Print This Post
It Happened Again
May 8, 2008
I don’t want to sound like a whiner. I hate it when doctors seem like malcontents, complaining when their income is much greater than the national average. I am very lucky to be doing what I do.
But sometimes it can be exasperating. It infuriates me to be subjected to a system where quality is rewarded with less pay; where doctors are motivated to not communicate or cooperate. Especially when my patients pay the price.
I am not psychic. I cannot know what happened in a three month hospitalization by placing my hands on a patients head and reading their brain waves. My staff can’t know that a “hospital follow-up” visit is really a major dump because a patient’s “insurance ran out”. I don’t have the supernatural ability to slow time down so that I can decode the crying of a spouse and confusion of a sick patient and put together a good plan in fifteen minutes. I am not a faith healer. I have no crystal ball. I lost my magic wand. The kryptonite has sucked out my power.
I am funny this way. I like to be called on the phone, not read Tarot cards. I want to know what is going on. Discharge summaries are better for me than tea leaves.
Yet somehow the impossible is expected of me. I am expected to pull the rabbit out of the hat - and do so with a smile of appreciation of what a great job I have. But I don’t smile; I get angry. It is not fun; it stinks.
As much as it stinks for me, however, it is far worse for the patient. I can go home and complain about my day, but the patient has to survive when the system lets them down. The patient’s family has to live in fear when nobody can tell them what to do. Doctors get frustrated, but patients get sick and die.
And that makes me furious.
Popularity: 11% [?]
(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
Loading ...
Posted in Rants, Being a Doctor
Loading ...
content rss
May 9th, 2008 at 6:52 am
Dr. Rob,
Such an easy solution to your woes. Of course you’re not a psychic.
But the nice people answering the psychic hotline are. I forget the number, but if next time you’re lying awake at 3 am I’m sure you’ll see it on the TV.
Pfft. Do you really think that you have to be able to do everything?
Smak
May 9th, 2008 at 8:10 am
I’m sorry you had a bad day yesterday Dr. Rob. I have to go on a field trip with forty kindergartners to the Zoo today, so it may be me later… I hope today is better, though one day won’t do anything to change the health care delivery system, I know.
May 9th, 2008 at 8:10 am
Wow, a patient was discharged because his health insurance ran out, and the people who sent him out had clear consciences because the patient would follow up with his PCP (you). AND to top it all off, they didn’t send you any information about the patient’s inpatient stay. Of course you’re mad - I feel for the patient. This non-system is so bad…
Hang in there, Rob. At least this patient has fallen into the arms of a doctor who cares.
May 9th, 2008 at 9:03 am
I get where you’re coming from, but you still get the same one hand not talking to the other issues under a supposedly integrated and generally pretty good public healthcare system like we have in the UK.
May 9th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
One would think that situations like this would no longer be a factor in this day and age of instant communication.
May 9th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Btw, I liked your old spam blocker better. This one is a pain. Was the old one not working?
May 10th, 2008 at 7:24 am
I’m with Neumed on that spam blocker. It’s difficult to read at times, but you might not be able to do anything about it.
It is so frustrating on both the patient’s end and yours. My doctor has to constantly ask me what the other doctor said. He gets like you - just plained ticked some days. He doesn’t have time to decode someone else’s take. The hospitals and specialists need to let the PCP know their findings, themselves.
May 10th, 2008 at 7:25 am
By the way, I do realize if you can’t read the spam blocker, you can listen to what your supposed to type in. Still….