I realized yesterday as I was waiting to get my PPD test read, a requirement for international adoption, that I have lived here in Atlanta for almost twelve months. In that time I've seen 5 different doctors. Five! I haven't seen Sicko yet, but I've had plenty of opportunity to develop an opinion on the hurdles of health care and insurance for the young, healthy and insured.
It's almost as difficult finding a good doctor in a new city as it is getting your insurance claim to cover you for a visit. They like to make you think they are your friend, these insurance companies. Friendly little websites with pictures of families at a picnic and laughing senior citizens. They refer to you as a "member". Not a client or a customer or a patient. Like it's some kind of cool club that they've let you have access to. My company does offer a little clue as to what's in store for you though, cryptically naming their website Southcarolinablues.com. It very effectively summed up my state of mind as I tried to decipher whether or not I had coverage for fertility treatment, how much surgery would cost for fibroid removal, why I have to pay each separate hospital department towards my deductible, and the list goes on. Justin would come home from work and I'd be at the kitchen table with my head in my hands, policies, notes and bills spread out before me. Eventually he just stopped asking and would quietly open a bottle of wine, place a glass in front of me and go and get changed.
My first doctor visit was simply to get my third inoculation in the series for Hep B, another recommendation for travel to China. I had already received the first two in NYC and if you don't get the third in the proper period of time, you have to start all over ( see Justin for more info on that). So, not knowing a soul here in Atlanta, especially when we first moved here, I went to a local teaching university and asked for a visit with the first available MD in the General Practice clinic. I asked for a woman MD, as it always makes me feel more comfortable seeing a woman, especially without any prior referral. No dice, though - the female practitioners in the clinic were not taking any new patients. So ok, I'll take first available with whoever. All I need is this shot anyway.
Do you feel the foreshadowing here? So as a new patient they give you all the goodies that go with your first visit, weigh-in, temperature take, blood pressure, all done by a friendly nurse. Then in comes my doctor as I wait on the examining table. I tell him about my impending adoption and travel, my need for shot number three and we are on our way. Only he says since I'm here he wants to do a full exam anyway. Now I have already had a physical done in NYC for the adoption not six months prior. I've also been poked, prodded, tested and had more people looking into my vagina as a married woman in her thirties than I ever did as a hot, young, single chick. Fertility treatment brings with it all sorts of gifts like that. But never look a gift horse in the vagina, because that wasn't getting me out of another physical with new MD.
Why do we all roll over for doctors? If I had said "No, I don't need a physical. I just want my third Hep B." does he get to wave it in front of me like a carrot until I agree to the physical? Does it matter to him medically? Professionally? Financially? I'll never know because I went along with it, like I always have with doctors. So he tells me to remove my shirt, wrap the blue sheet around me and he'll be back in a minute. More annoyed that I have to partially undress, I follow instructions and wait there on the table, the blue sheet wrapped under my arms like a bath towel. So in comes the doctor again to finish the exam. Looks in the ears, the eyes, then tells me to extend my arms out in front of me, flex my wrist so that my fingers are pointing at the ceiling and close my eyes. Close my eyes? Yes, the red flag went up in my mind. Yes, I hesitated, knowing that the sheet was not going to stay up with arms stuck out in front of me. Yes, I then stuck out my arms and closed my eyes doing exactly as asked. The sheet falls down around my waist as I knew it would and then he tells me to shrug my shoulders up and down. Is he testing my reflexes? My ability to follow directions? Or is he checking out my rack? I'm now feeling pretty vulnerable there in my black bra with no nurse in the room. I shrug a few times and open my eyes. He is taking notes, like this is all very routine. He comes over to listen to my heart and as soon as the stethoscope is off of me I pull the sheet up around me and begin to seethe. Something finally shifts in me and I actively begin to hate him now. Hate him for making me feel vulnerable and confused.
Before he leaves he checks my blood pressure even though the nurse had already taken it when I arrived. When I mention this to him he checks the chart and comments that my blood pressure is lower now than it was when she took it ten minutes ago. Then he says "But you’ve been sitting down and taking your clothes off since then. Maybe you ought to think about a change in careers”. And gave a little laugh. WTF? I don't even know what this means. I should consider a career change where I have to take my clothes off and sit on a table? I can't get out of there fast enough. I review the whole visit in my head and wonder where my hair trigger temper went during all of this? Me, with all of the vagina viewers in my past? It's not like I'm a novice with these office visits. I kick myself all the way home for my lack of action and my paralysis. And thus ended my first and last visit to MD #1, here in the ATL.
Epilogue: I reported this MD to the State Board and they did follow up with me that they were investigating my complaint. In the meantime, I know he is still practicing at the same clinic because I am now seeing a female practitioner there. It might seem crazy to go back to the same clinic, but the warped side of me is longing to run into him there and tell him that I got a job as a topless tabletop installer and my blood pressure couldn't be better.
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