I am going to share some personal views and situations I have experienced in the last year regarding my medical treatment. This isn’t intended to be a bashing of my doctors and medical facilities, but rather to open some eyes to how health care REALLY looks to the patient. Modern medical care is not advancing, but rather regressing. Probably not quite accurate to call it modern… hmmm.

First of all, a patient is a customer and should be treated as such. This is not the case, long waits, short visits not long enough to even gather your thoughts and questions and visits with PAs instead of your doctor are certainly NOT great customer service. WHY should I pay the same amount that I pay to see my doctor (MD) to see a physicians assistant (PA)?

I have insurance, pretty good insurance, so my doctors are getting paid what they have contractually agreed to be paid. This should insure my quality of service, yet it does not.

How on earth can I be expected to wait almost 2 months to see MY primary care physician?

I have had several surgeries in the last few years. Did you know that the surgeon doesn’t even bother to come talk to you after surgery anymore?

After one of my foot surgeries I was expecting a small 1/2 inch incision on the outside of the foot and a 1 inch incision on the inside of the foot. After surgery the doctor did NOT speak to me and only relayed across the waiting room to my family that everything went fine. A week later when I went for my followup and the bandages were removed I had a 4 inch and 2 inch incisions. Don’t get me wrong, the doc did what needed done, but has he NO RESPONSIBILITY to inform me? It’s my body after all.

I have/had (juries out) a condition called Hiatal hernia. I have been seeing my primary care doctor since April with the issues swallowing, reflux and vomiting the condition was causing. We did all the tests and then, just to make sure I went to an ear nose and throat doctor to make certain it wasn’t something different. After the ENT confirmed the GI guy’s diagnosis I called my PCP (primary care physician) to make an appointment. I was hoping to sit down with him and ask questions, get advise and start the process of pre-approval and such for the surgery.

When I called I was told it would be 2 months before I could see him. I stated that I was supposed to have a followup after the ENT and I couldn’t wait 2 months. They tried to convince me to see the PA and I declined and instead went on the cancellation list for my doctor.

After 3 weeks and no appointment I called for an appointment again. Let me tell you something else, you don’t call and get the doctor’s secretary anymore, you get an answering machine and leave a message for the doctor’s nurse who will call you back within 48 hours…. GOD HELP YOU if you miss that call because you CANNOT call them back, you will get the answering machine and start your 48 hour wait over again.

So I finally agreed to see the PA. I did my own research on Google about the surgery and figured I only needed the PA to send the damn referral.

The PA was rude, FULLY uninformed about my condition and what had been done thus far, did NOT read my chart. She even scolded me for my food choices as they were “the worst thing you could eat for this condition”. No one had told me to change my eating habits, I followed every single direction I had been given. She was simply a bitch. I have some pretty serious hearing loss and she would NOT look at me when she spoke. After I asked her to please speak up several times, expressing to her that I was hard of hearing, she actually shouted at me. After that she didn’t even speak to me, but to my daughter instead.

I will NEVER see her again. I have a scheduled appointment with my PCP in January and I will fully inform him of her behavior. If he doesn’t think it’s a coach-able situation then I will be needing a new PCP.

So the surgical visit was a riot too. I get the call from the surgeons office and the appointment on my voicemail. They left the number, time and doctors name for me. No problem, I Googled the doctor got the address and arrived 25 minutes early for my appointment in Brunswick, GA. Only to find out that they made my appointment in the St. Mary’s, GA office an hour away. So we rushed to the appointment, waited a fair time and saw the surgeon. He was pleasant and efficient.

They called the next day with my surgery date and sent me my pre-op testing paperwork in the postal mail; which of course in December took a long time. I was instructed to get the tests done ASAP. I received the paperwork on Nov. 27th, the day before Thanksgiving at like 4pm… So no problem I went Friday.

I arrive at the main lobby of the hospital where registration is and it is literally a ghost town…. NO ONE IS THERE. There are no signs … nothing. A janitor I stopped down the hall informed me they were closed for the holiday. UM, Black Friday is NOT a holiday, but whatever, I went to the ER and the one person doing registrations for the whole hospital got me registered and they did my tests.

