Doctors....

I don't expect doctors to be super heroes but I don't expect them to be villains either. If you have gone into the medical field I hope you did it because you felt drawn to work with people, to help people, to spend your life dedicated to the pursuit of making PEOPLE feel better or get better. I hope it was not about the money or that it did not become about the money. If it is or was about anything other than PEOPLE and helping PEOPLE than you chose the wrong profession. Helping someone get well or remain well goes much deeper than just their bodies. You affect them. You have the opportunity to do that in a positive long term way that is about more than just the illness in their body.

I try to put myself into a doctor's shoes. I cannot imagine that they can care about every single person they see beyond the moments that they spend with them, but they can care DURING those moments. I have met some of the most wonderful amazing doctors working in the emergency room and every one of them showed me a concern and a kindness that is often unseen in other doctors. How can they care so much for the time they are with me and yet my own primary care physician feels so cold and judgmental.

Last month my doctor begged me to open up and be honest with her about my pain levels. She could see I was in more pain than I was admitting. I thought to myself 'I've been trained to'. I have been trained to by the other doctors who treat you like a drug seeker if you express your pain or the reality of how you are feeling. My doctor could see my pain and so I took a step and admitted how much more pain I am in and how I suffer each day.

I am not sure why the medical profession seems to have gone so far downhill over the years. Even my mother, who has been with the same doctor for 30 or more years, is having issues with the treatment she receives. My mother, who has never said an ill word about a doctor in her life, is having issues with how she is spoken to and dealt with.

I have a friend who is about 20 years older than me and a very sick man. He has many various health problems, most of them extremely serious. He is currently on that frightening search for a doctor that doesn't treat him like just a number or like a pill hound. I mean my goodness, he is in his 60s and has a set of proven diagnoses and yet many treat him like he's a 25 year old junkie, or they dismiss him out of hand completely.

That's another thing. Do these doctors not realize we know our bodies better than anyone? Thankfully my doctor says it to me often that I am in my body and she is not so only I can tell her what I'm feeling. But so often these doctors try to disprove you. You tell them what you are experiencing or feeling, you tell them that in the past this meant you had x disease and took y medicine to fix it and sure as the day they will do everything in their power to diagnose something different and prescribe something else if they believe you at all and don't simply dismiss you with nothing.

That friend of mine who is in his 60s currently has a serious lung infection. He gets them once in a while and they are usually nothing to worry about because whatever primary he is currently using prescribes him a course of medicines that make it better. He went to his primary this time and they refused to prescribe him anything. They told him he would have to see a specialist to get the medication. A specialist long ago diagnosed him and it is all in his records. Every primary since has followed those recommendations and medicated him when needed. But this doctor sent him home with NOTHING. It is very likely that my friend will end up in the hospital because of this doctor's arrogance or stupidity and yet nothing will be done about it because we are poor and disabled and nobody listens to us at all anymore.

The last thing I will share with you is the computer doctor story. Many years ago when my husband first started experiencing unexplained pain in his back and legs we decided to try to find a doctor who would care enough to try and find out why and possibly help him. Our final attempt within our home state at that time was an older male doctor in Bangor. I don't remember his name now but I'll never forget him. Sadly though what made him memorable was not that he cared so much or treated my husband so well or that he helped in any way. I remember him because he never looked at my husband or I, not once. He would come into the room and open up a computer and spend the whole appointment staring at that screen and typing in answers we gave him. I think he was a very smart man and might have been able to help but my husband couldn't stand the impersonality of it all and so after three such visits we never went back.

I personally have had doctors tell me to shut up, stop being so dramatic, and get over it. I've heard numerous horror stories and witnessed countless others. I do not know what makes so many doctors feel like they have a right to treat their patients the way they do but it makes me feel so very frightened and sad. And if you think about it so many people are frightened to even go to a doctor. Self medicating has become popular practice, even normal, in order to avoid going to see one of these scary people who are supposed to be in a field of care and helping.

Part of healing is feeling cared for. Part of health care is showing care and concern for another human being. Doctors, I am not just a number or a name on a page. I am not just a set of diagnoses or words on your computer screen. Turn around and look me in the eyes. I am not just another fibro case or just another flu victim or just another anything. I am ME. I am a human being. I am sick and I am frightened. I have pain in my body or illness ravaging me. I am young or I am old. I am man or I am woman. I came because I need medical care, I came to YOU because I need YOU to care.