Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Back to the grind

You know, most people are basically decent. So they won't ever catch themselves being made fun of in the blogosphere of grumpy docs, nurses, profs, salesclerks, etc.

But then there are the special ones.

The wholly self-absorbed assholes.

I caught wind of a few of these the past week. I have been canceling office hours the last few weeks because I was physically unable to work. And most folks have been very understanding. But the few that haven't been have truly exposed themselves to be snail slime.

Case 1. New patient, transferring to me from another doc from the next town over. Transferring because previous doc "Isn't taking me seriously." Whatever. So my nurse is stuck calling (3 days ahead of time) to cancel and reschedule. And the patient can only do certain days at certain times. Which means it will be a few weeks since other people were previously scheduled for those days/times. Per my kick-ass nurse a direct quote "Well, hopefully she'll be at THAT appointment! I've been in pain since August!" Bite me.

Case 2. A PITA who followed me from my previous practice. Called the day before my surgery to ask for a refill on a medicine. My cross-coverage didn't want to fill. Fine, it's not life-or-death urgent. Demands to speak to me that day (um, no way in hell). I had left the office by then. She called again Monday, asking for a refill, which I then OK'ed THAT VERY DAY SHE CALLED. And then she bitched to my nurse that "I had to WAIT for you to deal with my problem!" Jen tried to explain the concept of sick doctor, but it's all me,me,me to this woman. "It took her FOREVER to agree to the refill." Fuck you.

And then there are the folks who arch an eyebrow as they watch me hobble into the room, ask what's wrong and I explain that I had knee surgery. And these folks tell me "You came back too soon! Why are you working?" I had one patient literally smack me upside the head and tell me I was stupid. Another patient made up some story about how I was busy saving the lives of these triplets and that's how the doc who delivered her child ended up on crutches. I think the story involves me as a superhero flying into something.

3 comments:

Grumpy, M.D. said...

I've been fired by patients because I had to cancel their appointment due to my own illness. I don't miss them.

student dr. blaze said...

The patient SMACKED you?! I sure hope you swatted back...with your crutch, of course. Damn.

I'll never forget the time, as an administrator of a busy pediatric endocrinology practice, I had to cancel all of Monday's clinics on Sunday night because of a (drum-roll, please) HURRICANE. Several of the parents asked why the doctors wouldn't be at the clinic. Um, because it's a Hurricane, people! I finally just had to tell some that they could risk their lives to go stand out in front of the clinic doors if they wanted to, but I guaranteed nobody would be there.

Funniest part is, it wasn't our diabetic clinic day, so I found myself having to explain that 'no, one day is not going to affect your child's height and/or the length of his penis.'

UGH! Needless to say, I don't miss that job!

ER's Mom said...

It was a light smack. I actually laughed, since I know what she meant by it.

And my awesome nurse had put her up to it. I'm lucky to have that sort of relationship with my patients, being a small town doc.