So my surgery was on the 10th of December, everything went as planned. The doctor didn’t visit me after surgery, but since I knew in advance I was spending the night I figured I would see him in the morning.

Night 1: I awoke at 3am in terrible pain, pushed the button to get me pain meds and was told there were NONE ordered for me. Come to find out that wasn’t exactly true, somehow I was accidentally discharged while I slept and they couldn’t give me any meds. After about 45 minutes they resolved the issue and gave me my pain meds.

Day 2: Wasn’t supposed to happen, but I had a few common complications. The surgeon’s damn PA came to see me that morning. We talked about the complications and he said I would need to stay another night. I expressed my concern for my own regular medications which were not given to me and he suggested that he had a plan to give me a bunch of smaller sized pills instead of the one large one. He did NOTHING… He didn’t even order me pain meds for that day, the nurses had to call and get pain meds, anti-acid meds and anti-nausea meds. He was a full waste of the oxygen I used speaking to him.

Day 3: I woke up in full body pain… I could not even get out of bed. This is because I wasn’t getting my regular medications.

What happens if you stop taking your statins?

If you’ve been taking statins and would like to stop, you’ll need to do so with your doctor’s guidance. This is because it can be dangerous to stop taking statins. These drugs are highly effective in preventing heart problems such as heart attack and stroke.

https://www.healthline.com/health/high-cholesterol/how-to-safely-come-off-statins

I also wasn’t getting my Gabapentin that I take 3 times a day.

What happens when you suddenly stop taking gabapentin?

Gabapentin is an anticonvulsant drug prescribed for seizures and nerve pain. People who develop physical dependence to gabapentin may experience withdrawal symptoms when they try to come off it. These symptoms can begin within 12 hours to 7 days after quitting the medication and last up to 10 days. Symptoms of gabapentin withdrawal may include nausea, dizziness, headaches, insomnia, and anxiety.

https://americanaddictioncenters.org/neurontin-abuse/gabapentin-cause-withdrawal-symptoms

So here I am at 5AM ringing the nurse because I cannot get out of bed to pee. I rang and rang and ran and rang and rang… After 45 minutes they came to help me go pee but no meds as once again none were ordered (allegedly because at this point I am not buying it’s all the doc’s fault any longer). It took them 5 hours to get me meds! One of the nurses even hollered at me, “you won’t speak to me like that” because I said to her that I needed the meds and they should have been ordered already. I mean it so messed up I am COMPLETELY in need of their assistance for EVERYTHING, including peeing and no one was there to advocate for me that morning.

That morning a different PA from the surgeon’s office came to see me and he was at least a little helpful. He ordered me some steroids for the swelling which worked great! YAY! But I had to stay yet another night.

My IV blew. I had in total this visit 5 IV’s. I thought I was a pin cushion, but I took all the poking and rolling trying to get a vein in my dehydrated arms without even so much as a whimper. You see, I understand that they are doing the best they can and I can make it easier for them to concentrate and nail it by shutting up =).

The head nurse came to check that her nurses had been properly introducing themselves and were nice to me….. Well, my daughter and I told her the story I just told you with all the details. Do you want to know what she did? She went and researched my medicines and ordered them in a format where they could be crushed and eaten in pudding! That’s such a simple thing that even a young mother would think to do and the 14 nurses before her never even bothered to think. I am so grateful to her anyhow, because that I felt so much better after I got my meds.

Day 4: Friday the 13th LOL. I get to go home. The actual surgeon came to see me (because the head nurse made him) and we talked and I got my instructions. Then I waited to be discharged. They even called my prescriptions in for me… But thankfully Walgreens caught it and didn’t fill the one I’m allergic to, that SOMEONE from the surgeons office ordered for me.

There is genuinely a disconnect in medical care presently and I don’t think we will ever progress past our knuckle dragging days in this manner.

Ok… one last genuine rant!

I had to have both of my hands and feet operated on in the last 3 years. The damn hospital system sends me like 5 bills for each surgery. So if I pay even a small amount of $20 each that’s $240 a month…. they don’t have just one account that I can pay on each month, I have to pay on each bill…. All of which, despite my mostly regular payments have been turned over to collections and reported as to Experian…. ASSHOLES!