Don't get me started on doctors who don't listen - on either side of the border. My sister Mary - the one with all the health problems - has seen the worst and best of them. She nearly died from an adverse drug reaction, saved only by an observant nurse who basically said screw the doctor and acted immediately. That doctor never admitted to an error; he was later removed from the facility and his license revoked, due to other cases.
She is a difficult patient only in that she can be difficult to diagnose due to a host of overlapping problems. She's not a complainer and she's very compliant. But more often than I care to think about, her problems have been dismissed as all in her head, or due to anxiety or other psychological problem when there's (eventually) a physical reason found.
She walked around with a hot appendix for months when three different Georgia doctors thought she was having hormonal problems (ovarian cysts - which she's also had.) Another time they thought she had the flu - in August! - when our local ER correctly figured out she had food poisoning. Another doctor apparently never looked at the lengthy patient history she'd filled out before ordering the one antibiotic to which she is deathly allergic.
So when she DOES find a doctor who listens and takes the time to ask the right questions and follows up on lab tests etc., she sticks to him/her like glue. In the case of her neurologist, she drove to Alabama when he moved his practice there from Georgia for a time, so he could continue to treat her neck spasms.
You can have the best insurance in the world but if the practitioners aren't worth their salt, it can do more harm than good.
|