Sometimes, do doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel scare the hell out of you with what appears to be total incompetence and lack of common sense?

Yes, I do believe that doctors do sometimes lack the common sense needed to do well in their professions. In my case, it was a total lack of bedside manner in my following situation:

In March of 2006, I was diagnosed with diabetes. After waiting for about 3 hours to see the triage nurse and another 3 hours to finally get into the back of the treatment area, I was finally able to get a diagnosis on my condition (before I knew it was diabetes yet). The doctor walked by my little cubicle/waiting area and said, “Is there any history of diabetes in your family?” in which I replied “no” and he then came back with “there is now” and he promptly walked away leaving me all alone for another hour until a nurse came into to talk to me about diabetes management.

I’m still amazed to this day that a doctor could be that rude and uncaring about telling someone they have an incurable disease and then just walk away and not try to help them answer questions about it or give them any further information whatsoever.

on a much smaller scale, yes… in my job, daily. Part of my job involves taking calls for stat specimen pick ups. Stat is an important test where the doc needs results in about 6 or so hours.

When I talk to the staff in these offices, and you ask them the most basic questions, and they can’t be arsed to pay attention to a simple phone conversation, it’s frightening. 2 weeks ago, I confirmed a pick up address with the person on the phone. I read the address, she said “yes” and we continued the call. She wasn’t paying attention, because the specimen wasn’t at that location. She didn’t even work at that location. She worked for MY company at OUR draw station. That doctor at that address just wrote the order for the blood draw. Others, you ask for their name, and they give you the patient name, or vice versa. Or they leave tubes in their centrifuges and send us only some of the blood. Or they mix up the paperwork and put one patient’s forms in with another patient’s blood. Or they give a different lab our specimens. Or they send the stat (results in 6 hours) specimens with the regular driver who has a 10 hour route ahead of him before that specimen gets back to the lab.

It goes on and on, and my “List Of Doctors To Avoid Whilst I Die” list is growing longer and longer.

I was once in the hospital for a mysterious blood clot in my shoulder. They took 56 blood samples in 3 days. You would think they would just take a pint and be done with it. After all that, they fixed the problem with blood thinners, but never did figure out why I had it in the first place (I was 25 at the time, not on birth control pills, and did not smoke.)

My stepfather had a lot of health issues and would say that for every night you spend in the hospital, the recovery time at home is one week. For ICU time, that doubles.

Oh, man. Story time. I’ve told this one on Fluther before, but this reminded me of it, so you get to hear it again.

I had my first brain surgery in 2002. They went in through my nose, so I didn’t have any big cuts or a shaved head or anything traumatic like that. But brain surgery is still brain surgery and it wears your body the hell out for a very long time afterward. So it’s two or three days after the surgery and as soon as I’m able to walk down the hall and back by myself I’ll be allowed to go home.

Really, I was basically okay. I hardly needed to be spoon-fed or have my butt wiped or anything. All I wanted to do was get a good chunk of sleep so I could waddle my inadequately-covered (stupid hospital gowns) ass down the hall and back so someone would sign my release papers. Yet, every half an hour a nurse would wake me up to ask me if I needed to pee. Seriously! They didn’t even stick their heads in to see if I was awake. They just came in and woke me up.

Finally, I said to one of them, “Listen. I know when I have to pee and when I don’t. I have a call button right here. If and when I need your help, I will let you know. Do not wake me up again.”

And she didn’t. :)

@Val123 Yes, of course this happens to individuals in the medical system (as well as many other ‘systems’, I should say..).

My solution is always to become the Persistent Polite Squeaky Wheel, with a bit of sarcasm on the side always :-).

My goal is only to get done what I want done(oil my wheel).

AFTER it is done , THEN, if deserved, I will formerly complain thru the system(I have already asked for their names and am adept at reading nametags in my PPSW routine above) .

It will do me no good to just harangue and hack someone off at the time I need something done. They will just become belligerent and purposely delay at a certain point.

Hospitals are very sensitive to factual , calm, correct (but damning) written comments and criticism.

Wow! I almost wished I hadn’t asked!
And @poofandmook—I wouldn’t consider that a “smaller“scale! I mean….people’s lives are risk and they need their results.

@MacBean O brother!!!!!

