satisfaction.
Side note: when you have a serious chronic illness such as cystic fibrosis, it’s my experience that you get best results when you have the continuity of care that comes from being treated by the same doctor or team of doctors, who get to know you and work together with you for the best outcome. And you try to follow their directions to the letter– which means if the doctor tells you “if bleeding persists for a couple of days or is abnormally strong, come in immediately,” that’s EXACTLY what you do.
I can tell you from my personal experience with a family member who had a severe chronic condition and would try to tough things out because he “didn’t want to be a nuisance,” that there is NOTHING that frustrates a good doctor more than a patient who waits until things are really serious before coming in to see the doctor. Not because it personally inconveniences them, but because waiting and allowing a condition to progress makes the probability of a positive treatment outcome much smaller, and the likelihood of permanent or persistent downgrade of the patient’s condition is much greater. This kind of thing really, REALLY pisses a good doctor off: to the point where he may tell the patient very bluntly that it is upsetting. Which does not excuse poor treatment as described in the submission; but a good doctor who has a patient who refuses to come in until symptoms have progressed to an emergency isn’t going to pat the patient on the back, smile, and say admiringly,”Oh, Jezebel, you’re SUCH a trouper, it’s great that you don’t come in unless there’s a real crisis! You’re so strong! I don’t know how you do it.”
My advice to OP: help your sister find a doctor she likes, and then get after her to do exactly what the doctor tells her. Which means if the doctor tells her to come in if there is any worsening of her symptoms, she does exactly that and gets a verbal “slap upside the head” if she doesn’t do what the doctor says.
Appalling. A simple, “I’m sorry, but I’m really not qualified to treat this for you, but here’s a number for somebody who can” would have been much better.
I have been treated poorly at a doctors office twice, and twice I reported them.
One was a situation where the doctor was just flat out rude, and the other was a situation like the one in this story where the doctor acted like I was there at a bad time and for a stupid reason. Thankfully he still knew how to treat my illness but for a doctor to act like your health issues aren’t important is the scariest thing.
If there’s a way for YOU to make a complaint, do it. Someone has to. Doctors have to deal with patients who are going through some of the toughest/scariest times of their lives. They don’t have to be your best friend but they can at least be NICE.
Because yeah, I do not appreciate when I’m laying in a hospital bed with a life threatening condition and the doctor storms in, doesn’t even introduce herself, and then proceeds to use the same tone of voice that you would use on a misbehaving dog.
Hi everyone, OP here. Thank you so much for all your feedback, encouragement, and suggestions. I agree the doctor should be reported, and I will bring it up with my sister again. As some of you pointed out, I was not there to observe the situation, so I don’t know how much of a leg I would have to stand on if I complained myself, especially a couple of months after it happened. I live in a different part of the country and don’t know the name of the doctor on call. I doubt sis remembers. Plus, as I mentioned, she was more amused that annoyed; I’m the one who took serious issue with his remark.
There might be a terminology problem here that needs clarification. I was not aware that a clinic and an ER are two separate things in the US. I live in Europe, and the local hospitals always have an ER. That’s where sis went, as she was supposed to. All the more surprising to me that the on-call doctor would say this…as the ER is open 24/7. I guess it’s a small town and there is not a lot of traffic on the weekends. The reason sis decided to go that day of all days is because the bleeding got much stronger and she started feeling pretty sick. The potential internal injuries caused by such bleeding would have to be treated at a regular hospital anyways (ultrasound? x-ray? surgery? I’m no doctor), not at a CF clinic. If she would have consulted her CF doctor the day before or that morning, he would have probably told her to do exactly that – go to the ER if it got worse. Again, her town does not have a CF clinic. But, since some people asked, she has regular appointments in the CF clinic closest to her as well as a wonderful CF hospital for her tri-annual stays.
