Orthopedic appointment

So I had my orthopedic doctor’s appointment this morning, the first step on the road to doing something with this gnarly back pain of mine. I was totally blown away by the care and professionalism of everyone that I saw from start to finish. You must understand, I have gone through 37 years with socialized medicine and lived to tell the tale!!

Here, in the USA, you spend a lot of money on health insurance. I know Obama wants to change things around – I say leave it how it is!! Every penny spent on insurance is worth it, in my very-limited-to-one-appointment experience.

So, my appointment was for 8.30. I knew there would be forms to fill out, so I printed them off the internet and filled them out beforehand. Gotta love a clinic that is online! We showed up, saw the doctor’s sports car parked out front with the personalized number plate, and presented ourselves at reception. We waited perhaps 10 minutes until we were called in. (Ten minutes? Ten minutes? I have never been seen so quickly).

A nurse asked me a brief synopsis of the pain, made some notes and told me they would be coming to get me for x-rays shortly. “Shortly” meant five minutes. (Five whole minutes. Seriously, totally gobsmackage!) The x-ray tech was so gentle with me, took some pics of my spine and sent me to wait in an examination room. “The doctor will be with you as soon as he’s finished with a patient.” And he was!!

OrthoDoc walked in, suave and sophisticated and totally personable. He carried a computer thingy in which he took notes and stuff. He was interested in us as people – and has a great sense of humour. (We talked about the interesting things he has seen on x-rays, I related a story of one of my kids swallowing lego and seeing the lego clearly on x-ray). He called up my freshly done x-rays on his computer and we were treated to a lovely picture of my spine. Which looked to me like a spine should. Thankfully – but then I am a mommy not a doctor…. Anyhoo…. He didn’t see (or say he saw) anything hinky on the x-ray. He gave me a physical exam too, testing my strength in both legs as my left one feels numb and weak from the sciatic pain.

He prescribed a steroid pack for me – said that if there is an inflammation that this course of steroids will knock it dead and ease my pain. He warned us that the steroids might make me moody. KoD joked that he wonders what that would be like. (What a total sweetie. I guess my PMS gets quickly forgotten!!) OrthoDoc also is sending me for an MRI in case I have anything else we need to know about – we just have to wait for insurance to approve payment for the MRI (apparently the way things are done here) and then I can go get imaged. Within the week. Within the week!!! No waiting 9 months for the hospital to squeeze me in. No paying 600 bucks and bankrupting myself in the process for the privilege of going private.

The doctor told us that we would see him again after the MRI is done and the results have come through. On the way out we saw a lovely young woman who took our copayment and explained the whole getting the MRI approved procedure, and was totally bubbly and vivacious and patient and calm even though it was a crazy busy morning.

45 minutes after we entered the doctor’s office we left (45 minutes!!!), the KoD dropped off my prescription at the pharmacy, went back later to pick up my pills. I have started the meds, feel a little weird – still in major pain, but hopeful.

All in all, a very positive start to dealing with the US healthcare system.

Dressing for the doc

So I have this nasty sinus thing going on right now. I woke up this morning feeling that they were going to explode out of my face. The kind of pain that makes fingernails on the chalkboard not seem so bad. The kind of pain that makes you want to stick a knitting needle up your nose to try to relieve the pressure – don’t try that at home. Very dangerous.

I am going to go to the walk-in clinic to see a doctor and hopefully get something to ease this sinus crud. Which means I have to actually get dressed.

I hate to leave the house looking like I just got out of bed. So I will probably fix my hair all nice, and put on make up, and make myself look presentable. Which kind of feels silly in a way. If the doctor sees that you look ok, is he really going to take you seriously when you say you feel awful? I mean, obviously if you were able to shower, get dressed and put on make-up – you can’t possibly be as sick as you make out.

But if I go out looking the way I am – little children will shake in their shoes, and cars will veer off the road in an effort to avoid the scary HSM monster.

Do you think it makes a difference to the way the doctor regards a patient?

Can’t touch this

 

Do you care what sex your doctor is? Or does it depend on the specialty? Personally, I refuse to see a male gynecologist. There is a part of me that feels that male gynos are just perverts in disguise. Men who want to spend all day looking at (and touching) women’s bodacious breeding equipment and get paid for it. Imagine them with their wives at home – intimacy must be so clinical…..shudder. Plus, as a woman, I feel a female gynecologist can understand my concerns better, seeing as she posesses a matching set of internal plumbing and can empathise with my concerns. With a male gyno I would be wondering if he is comparing my body with that of his wife, previous patient, or the playboy centerfold. (of course my whole hypothesis goes out the window if either party is gay, so for the sake of argument, this article only refers to straight people.)

 

I haven’t really thought through the other side – if you are a man, and have a female proctologist – I mean, are you guys really comfortable with that?  (I have this MadTV clip playing in my head now – Marvin Tikvah and Shelley the doctor “come on Shelley”)

 

I don’t much agree with segregating sexes in most things in life, but when it comes to being naked in front of another human being to whom you are NOT married but has to give you a complete physical, well I think both parties need to be of the same sex. Just the idea of a doctor lusting after me or any other patient is enough to give me the willies.

 

My ob/gyn is the best, she totally is. She held my hand through all my pregnancies and delivered #3 and #4, leaving an office full of other expectant moms to do so. #1 and #2 were delivered by male docs. Maybe it was just these two male docs that spoiled it for the rest, but oh my gosh was it an awful experience. The first, correctly deducing that I am British born and bred (hey did the accent give it away??) was making jokes about having tea and cucumber sandwiches, and flirting with the nurses when he should have been getting the baby out of me because it was tearing me in freaking two. The other was instructing a group of med students, and treated my birth canal as if it was common property – um hello, don’t I have a say in who gets to cross my thoroughfare? He also told me that I couldn’t possibly be in as much pain as I was. Let him pass a watermelon out his yingyang and then he can talk about pain.

 

And of course, there is the negiah issue. Yeppers. Is a doc of the opposite sex halachically allowed to touch you? Well, negiah, from what I am given to understand, is forbidden only if it is done b’derech chiba – in an affectionate manner. A prostate exam or a PAP test is hardly an act of love (although there are those people who like that kind of thing……ok lets not go there), but can there be anything more intimate than those kinds of examinations? How does a frum doctor manage it? What if the patient is a really gorgeous specimen and the doc has a slight crush? Or if the patient has a secret crush on the doc? (at one point my GP was a hunk, and every time I went to see him I would forget why I was there. I even referred to him among friends as Dr YummyBuns) Even on a less private level – a dentist has to touch you, right? Do super-religious folk only allow a same sex dentist to treat them, and if so – how many ultra orthodox lady dentists do you know?

 

I am a tactile person, and I feel touch in more than just a sensory manner. Maybe that makes me hypersensitive to this issue. If you are in the medical profession, or indeed any profession which involves physical contact, how do you deal with the issues I have raised? And if you are a patient, what are your views on the subject?