tmarie
10-29-2009, 09:53 PM
This afternoon I was experiencing severe shortness of breathe, chest pain, and a low grade fever, as well as a worsening cough. My doctor was off today and the service recommended I go to the network's immediate care center. Additional background: myself and my girls are just recovering from what seemed to be h1n1 flu. Last year I suddenly started coughing up blood and ended up at the hospital, dx pneumonia--no fever, no normal symptoms--so my internist has told me if I have any pneumonia symptoms, don't take it lightly.
Anyway, the doctor was this very old man. He listened to my chest, ordered an xray. When the results came in, he asked me to come over to the computer, handed me the paper saying they were negative, that my cough sounded croupy, that adults can get croup. He then said something along the lines of, sometimes you just feel bad but you have kids you need to take care of and things to do...and then he told me that it sounded like I had anxiety if I was thinking about if I was able to catch my breathe. WTF? I was so confused and asked for clarification. He just repeated himself. It felt so demeaning. What made it more demeaning was that I had just watched him show chest xray results to two men (he gave us our results in the hallway), who were in with similar symptoms from the sounds of it, and he treated them SO differently. Was warm, fuzzy, sent them home with an antibiotic and advice to drink lots of fluids. I had just spent two hours there, had my dh rush home from work early to pick up the kids, and this doctor had the nerve to treat me like a crazy person. When I got to my car I burst into tears (thus acting like a crazy person!). Oh, and did I mention that he said he wouldn't bother testing me for h1n1 b/c it was too late to treat? This was after the nurse told me that he would almost surely order a flu test.
Am I overreacting? It just felt so wrong. I can't think of when I ever felt this way about a physician.
tmarie
Anyway, the doctor was this very old man. He listened to my chest, ordered an xray. When the results came in, he asked me to come over to the computer, handed me the paper saying they were negative, that my cough sounded croupy, that adults can get croup. He then said something along the lines of, sometimes you just feel bad but you have kids you need to take care of and things to do...and then he told me that it sounded like I had anxiety if I was thinking about if I was able to catch my breathe. WTF? I was so confused and asked for clarification. He just repeated himself. It felt so demeaning. What made it more demeaning was that I had just watched him show chest xray results to two men (he gave us our results in the hallway), who were in with similar symptoms from the sounds of it, and he treated them SO differently. Was warm, fuzzy, sent them home with an antibiotic and advice to drink lots of fluids. I had just spent two hours there, had my dh rush home from work early to pick up the kids, and this doctor had the nerve to treat me like a crazy person. When I got to my car I burst into tears (thus acting like a crazy person!). Oh, and did I mention that he said he wouldn't bother testing me for h1n1 b/c it was too late to treat? This was after the nurse told me that he would almost surely order a flu test.
Am I overreacting? It just felt so wrong. I can't think of when I ever felt this way about a physician.
tmarie