With regard to being responsible about critical health issues- I would agree. IMHO she has gotten much better over the years to voice her needs to medical staff, but still gets flustered in situations like the one described (which are luckily rare exceptions). Please understand that it is not always easy to gauge what is an emergency and what isn’t. I too have CF, and am doing much better than her. But even I -and probably loads of people with chronic conditions- know that you can’t run to the ER, or call up a doctor, for everything. You wouldn’t get anything else done :-). Plus, you don’t want your condition to be your identity, so you don’t always focus on your ailments.
We both have overwhelmingly good experiences with our medical treatment and are thankful for good and virtually free healthcare; just once in a while you encounter someone who might have chosen the wrong profession.
OP – I think it’s very helpful for you to add your comments here, as I was confused about a number of things, including the reference to your sister being retired. Given that CF usually takes people well-before retirement age it was quite puzzling for me to consider your sister being in advanced years. I’m not sure I would have referred to her as “retired” at the age of 26 but your explanation does make things clearer.
In Canada, ERs are only in hospitals, open 24/7. Few hospitals don’t have an ER, and that’s usually only if there’s another one less than an hour away, in a bigger city. I’m assuming the same for the US.
Our tiny rural hospital has an ER and a detached clinic. ER is open 24/7, and you can walk in anytime and the nurse and/or PA on duty do first triage and call the doctor as needed. A lot of times people will walk into the clinic if it’s open as that is the cheaper option. The clinic will send you to the ER if needed, and hospital admit you from the ER if needed.
In bigger cities there were standalone clinics, standalone urgent cares (between clinic and ER, as walkins to take the pressure off non-critical walking into ER’s–people got tired in the late 80’s of trying to get into clinics especially since they worked and just started walking into ER’s to get seen–I had done that a few times as when I get bronchitis I need treatment NOW or it gets ugly, and ER’s attached to hospitals. Last big urban I lived had one urgentcare/ER (run by one hospital) that was set up for industrial accidents and I worked at a place that played with hydrofluoric acid so that was our designated if someone got splashed, to call them, put the person in a car and break speed limit to get them there. (the urgentcare would call the police to tell them someone was coming in and don’t stop them-ambulance response for this was too long a delay).
Clinics have weekday hours and handle non-life-threatening non-immediate care. Urgent care are open extended hours or 24/7 and are walk-ins and can handle almost anything non life-threatening (aka the gunshot wound or you tried to cut your hand off with a circular saw are beyond them). ER is 24/7 and usually accident geared, and heart attacks/strokes. The cost hikes accordingly.
OP, thank you for the update. Additional information makes things clearer.
Regarding your sister’s decision process about when she decides her symptoms are severe enough to merit a visit to doctor or ER:
My relative had a chronic problem (severe emphysema), and in the process of helping him to make his doctor visits, comply with medication regimens and so forth, I learned something. It is possible for people with serious chronic illnesses to slip into a clinical depression that manifests itself, in some cases, with noncompliance with doctor directions on when to seek treatment, take meds, etc, disguised as “not wanting to be a nuisance” or otherwise cause “problems” for caregivers or medical personnel.
This can be very insidious, because the noncompliance doesn’t present as what we think of as depression. It’s not “Oh, what’s the use, I’d be better off dead,” or something like that; it’s an expressed wish to not cause inconvenience to others or to be seen as attention-seeking.
The physical processes of many chronic severe illnesses can trigger biochemical changes in the body that can lead to clinical depression, which is not a failing in character but an actual physical illness itself. Even if the chronic illness itself can be successfully managed, the restrictions it can cause in physical activity and ability to interact socially with other people can lead to depression.
I learned that in dealing with a person who has a severe chronic illness, it’s important to have the person with the illness regularly screened for depression. If regular screenings aren’t done, depression can creep up so gradually that it isn’t identified until it becomes severe.
This isn’t just a matter of rudeness, it is a matter of a person’s safety. I don’t know if OP is in the US or in another country, but in the US, a lot of clinics, urgent care facilities, and medical practices are owned by a business or organization. I would report this to a government agency AND whoever is responsible for that clinic.
