There is something seriously trasked with the general practitioners in this town.
One of my elderly friends, whom I've known since I came here, recently had a cancer scare that turned out to be a nutritional deficiency. How long did it take the GP to get the results of the cancer screen? About a week. How long before the friend found out? A month. My friend had to call in to find out - and to add insult to injury, the reply was: "aren't you taking the supplements I prescribed"? Pardon my Francais, mais, double-u tee eff?
"I could have been well on my way to having the problem treated by now, without the extra three weeks of delay," my friend complained. Gah. Time for the tub of idiot proofing. Slather, dry, repeat.
Some of you know that my parents have both had operations in the last five years. Well, this morning my dad went to his GP and was told that one of his tests indicated that, as a precaution, he needed to schedule a medical procedure.1 It turns out, though, that this procedure would obviate a bunch of screening tests. Did the GP cancel them? Noooo, the patient had to. Or rather, the patient whose wife is a medical technologist with 5 years' experience as a registered nurse and 20 as a hematologist.
The tub again, s'il vous plait!
Disclaimer: I should add that my dad's specialist (who performed the previous surgery) is fine. That's when he's actually consulted on things, of course. What is this, polling-driven health maintenance?
The same GP, after three years, didn't order a hemaglobin A1C test for my mom. Of course, she went and asked his nurse for one... and was informed that he didn't know she was diabetic. :sigh: Riggs...
1 Details are given in the Other Place, just so I don't forget about them myself.
Slather, slather,
Banazir
