Happily this time we didn't come home and have great spasms of weepiness and parental failure, as we did with Casper. This time it's "I guess my babies lose more weight than average and tend to jaundice, but Casper was fine and it was not as big a deal as we felt it was at the time."
This kind of stuff makes me so angry at doctors sometimes. There is no reason why a brand new parent should come home from their first doctor's visit feeling like their doing/have done something wrong. They need to spend the time validating and encouraging, and I think sometimes they "forget" that that is part of their job.
I was talking about a similar sort of thing with my PCP today. I've been having communication issues with my allergist, who is supposed to be one of the best in the country. Two appointments ago, I left so frustrated, because I just felt like we weren't on the same page about things. Then, at the last appointment he had a medical student following him, so he read the note from the last appointment. The end of the note said we discussed something that we *totally* did not discuss, and, really, would have left me so much less frustrated. I was updating my PCP on the situation today, and she went and looked up his note on the computer and was all, yeah, he does say that in the note, but I remember how frustrated you were. I was like, maybe there was a language issue or a communication block or something, and she said, "Nope. He never told you. In his head he "told" you, but forgot to actually mention it." And I was kind of defending him and giving him the benefit of the doubt and stuff, and she stopped me and said, "Valerie, I have never known a patient so on top of her healthcare. You were frustrated about that very issue. He didn't tell you."
I just think there's this block. They get so used to the saying the same things over and over that eventually they just don't say them anymore. And, really, it's kind of a big problem and causes difficulty for the patients.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2006-07-14 12:51 am (UTC)Also...
Happily this time we didn't come home and have great spasms of weepiness and parental failure, as we did with Casper. This time it's "I guess my babies lose more weight than average and tend to jaundice, but Casper was fine and it was not as big a deal as we felt it was at the time."
This kind of stuff makes me so angry at doctors sometimes. There is no reason why a brand new parent should come home from their first doctor's visit feeling like their doing/have done something wrong. They need to spend the time validating and encouraging, and I think sometimes they "forget" that that is part of their job.
I was talking about a similar sort of thing with my PCP today. I've been having communication issues with my allergist, who is supposed to be one of the best in the country. Two appointments ago, I left so frustrated, because I just felt like we weren't on the same page about things. Then, at the last appointment he had a medical student following him, so he read the note from the last appointment. The end of the note said we discussed something that we *totally* did not discuss, and, really, would have left me so much less frustrated. I was updating my PCP on the situation today, and she went and looked up his note on the computer and was all, yeah, he does say that in the note, but I remember how frustrated you were. I was like, maybe there was a language issue or a communication block or something, and she said, "Nope. He never told you. In his head he "told" you, but forgot to actually mention it." And I was kind of defending him and giving him the benefit of the doubt and stuff, and she stopped me and said, "Valerie, I have never known a patient so on top of her healthcare. You were frustrated about that very issue. He didn't tell you."
I just think there's this block. They get so used to the saying the same things over and over that eventually they just don't say them anymore. And, really, it's kind of a big problem and causes difficulty for the patients.