Medical personnel who have any professionalism at all will take you in for something like this, even if it is at the end of their workday. I had a detached retina, which, to save the eye, must be repaired within a day or to. I was sent to a retinal surgeon late in the afternoon. He did the in office cryosurgery. By the time we left, he and I were the only people in the building.
Another time near 10 o,clock at night I had terrible abdominal pains. I called an urgent care facility and described the pain. The receptionist told me to come in right away because they close at 10, but they would wait for me. The doctor saw me, figured out that it was a bad infection, gave me a bunch of sample meds, so I wouldn’t have to go to a drugstore. Since they had given me pain medication the nurse even drove me home. By the time I left it was well past their closing time.
I’ll agree with others who have said that Sis should’ve gone on to the ER within a couple of days. I know I’ve complained before about people misusing the ER, but bloody lungs is an issue you need to get checked out. Being a “trooper” and not wanting to inconvenience anyone is not good in this circumstance. We’re all there for the duration of our shifts whether someone comes in or not. It’s not like sis or anyone is pulling the staff away from anything else. (Same can be said for that clinic)
Report the Doc. Because if sis got back home and collapsed or started hemorrhaging blood guess who would get investigated? He could’ve at least told her to go to the ER. I’ve had plenty of patients come to the ER saying they were down at X clinic and the doc told them to come here. I’ve seen the doc BRING the patient if they were very close, and they usually call the ER doc to tell them about the person coming.
Either it’s a friendly visit (in which case coming late on an Friday was rude but on the other hand there’s no charge for friendly visits) or she was purchasing a service, in which case they are expected to actually provide said service.
I can’t comment on a proper procedure, as the healthcare in my country functions differently. Nor do I know much about cystic fibrosis.
On one hand, if the encounter went exactly as said, it was wrong, wrong, wrong. A patient showing up in a serious condition is always supposed to be seen, even 5 minutes before closing time (a patient showing up 5 minutes before closing time with two seezes or a bruise and no medical conditions that might make it dangerous and demands to be seen is really not making any friends, nor good impression).
However, and I say this as someone who suffered from a bad chroic ilness for the first half of her life (it’s in remission now), I can say this: if your condition is serious and problems may have fatal consequences, you got to the proper doctor as soon as necessary, preferably to your regular doctor who knows you and your condition well. And unless it’s some sudden emergency situation, you DO NOT go to a doctor who doesn’t know you on Friday just before closing time – even if he or she is nice, but has to refer you to someone, it might not be possible until next week, by which time you may get much worse. This was not a sudden emergency, this condition has been progressing for over a week – waiting until last minute before the weekend is irresponsible.
There is also another kind of a patient – the kind who will inform everyone in ten minute intervals how bad they are feeling, but who have to be dragged or drop-kicked to the nearest doctor. I had several in my family and it’s a huge bother. I hope your sister is not one of those.
My 5-yr-old son has cf. Is your sister in the US? If she is, I would strongly encourage her to send this information to the CFF, which decides on funding for certified cf clinics and can step in and help resolve some of these issues. She needs to be a strong advocate for herself and remember that she is the head of her cf care team.
Hi there, no we live in Europe. It was a regular hospital ER (in my mother tongue clinic and hospital are synonyms, hence the confusion 🙂 ). She wasn’t there for cf treatment itself, but for an injury caused by cf. All the best for your son!
I once sat with my oldest son in an ER for five hours after he took a square hit at football practice and got a frantic call from the trainer that he was dizzy and nauseous and “out of it”.
I flew there, he was helped to my car and after not being able to count to ten or tell me his little sister’s name, I put on the four ways and floored it to the hospital.
Of course they were PACKED, they got his info and put him in a wheelchair with a neck brace on, and the very nice staff said they would do.their best to get him in asap.
The staff was very nice and kept coming over to check his vitals.
There were two people who weren’t sitting by each other, but knew each other.
When a staff member came out, they were both screaming with “pain”, when there was no one there, they would get up and whisper to each other…it was pretty obvious to most of us they were “drug seeking” and more than one person voiced their displeasure at their antics which of course was met with a raised middle finger or “mind your own (bleeping) business!!!”