@Val123: When I said smaller scale, I meant more that the evidence wasn’t right there in your face in the form of being terrified for a family member.

@poofandmook Got ya…yes. It’s pretty horrible for the family. They’re all in Pittsburg, about 250 miles away. They had to deal with this yesterday.

http://www.fluther.com/disc/62184/does-it-make-you-just-want-to-scream-when-a-professional/

Step one. Make a sign. “Please do not disturb unless absolutely necessary.” Post it on his door.

Step two. Put it above the sign that says “Only two visitors at a time.” that you already posted on his door.

Step three. Deny knowledge of where these came from.

In my hospital it’s only 1 visitor per icu patient and only for 10 minutes. I have often left people to sleep because night staff tells me they need it, to then have my face ripped off because dad/mom/ haven’t been washed yet and it ‘s noon!!!! Two sides to every story. If family was there they could have refused and explain why. But letting a patient sleep all day is no good-there’s less staff at night if he becomes confused again.

@faye Well, in the hospital we were in it stated, all over the place, 2 visitors at a time, but with no time limit. The family just blew that out of the water, and the staff didn’t say anything.
The important thing is that they get on as close to a normal sleep schedule as possible, so that they’re up a good part of the day, but able to snooze and rest with minimal interruption as possible, while hopefully getting a deeper, more therapeutic sleep at night.

It’s too bad they didn’t enforce it. We have to sit in a waiting room outside ICU and phone their desk with our visit request.

What really pissed me off is the lack of common sense the family is showing….I just talked to my husband. The nurses came in, changed the bedding, new, clean sheets, gave him a sleep aid (he’s suffering from ICU Syndrome which is mainly caused from sleep deprivation,) he’s all comfy, he’s just starting to doze off…and one of the daughters in law shows up and starts talking at him, non-stop, asking questions, which….wakes him up. HE NEEDS TO SLEEP.

I totally understand this frustration. Doctors are human beings. They are not perfect. Some might be excellent surgeons, but lousy communicators. Others might be very emphatic and have a lot of common sense, but they are lousy surgeons. To be fair, we should also share our stories of competent doctors. And I think there are many. But this doesn’t help you in your current situation. I would seek many allies approaching this particular incompetent doctor. Not only family and friends, but also a second doctor you know very well. Ask him or her to help you. A phone call from one doctor to another might help. But sometimes it can backfire as well.

@mattbrowne: In this case, it doesn’t seem like the issue is the doctor as much as the rest of the medical staff. In my opinion, the medical staff incompetency is even more terrifying than a doctor’s incompetency.

@mattbrowne The family is resistant to a second opinion, which I don’t understand, because they do NOT like the doctor…

@poofandmook It’s ALL terrifying…..and now, instead of coming around like we thought he would since he got out of the ICU (On Sunday) he seems to be failing…..and the staff is just following Dr’s orders….

Maybe it has to do with medical staff being not paid enough, so good people apply for something else.

@mattbrowne Well, that’s a BS reason to let someone die, IMO. At any rate, the staff is just following orders. However, as of this morning Dad’s surgeon has quietly stepped to take the case over from the original doctor. He didn’t come out and say it, but the original Doctor’s an idiot.

I’m really sorry about all that.

@mattbrowne and it happens over and over and over again….

How can it be changed? Will Obama’s reform make a difference assuming it gets all the approvals?

@mattbrowne No..it’s all about the fact that we’re dealing with human beings. Some are more intelligent than others, some have more common sense than others. Some are more concerned with ego and self importance than anything else. Nothing can change that.
Besides, Dad’s care wouldn’t be any different because Medicaid is paying for it all anyway.

Some people are more concerned with their golf game… :P

I’m going to fight some for nurses. We give and give and give but we can’t go against whoever has the power in the family. Again I am so sorry for your situation but my primary concern is the patient and I will fight for whatever he/she needs until I come up against the brick wall that some families put up.

@faye I know…they’re stuck in the middle. But common SENSE should tell the nurses that the patient needs as much uninterrupted sleep as they can get. Surly they’re familiar with ICU psychosis, and what causes (which is sleep deprivation, BTW.) Nobody is going to question a nurse if she shoes 6 our of 8 people out of the room, and they won’t complain if she explains what’s going on. Go look at @MacBean‘s comment…