He aroused my old auditor instincts from long, long ago, and I began to ask him questions. Like "Why can’t I contact you or your office? Why didn’t you get the letters I wrote you? Why can’t I contact anyone when I call your office" - I remind him of the 9 minute recording - "all I can do is leave a message - why is it that most of the time, no one calls me back? " Then he shouted quickly at me: "Who did I talk to? When? What did I say? What did they say?" I open my log and begin to read that information to him. Then he interrupts me - he doesn’t want to hear that. I tell him about WebMD and he dismisses that application.
“If ANYbody has a reaction they write it up!” He shouts and looks superciliously down his nose at me and takes a deep breath.
I ask him “Why do they say ‘Serious Reaction! - Use Alternative’ for two different drug combinations I am taking?” No answer. I ask him "What does that mean? What does it REALLY mean?" No answer. I ask him "Where can I get an answer?" No answer. I produce the document from my file and read to him the Prescription Information sheet and its “Warning Before Using the Medicine” that says I need additional monitoring when taking it with certain other meds - "AND I AM TAKING 3 of them" - so what should I look for? “I couldn’t call your office - I did wait for the 10 minute recording about flu, then left a message for someone to call me - and I never got called. I wrote you two letters asking what did that Warning mean and what should I look out for, and you didn’t even GET them? Either one? Who receives the letters in your office? Where do they go after they are received?”
My doctor told me the warnings and additional monitoring was what HE was doing. That was for HIM. I didn’t need to know.
I told him about the previous problem I had when he prescribed for me a medicine that the druggist said wasn’t even made anymore, and I got a substitute, which does the “same thing” but when I got a reaction, and stopped by his office, his nurse told me I had to stop when I was getting a bad reaction to a med. "Now, I shouldn’t do that?" I point out again that it sure would help if I could get in contact with his office.
He wanted to know what the drug was that he prescribed that had been discontinued, and I told him I didn’t know because I couldn’t read what he had scrawled on the prescription. I added that maybe the pharmacist couldn’t either. Then I did suggested that he ought to be able to find that in his notes. He didn’t look.
I told him "Here are some questions I have been trying to ask you." and handed him a sheet of paper with several questions written on it.
He glanced at the sheet and shoved it back at me. "I don't have time for that!"
The last several meetings I had had with him were very quick. I timed the last one. He was in the room with me 3 minutes and 27 seconds.
My doctor scribbled a new prescription hastily onto his pad, ripped it off and shoved it at me. “Let’s see what THIS does.” He said in a loud voice, again staring at me, as the prescription floated to the floor. Then he yanked the door open, walked out and slammed it hard.
I left a minute or two later. The prescription remained where it had fallen, on the floor of the examination room.
I never saw my doctor again.
